Just to say an enjoyable evening, and lovely to put faces to names was kewl!

I love the way the brain is like "sh!t that person doesn't look like their 50 x 50 avatar - i better recode them!"

I found th night fascinating - it kicked in a few more possibility filters - I love it when that happens! I wasnt sure I was doing the send your conciousness to zone x thing - but I still had about 50-60% results in the positive!

All in all a fun night - we need more of these Chris!!!

Pax

Al

I had a great night! Here's another big thanks to Eric, and thanks to everyone who came along -- it was cool to see so many people from the site together.

Did anyone else have really vivid dreams last night? Either someone slipped some acid into my beer or Eric was doing some very clever things. I wonder...

chris_morris wrote:

I had a great night! Here's another big thanks to Eric, and thanks to everyone who came along -- it was cool to see so many people from the site together.

Did anyone else have really vivid dreams last night? Either someone slipped some acid into my beer or Eric was doing some very clever things. I wonder...

Yeah, sorry about that, I thought it was Al's pint


Can't wait for the Manchester event, oh yeah there isn't one yet!

Well I did enjoy the evening Chris and thanks for organising the whole thing. Please do organise more of these events. Great turnout and it was good to put some names to faces. I wish I had had more time to stick around and chat some more...

I must say though, because I'm sure you want genuine reviews, that I didn't enjoy Eric. I didn't see a clear demonstration of Eric's ability to calibrate people's submodalities. He completely mis-calibrated my partner and I didn't see any evidence of the lady in the front row being read correctly. The tongue behind-the-teeth exercise didn't have any effect on myself or my partner. There was no attempt to find other ways to turn off 'Self-talk' and that was an interesting self-discover exercise missed.

His attitude to people who didn't get exercises was one of 'well you must be doing it wrong' which simply shut the audience down from engaging with Eric.

Eric's ramblings about letting go of 'rationality' is old hat and certainly nothing new. I don't disagree with him but it was delivered 'at' us in a way that, at times, felt patronising and condescending. And Eric's constant going-on about his relationship with Richard Bandler just read like a sign of insecurity to me. Eric is clearly a very experienced chap and I wish he had let his experience and knowledge speak for its self.

Behind what Eric was saying I think is a powerful message about using your intuition to read other people and identifying with the learning state of young children etc. Right at the end there was this beaming Eric obviously delighted at the applause and appreciation - I wish we had seen more of that Eric. I'm sure he is there and that Eric looks much easier to connect to...

If Richard Bandler really does think that Eric is one of the top 3 trainers in the world then he ought to get out more...

That's my map. Undoubtedly different from others and I'm looking forward to hearing about other peoples experience.

Great job Chris. Great turnout and it was great to meet you in person. Looking forward to many more.

Cheers

Paul

Hi

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

It is great getting together and being able to try out stuff, sometimes stuff we have done before, sometimes not, either way when working with somebody new I always learn something different.

It was great chatting to people and catching up.


Thanks to Chris for putting on the event, and Thank you to Eric for a fun evening.

Luv Val

Paul

That summed up pretty well a whole lot of confused feelings I had.

Thanks

John

Thanks for making it happen, guys.

For me, there was lots of food for thought in what Eric said, in particular the stuff about the different 'levels' of internal dialogue. I'm currently debating with myself about whether I agree that they're 'levels' or not :-)

And, like Paul, on the basis of last night's experience I wouldn't rate Eric as one of the three best trainers in the world.

Which sets me wondering - who would I put in those slots? Maybe time to start a thread...

Stephen Salmon wrote:

Yeah, sorry about that, I thought it was Al's pint


Can't wait for the Manchester event, oh yeah there isn't one yet!

You get cheekier as you get older SS!

We had a chat and decided that Manchester is only full of villains so we aborted the plan ;-)


Interesting to see the more hardened NLPers responses. All the stuff I heard and saw was new for me yet I understand the range of opinion mentioned here.

so it makes it all the more interesting for me!

I guess I am still conciously incontinent . .

:P

Paul - you are a tall chap aren't you! tried to say hi but you were a popular candidate!
Judy - you are as friendly a person as I'd previously hall.d! (I get extra points for that!
Pax!

Al

Wow! I felt great.

My experience of enjoying these Master Trainers is to switch off the concious thing and remain open to the wonderful energy they radiate which puts me in a really zingy place.
Maybe Richard gets that with Eric too.

So, for me , it was a fantastic evening!

Andi cant wait for the next one :-)

Nx

Paul...

If Richard Bandler really does think that Eric is one of the top 3 trainers in the world then he ought to get out more...

Presupposing you are more qualified than Richard to evaluate NLP trainers?

You could have asked... what am I missing? What has Bandler noticed in this guy's work that I haven't? After all he noticed mostly every pattern you use as a NLPer before anyone else noticed them.

You didn't have to like Eric or his work, but could've shown you are still curious about what it is that you don't know. You could have said you didn't like it and avoid all the judging about him appearing insecure, rambling old hats, etc.

But then again I already knew that you were attending this event with a bunch of filters in place, I even told some people you would walk out saying you were not convinced... and I knew that just by reading your post about you attending. Evidence:

Think I'll just come along to put some names to faces...

Sure you then wrote:

And I'm looking forward to meeting Eric as well...

But see (since you tend to favor the visual predicates) from other posts I knew 'meeting' didn't meant 'learning from' in your map of the world. Some would say you were never willing to become the student.

