Sneaking in (and out)

Left: Look closely - I'm in row 27

It's Wedsneday afternoon, and I'm waiting for my flight to Heathrow to start boarding. I'll only be in Old Blighty for two weeks this time, and another two in the summer, so I hope no-one's expecting any mind-expanding travel commentary, but I'll do what I can.

The occasion for these next two trips is NLP Trainer training, which I'll be doing in Leicester with Christina Hall. Chris is a big name in NLP for a few reasons: one is that a lot of people think she's a fantastically good trainer (I had the privilege to spend three days learning from her a couple of years ago, and I agree); one is that she's been in this field since Richard Bandler was a slender young man with a full head of hair. Last but not least, she's famous for being the person RB sued back in 1990-ish over who owned "NLP." The court ruled nobody did, and that's about all I know about the whole matter. I respect and admire both parties in the dispute, and my interest pretty much ends there.

When I came back from my training with Chris in 2007, I rhapsodized to my friend Michael Perez, who said "Now you know how Richard used to teach, many years ago." Dr Bandler is famous these days for teaching in ways that impact the unconscious mind more than the waking one. The result is that you learn a lot, but aren't necessarily sure what you learned until you find yourself doing it. He has training partners who handle the more cognitive bits, but what he does is more indirect and...dare I say it...sneakier. He's a sneaky genius.

Some people, it must be said, find Dr Bandler scary. A friend once asked me if I did. I replied that I find being held at gunpoint by a psychotic for several hours scary (and after that, not a lot else is, when you think about it), and I think RB's a very eccentric genius with a tremendous amount of compassion. I'm glad I was able to learn from him, and I'm glad I'm going to be spending two weeks this year soaking in as much as I can from Chris Hall. She rocks.

Before and after training I'll be visiting with friends and re-igniting my love affair with London. When I land I'll go directly to Cambridge to visit Carolyn White and John Thurgood, who've been the inspiration for several of my earlier posts, and after a few days enjoying winter in East Anglia, I'll head for Leicester, then on to London after training. Meanwhile, as it occurs to me to write here, I will. I miss the old blog, and it's good to be back, even if only for a while.

Au revoir, Seattle! Look out, England!