Report from Leeds

Training in England

I should like to report that I am having the most wonderful time in Leeds, England, with the most gracious of hosts, Nick Kemp and Sue Elton.

I’m also happy that they were happy with the seminar I taught on Sleight of Mouth for Transforming NLP’s Master Practitioner Class over the weekend. I, too, thought it went well and the students seemed to really grasp the material handily. 

It’s funny how certain serendipitous occurrences can influence the course of things. Like, I usually present film clips and do a couple of magic tricks during the seminar to play up the relationship of Sleight of Hand to Sleight of Mouth, but because of some technical difficulties we were unable to play the necessary DVD. Fortunately, we discovered this before the seminar began so I was able to plan around it, and as a result, completely redesigned the opening morning of the seminar. It not only worked exceedingly well but the new opening provided a frame and metaphorical representation of beliefs that was clearer and more accessible than ever before.

Kind of like that old saw about when life give you lemons, make lemonade. In this case the lemonade was remarkably tasty and refreshing.

Nick and I are also spending a few days in his recording studio creating an exciting project. It’s going to be called “Stories from the Outside Inn” and will feature a variety of five minute stories or five minute trances that people will be able to get to at a web site of the same name. 

The idea sprang from some conversations we had about a couple of different recent experiences. Nick had come across a book entitled “Not Quite What I Was Planning” that featured a collection of six-word memoirs…entire life stories in only six words.  (As an example, Ian Gould wrote, “Macular degeneration. Didn’t see that coming.” For more examples or to write your own, go to www.sixwordmemoir.com) 

I had the experience of going for a run with my iPod set on shuffle – so that it would randomly play various tracks off my playlists. It was wonderful, I’d get a Grateful Dead song followed by Glenn Gould playing Bach. Then I’d get a segment from a recorded Hypnosis seminar by Stephen Gilligan followed by Laurie Anderson’s O Superman, followed by a track of Richard Bandler or Dave Dobson. It was crazy. It made no sense. I loved it.

So we decided upon a collection of stories or trances with only one rule…they have to be exactly five minutes and 54 seconds. The spoken word portion will be close to 5 minutes and we’ll add original music to beginning and end of the selections.

It is a project about which we are extremely excited and one that is spawning a host of related ideas that may work themselves into a workshop back here in Leeds next year. Frankly, anything that would bring me back to Leeds would be OK by me, but this seems particularly inviting.