Charlie Badenhop-Seishindo

8:26 AM in Aikido, Martial Arts, Meditation, NLP

Whenever I visit Japan I have the privilege of visiting with my good friend Charlie Badenhop. Charlie has a background in NLP, Hypnosis and years of studying and being an instructor of Aikido. Charlie is one of the most skilled change work practitioners I know. His work, Seishindo is a wonderful combination and expansion of these various modalities. What I've observed in seeing Charlie work with individuals and working with me is that he interacts with the person both verbally with great skill and by responding to and working with the person's physical presence. One thing that I've taken from my experience of Charlie's work is the belief that centering the body and the thinking mind has a tremendous capacity to heal the overall system and bring new solutions and insights to whatever challenges a person is facing.

I highly recommend visiting Charlie's site http://seishindo.org/ which is also in my link list. The site has pages of wonderful material and many practices that you can try out for yourself. Charlie also has a great newsletter where he shares insights and exercises on a regular basis.

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Stephen Gilligan

12:26 PM in NLP

This is a video of Stephen Gilligan being interviewed from YouTube. Steve's work is incredibly rich. I highly recommend going to a training with him if you have the opportunity. Although this video is a bit of a promotion, it's a treat to get to see him. Steve has developed a way of working with people that moves well beyond his background in NLP and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy.

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Multiple Perspectives

4:33 PM in Aikido, EMDR, Feldenkrais, NLP

When I was a kid in school, I would sometime sneak out a bit early and start walking home down a path through some woods behind the school. This was exciting for me because I new I was breaking a rule, but that path meant freedom for the afternoon. This went on for a couple days fairly smoothly. One day I ran into a teacher of mine who I really liked and respected. Quite casually he mentioned to me that he knew I had been leaving school early. I was shocked and very embarrassed. I asked him how he knew and he let me know that the teachers lounge overlooked the path that I took through the woods each day. He said that he and the other teachers had enjoyed a good laugh watching me take off daily. He didn't really need to tell me to stop at that point.

This was one of the first times that I became aware of multiple perspectives. There are very few tools in life that can contribute so much to learning and growing, whether it's benefiting from a different teacher, culture or activity. Some change methods teach this explicitly while other do so implicitly. 

Unfortunately, because of competition, some schools or methodologies discourage studying from other teachers or in other schools. This is unfortunate because it can really deprive someone of a rich learning experience. In the Feldenkrais method, although there seems to be different factions, it is required that you are taught by several trainers. I believe Moshe Feldenkrais saw the wisdom of this approach and included it in the initial course design. This is also true in Aikido to some degree although you'll tend to see mostly teachers from one lineage collaborating. 

In my experience, the most skilled change agents that I've met have almost always come from a variety of teachers, disciplines and contexts. One colleague, for example benefits from a background of NLP, EMDR, Painting and Drumming. Each of these modalities colors the way that he works with Clients. As a result, his work is extremely rich.

Although I still like to skip out of 'school' occasionally, I benefit from the idea that one of my teachers has my back.

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A Simple Diagram of Change

10:48 AM in Feldenkrais, MBSD, NLP

This is a hugely oversimplified diagram of change. I'm putting it here mostly because I may reference it over time and hope others will as well. It's not meant to be exhaustive, but merely a jumping off point for conversation. From time to time I'll make adjustments to this post as seems appropriate. 

The beauty of this diagram is that virtually any change modality(NLP, traditional psychotherapy, coaching or Feldenkrais) can be looked at in this way. The shortcoming of this is that it doesn't really give you enough information at a detailed level to use. What I'm hoping for is that it will serve as a coat hanger for ongoing conversation about change.

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Permutation

5:12 AM in Feldenkrais, Learning, Martial Arts, Practicing

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) 

per·mu·ta·tion [pur-myoo-tey-shuhn] 
1. the act of permuting or permutating; alteration; transformation.
2. Mathematics.
a. the act of changing the order of elements arranged in a particular order, as abc into acb, bac, etc., or of arranging a number of elements in groups made up of equal numbers of the elements in different orders, as a and b in ab and ba; a one-to-one transformation of a set with a finite number of elements.
b. any of the resulting arrangements or groups. Compare combination (def. 8b).

