Adventures in NLP: Practitioner Course, London 2009 - by Matthew Wingett
Matthew Wingett gives an insider's view of Richard Bandler's NLP Licensed Practitioner course, which ran from 3rd to 9th October 2009 at the Ibis Hotel, Earl's Court.
John La Valle and Richard Bandler,
NLP Licensed Practitioner Training at its best!
I arrive at the Ibis Hotel, Lillie Road on a cool autumn morning to find the delegates waiting expectantly for the start of NLP LIFE TRAINING's NLP Licensed Practitioner Course, with Richard Bandler and John La Valle.
A straw poll reveals people from almost every aspect of life: alternative practitioners intent on raising their effectiveness, psychotherapists and GPs, as well as blue chip company executives who are clear about how beneficial NLP is in building rapport with clients and employees, and persuading people to see new possibilities. Add into the mix a street magician who has heard much about Richard Bandler's hypnotic inductions, and it becomes clear just how widely NLP is used, in so many aspects of people's lives. Some have friends who have been through the training before and tell me of the amazing changes they saw in their well-being and mental state - while others just want to be taught NLP by the man who taught Paul McKenna. A rich mix indeed!
Soon, we are filing into the seminar room, a large space filled with neat rows of chairs, and a large stage at one end. To Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze (Richard Bandler's signature tune) the man who started it all comes to the stage. His presence is palpable, and those who have not experienced his particular style of presentation find themselves surprised, amused and fascinated by the passion and ease with which he delivers ideas.
This first day sees Richard give a talk about the background of NLP, and he explains how he arrived at the NLP methodology over years of study of people who helped others to change - and study of those who had changed for the better. The techniques, he assures us, that can bring about lasting improvement in so many people's lives can be learned quickly and easily, with the right tutelage.
He demonstrates the change he means by asking for a volunteer who has something that is playing on their mind now - and that has been doing so for some time. A young man volunteers and takes to the stage, and after a few minutes of close questioning and paying attention to his responses, Richard asks the young man to run through a simple mental exercises. The effect is startling. Richard explains that the exercises will recode the man's obsession. Sure enough, ten minutes later, the delegate confides in Richard with a puzzled voice that he is "unable to get the bad feeling back". It had previously, he said, been bothering him for years.
With this simple demonstration acting as a taster of the skills Richard will be teaching thoughout the week fresh in people's minds, he goes on to talk about what we can expect from the rest of the week. The subtext to what he tells us is clear: don't expect to take a lot of time helping people to change. NLP can bring about rapid improvement in people in one or two sessions. These are the skills he will be teaching, along with the skills of rapport building, and the precision in language that underpins it all.
In the afternoon, John La Valle takes the seminar. He introduces one of the main strands on which he will concentrate throughout the week: close attention to language. He also demonstrates on one delegate how to generate a state of well being in a client quickly, and how to anchor it. Having been shown the technique, we are then sent on our ways to do it ourselves. It strikes me that being able to work with other people is one of the most important and valuable elements of the course. I have met many people who claim to be experts on NLP, whose knowledge has been drawn from reading books. Theoretical knowledge is interesting as far as it goes - but actually getting straight down to it and setting a positive anchor effectively, or generating trance in someone for real cannot be substituted by sitting and reading about it. It is this building of experiential models, as well as the anecdotes and talks that Richard gives with models of behaviour and examples of approach which really make this course so useful.
'...he begins to reveal to those in the room how to effectively "recode" information in the conscious and unconscious mind so that feelings and expectations are shifted. As I sit and experience the course, I realise that its effect is multi-layered.'
Throughout the following days, Richard and John give an intensive course on the nature of subjective consciousness, making the delegates familiar with the workings of their own conscious and unconscious minds. They explain and demonstrate the terms "modalities" and "submodalities" and encourage the delegates to explore these elements within their own consciousness.
Then, as time goes by, Richard begins to show the delegates how to change their consciousness. Just as he did on the first day with the delegate on stage, he begins to reveal to those in the room how to effectively "recode" information in the conscious and unconscious mind so that feelings and expectations are shifted. As I sit and experience the course, I realise that its effect is multi-layered:
Firstly, as a delegate, Richard gets you familiar with the nature of your own consciousness, so that when you work with clients you are able to draw on your own insights and experiences to help you to negotiate and understand theirs.
Secondly, he allows you the chance to run through using the techniques on fellow delegates - under the watchful eyes of the assistants - to enable you to have experience of using NLP on others.
