An LGBTQ+ self-defense course will be held from 1–3 p.m. Saturday at the Inland Oasis Facility in Moscow.

Eric Wegner will be instructing the course. He said the event will be an adaptation of a sexual assault prevention program he helped develop for WSU 20 years ago at the invitation.

“I’ve been studying martial arts for a few decades and I’ve also been interested in self-defense as a subset of that,” Wegner said. “We’re now trying to adapt it more towards hate crime prevention for the gay and lesbian community, because they’re really becoming targets for some fascist elements in our society, and I’m hoping this can help to give them the tools to keep themselves safer.”

Wegner said the course will not focus on martial arts, although there will be some elements of it throughout. The main focus will be on nonviolent techniques.

“There’s not going to be anything there that will be challenging. It will concentrate largely on verbal skills, awareness, presentation, voice control and confidence building,” he said. “There will be some introduction to kicks and punches along the way, but that’s not going to be the dominant part of the class. It will focus on soft skills more than hard skills.”

Due to this being the first one of these classes he has instructed, Wegner said he is unsure how many people will attend, but he hopes that people will not be made uncomfortable with the idea of learning self-defense.

“People who could benefit the most from this class are the least likely to show up. I’d like to assure people this is not a martial arts class,” Wegner said. “We start with how do you maintain a resourceful internal state of mind while you’re being threatened. What is the least physically involving response you can make?”