I was first exposed to the concept of permutation when I was studying jazz guitar as a child. My teacher had me practice a series of notes in all the various combinations I could put them in like in the definition above.

ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA

Practicing in this way I was able to get comfortable playing this sequence of notes in any order. There was a side-effect of getting extremely familiar with the series of notes that I was exploring. 

Over the years I found that there are many wonderful side effects to practicing just about anything using this concept. One of these side effects is that this helps me review material endlessly without getting bored. Every new permutation brings a fresh perspective to whatever I'm studying.

I've found that this is a great way for people to teach and absorb information. In studying Aikido, I've noticed that the way the classes are taught is by demonstrating endless permutations of a core set of moves.

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Feldenkrais Video

10:03 AM in Feldenkrais

This is a video that provides some of the background information on the Feldenkrais Method. It's quite good and you get to see some of Moshe's first students and footage of Moshe teaching. I highly recommend it especially if you're unfamiliar with this excellent work.

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Pacing and Leading

4:44 AM in NLP

This is a short piece that was sent to me by my colleague Ofer. Ofer is a Master Practitioner of NLP. I'm not editing this with the exception of defining a term. I will incorporate changes over time if Ofer changes it. 

One of the key principles of NLP is pacing and leading. Its a fairly simple principle. At its core it states that before you can take a person in a new direction, leading them, you first need to meet them where they are at, pacing. In NLP, the main place where this principle is emphasized is in rapport building. Inherently the practitioner meets the other by matching them, in their body, voice, breathing, language, etc. In matching, the two form a connection, an unconscious one, that allows the practitioner to now move in a new direction and have the other follow. Those who have experienced being led from a place of strong connection know how powerful and unconscious an experience it can be, and how effective being there with the other is for facilitating change.

If we delve deeper, we find that pacing and leading permeates many other aspects of NLP as well. For example, consider the classic "change personal history" pattern. The basic structure of the pattern has the person connect to a state/memory from the past and once there take a new direction, possibly by reframing or adding a resource. The pacing in this pattern is connecting to that old state/memory. If we think of our minds as a very large state machine (in the loosest sense), with our consciousness being the window to a current state. We might also conceive that the mind is only able to change the states that we are actually connected to. Then, the act of connecting to that old state/memory is actually the pacing that opens the door for changing that state and its impact. To make a martial arts analogy, you can't affect an ukei without engaging them first. It is by meeting the ukei that different outcomes become a possibility. Thus, in "change personal history" the pacing is in directing the mind to the place where change needs to take place, the old state/memory, and the leading is redirecting the mind from that state to a new possibility, a new way of perceiving that old state/memory, and in such changing it.

Note: Ukei is the person offering an attack in martial arts like Aikido.

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The Middle

4:13 AM in Orientation

As I mentioned in some of my initial posts, this blog is about an ongoing exploration of various change methodologies. Unfortunately I can't bring everyone up to speed on all the background of this exploration or dialog, so the place I'm beginning is the middle of the topic. That being said, here are a few points that people may find useful. 

I recommend that anyone interested check out the links to other sites that I have posted. I add links with great care. I only add sites that I believe have excellent content so please check them out. There is so much to be learned from these alone.

Over time, I will do my best to organize my posts into useful categories so people can spend time exploring specific topics of interest to them. Please feel free to add your suggestions by adding comments to the posts. I'll do my best to consider them.

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How this is coming about

11:31 AM in Orientation

For most of my life, I've studied martial arts, music, dance, architecture, NLP, Coaching, the Feldenkrais method and several other modalities to explore how people create change or develop new abilities in their life. With many of my colleagues I've explored the intersections of these various modalities. The idea of this blog is to create a dialog about these overlapping principles, techniques and methodologies. As NLP developer David Gordon says, experience has structure. This site is an exploration of that structure.

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The Beginning

7:17 AM in Orientation

This blog is an exploration of what I call Mind Body Structural Dynamics. This is a site where I'll explore ideas from several disciplines that look at how people live, relate and create change in their lives. This blog will look at ideas from NLP, Coaching, Feldenkrais, Organizational Development(OD) and just about anything that touches on change and development. I encourage comments and posts from people excited to contribute to this dialog.

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