Boy, its been an astonishing up and down over the last 3 weeks. There were about 40 participants in the training. Many from the UK, one from the US, some from Australia, even lesser from Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Accompanying the training were coaching assistants that were already schooled by Tad and Adriana and they observed the development of the individual participants.
And developing we did. From the very first beginning, and after being put into different groups, we were "subjected" to exercises, exercises, exercises. Feedback by the coaches and by one of the partipants.
What happened? I would describe it as breaking down my neural networks in my brain, putting it all into a mixer and let it re-develop and emerge in a beautiful and magnificent fashion.
How did we do? Well, considering that all of us were to become trainers, we had to learn how to present ourselves magically. How often is it happening in the "real world", the world we came from and had to present, that we move around wildly in front of our audiences, gesticulating with our hands and pacing around up and down. Does this sound familiar? All those gestures are kind of disturbing, and very often coming from somewhere deep down inside - because we feel we need to do it or were told that this is how to present. The worst case are those presenters, that start to scratch themselves, sway on their feet, or pace around like tigers in a cage. I know you know what I mean, right?
So, the first thing to learn in Australia was to get rid of those unsconscious behaviours. So - for the first 5 days or so, we were not allowed to move our hands when we did presentation exercises.
It started by standing in front of our 6 member group, about 1.5 meters away - don't say anything, don't move anything on your body, especially not the hands. For 5 long minutes. I tell you that these were the longest 5 minutes of my life!!!. Standing in front of people I didn't know. And not to go inside and think, but to also switch off the inner dialogue. Wow!! After about a minute or 2, I felt this feeling of extreme discomfort inside of me. Something kept growing, and I couldn't run away. This is what I mean by breaking down the existing neural network!
There was more. In another exercise, we learnt how to see from the corner of the eyes, when someone in a group makes a slight movement, even if it is only a finger. I had to point this out the moment I saw it, point out with a slight movement of my finger.
Then, also, standing in front of the group and make each of them feel that I connect with them through my eyes. The moment, they had the feeling of connection, the individual had to raise the hand and put the hand down, when the connection was lost. Target was to get all hands up at the same time!
We also learnt to create and develop metaphors, put an audience into trance, close metaphors, and to build rapport with a larger group of participants. This is important when I teach NLP to a larger number of people (what is my aim!).
Then, after 5 initial days, we learnt how to move our hands during a presentation more consciously, to bring a point across. And we learnt how to structure material that needs to be taught, how to structure exercises, answer questions in a way that the whole audience has something to learn and so on and so on.
All in all, I was re-created in a very special ways.
There were two presentations that all of us needed to do in preparation for the evaluation period. The first 2 were dry-runs, for the "big evaluation days". And these were tough challenges. I failed one of the presentations, like many others. It was devastating, initially, because hey - I thought I knew my stuff. Apparently, the evaluator didn't, and it was a great learning for me!
Then came the evaluation period - 4 days in a row. I felt like going back to high school or university.
First, a theoretical test about Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). About 80 questions, with 210 points to achieve in total. Passmark was 70%. I learnt and learn, studied real, real hard. Memorising, getting it into my head. Knowing my material backwards and forward. The day of the test was the day were I felt real good. No anxiety at all, just coolness and great anticipation. I normally felt anxiety, but not this time around, because of the beautiful Timeline Therapy (TM) techniques. It just helps to take out negative emotions, fear, anger, and all, as well as anxiety.
Still, 6 hours of writing in the test. 6 hours and about 60 pages - handwritten. This was one thing that was hard, because, hey - I usually use a computer, right? We didn't get to know our marks but most of us cam through the test. But this is no wonder, because all of us studied real hard for the test.
Then the first presentation - and I presented magically. No flaws, whatsoever!! Then, demonstration day - this means we were to demonstrate an exercise to a larger group of participants. I have to admit that here, I was nervous initially. This, despite visualisation of the whole process the night before. What happened? Well, I visualised my favourite exercise, but forgot to include the short theoretical introduction in the visualisation. naturally, there was a break, but I came through. The demonstration itself was smooth - great and exhilarating.
The next presentation then, the second and last was an easy right, since I was bursting with energy, joy and fun. Nothing was going to hold me back, and so I am here now, back in KL with two trainer certification. One for NLP, and one for Timeline Therapy (TM) Training.
For you, to share in my happiness about the successful completion, the picture below. It was a hard October, but it was worth every single minute of emotion, sweat, and long nights of learning, studying and preparations!
Here a picture from the graduation ceremony:
(NLP in Asia)
nlp
neuro linguistic programming
tad james
executive coaching
business coaching
personal coaching
training malaysia
nlp malaysia
hypnosis malaysia
hypnotherapy malaysia
leadership malaysia