Thirdly, and by no means least important, the very act of having NLP done on you and by you gets you to experience firsthand the positive changes that you will be able to bring about in others.
The effect is noticeable. As the days progress, the morale and interest in the room grows exponentially, so that those who at first had their reservations about Richard's approach at the beginning of the week now begin to see how the methods he is teaching slot together, and cause real change for good - even in themselves.
Richard and John in action!
Meanwhile, John La Valle gives extraordinary insights into the nature of language use, and demonstrates how it can quickly bring about state change. He also demonstrates rapport-building through the use of body language. One of the most extraordinary expositions of the nature of pacing and leading through body language I have ever seen unfolds before my eyes, as he thanks person after person throughout the room for unconsciously copying his body language.
The training is varied by the use of the assistants. Each of the assistants is a highly respected NLP Trainer in their own right, and they help out at the NLP seminar for no charge - except chocolate. Their demonstrations of the different aspects of NLP, and their teaching approaches are really helpful. And their encouragement of delegates to apply their own creativity in NLP, while founding that creativity on sound NLP precepts, is inspirational.
Some of the NLP LIFE Assistants - who give their time to help out for no charge - except chocolate!
As the week goes on, the training gains momentum. By the fourth day, Kathleen La Valle has introduced the subject of The Meta Model to the delegates - another important element in the NLP mix. Her warning that the Meta Model is one of the least understood parts of the NLP process is well made. Even the language in which it is sometimes dressed up is misleading. "Be careful," she warns, "Of thinking about the use of the model in terms of Meta Model violations. Be careful of thinking that you need to challenge every part of the language that has a deletion or a distortion in it."
Her point is well made. "There are those who have studied the Meta Model at other training schools, who've got really obsessed about it. You can spot them easily: they go around challenging everything a client says." It is an approach, she says, that can really annoy a client. Kathleen gently reminds people that the spirit that lies behind the NLP attitude is one of curiosity about how people manage to do certain things in their lives. The Meta Model, she gently guides, is designed to elicit more information from people, to help them make the changes they want. "Beware of using it to continuously challenge," she finishes. "That is the way to become a Meta Monster!"
At the end of the session, her exposition of the Meta Model wins her a standing ovation.
"The state in which people are able to find light trance is exactly that state you had when you were a child staring out the window having a daydream, or that relaxed frame of mind you get into just before you fall asleep."
The hypnosis element of the course is one that many people have specifically come to practise, while others are wary due to that classic fear: "loss of control". Yet it becomes clear as Richard demonstrates hypnosis on many people, and gets the delegates to perform the "Handshake Interrupt" hypnotic induction on each other that never, at any moment, is loss of control on the agenda. It becomes increasingly clear to those who were anxious about hypnosis that their fears were unfounded. The state in which people are able to find light trance is exactly that state you had when you were a child staring out the window having a daydream, or that relaxed frame of mind you get into just before you fall asleep. As understanding of the state, and the gentle changes one can make with it when utilising it comes clearer, the general mood in the room becomes even more positive than it was before. And students are soon becoming adept at inducing trance quickly using Richard Bandler's "Handshake Interrupt" induction.
Delegates became adept at Richard Bandler's famous
Handshake Interrupt hypnotic induction
By day six it is becoming clear to everyone just how much they have learned in the previous five days, without actually realising that they were learning it, and all are eager to use their new skills in the learnings that the day brings. And day 6 is a big day: it's the day in which people break their phobias, easily, and without trauma or drama. The look of surprise on the faces of those who never believed they would be able to overcome a fear of spiders, snakes, mice, heights, dogs, cats - or anything else that once scared them, is a real pleasure to behold.
Day seven is the final day. It sees a recap of all the areas covered the preceding week. At the course's end, as Richard Bandler gives out the NLP Licences to delegates, he enjoins us all to go out, to read more, and to go and practise the skills we have learned whenever we can. After all, when you take a driving test, it is only once you've got the licence that you really learn to drive. Just so with the course.
I chat with the newbie NLP Practitioners as they leave. They are well satisfied with the course. For many, this has been, in their own words, a lifechanging experience - because the act of learning the techniques enables the Practitioner to take control of his or her own mind, too. They have learned a whole new set of skills that will enable them to make real change for good in those around them - and in themselves! Many tell me they will be back for the Master Practitioner in a few weeks' time, or in the following year.
It has been an amazing week. Many lives have been changed for good, and a lot of people leave the hotel that evening with a fresh spring in their step, a new confidence that they know how to deal with all sorts of things that before they had no idea about.
Really, it has been a lifechanging event!
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