Oh and lets remember you do believe the title master trainer is 'a marketing thing as you posted on 06-07-2006:
I

have to say Maria that I think the label 'Master Trainer' is largely a marketing tool.

We agreed on that thread that many times that title is not necessarily given because of the right criteria but that doesn't imply it has not been awarded many times (or at least a few) because of masterful skills. As I believe it was when Richard named Eric one.

I should also point out Richard said that about Eric back in the early 90's. Not that Richard doesn't consider Eric one of the best still, because he does... but if you end up your post questioning Richard from something he said it should have the proper historical perspective.

So since you are being honest in your review (which I do believe you are)... I thought giving the readers a context is much more fair to Eric and his work.

Anyway... I know this reply might end up posted in fight club and there is no point for that since we would get nowhere. So if Chris or Michael decide to move this post please leave the rest of the thread in place. Reason for posting? I sure didn't wanted to sit back and not say a thing.

Note: I was not at the evening event and Paul's review is as valid as anyone's. The intention of my post is simply to point out some things (I noticed) behind his review and of course put a word in for my friend... and sure I will be co-training with him later this year. Oh and lets use this to remember every behavior presupposes something to be true (which is not necessarily the case) and that we do things guided by our generalizations.

Have a great day/night
Gabe

PS - I must admit my review on some trainers would be very much influenced by my beliefs about who they were trained by or what have they done and my own ideas of what a good trainer is like, so I am not saying Paul's review is very different from what I would do.

Hey Paul -- I asked Eric to talk about his experiences on the road with Richard Bandler because I knew we were going to be a very mixed group, people of different ages, different levels of skill and experience, and I thought it would be good if some of the conscious content was an inside account of being around in the early days of NLP -- that's something that most of us have some interest in, whatever else we're also interested in.

Eric has been close to Richard for twenty years or more and they're still close, developing ideas together, teaching together, doing projects together and writing a book together. When you see them together, I think they act kinda like brothers -- and I think that gives Eric an interesting perspective when he talks about where NLP came from and where it's going.

Anyway, that was just (a small part of) the conscious content and you don't need me to tell you that the conscious content wasn't the most important thing last night! One of the cool things for me was standing at the back of the room with the camera and watching as the whole audience responded in chorus as different anchors were played with and various loops were closed. Some people realised consciously why Eric was returning to mention Richard a few times, and whether you spotted that or not isn't as important as knowing it did affect you unconsciously. I know that because I saw everyone shift in their chairs at the same time, amongst other things -- it was trippy. I love that stuff.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, that's cool, and I know different people like to do NLP in different ways -- I think that's cool too. We all arrive at these events with our own ideas and filters. Personally, I agree with Natheera -- I get the most out of trainings when I go into what John Grinder calls the 'no-nothing state' and just let everything wash over me, not trying to suss out why something is being delivered in a certain way and just letting it happen. It works for me.

It's at least possible that Eric wanted you to feel talked down to for a while -- I don't know, it's just an idea and I haven't asked him but I know other trainers have done age regression that way before. Maybe that was the idea, I don't know. I actually think that too many trainers hold back from eliciting 'bad' states, especially at evening 'taster' events, because they want you to like them. Heck, some of them want you to love them! That's ok maybe, but what I liked a lot about Eric's talk was that he got up and delivered content. He didn't plug his new book at all, he hardly mentioned his workshop, he just did what he thought most people would benefit most from. In a very mixed group, with people who have very different ideas about NLP, who've been taught many different ways of doing things, some better than others, he calibrated to what most people would be able to get in an hour and he delivered that much and more. You won't find many trainers willing to do that much at a taster evening, in my experience.

I feel that Paul B's comments are a good representation of the evening, and that the responses to his comments somewhat harsh. If any negative review is going to be so strongly attacked, then really what is the point of writing the review in the first place.

I, like Paul, did not feel that we were shown a good example of Erics work. The best "seeing peoples pictures" example I have seen was during a similar taster session by Sid Jacobson several years ago, and a clearer example would have been useful.

One thing I felt particulary frustrating was explaining to people that they had done the exercise wrong, rather than giving more detailed instructions before hand: ie. the issue about relaxing the arm on the last exercise. And l feel this did come across a bit condecending.

One final point. I've always found these kind of events to be a bit of a mine field. As an audience member its easy to feel as if you're paying for a salesman to visit, so setting the balance right between giving value for money, and keeping stuff back for the main course is difficult. Perhaps the session should have been a little longer, then there could have been a couple more exercises and the session would have been more cohesive.

chris_morris wrote:

One of the cool things for me was standing at the back of the room with the camera and watching as the whole audience responded in chorus as different anchors were played with and various loops were closed. Some people realised consciously why Eric was returning to mention Richard a few times, and whether you spotted that or not isn't as important as knowing it did affect you unconsciously. I know that because I saw everyone shift in their chairs at the same time, amongst other things -- it was trippy. I love that stuff.

This is where I start to get confused again.

You mention the setting of anchors. I never spotted this but that probably sums up my skills anyway. Usual stuff about maps at this point as required.

Either you are guessing or you know Eric’s reasons for setting anchors and opening and closing loops. I would be interested to know what he was hoping to achieve by whatever strategy he was using on the audience and perhaps a bit more information about what that strategy was.

How was I affected subconsciously and what the desired outcome of affecting my subconscious?

John

Gabe,

I really hope your comments don't end up in the fight club... It's great to have the additional perspective and thank you for that.

But then again I already knew that you were attending this event with a bunch of filters in place, I even told some people you would walk out saying you were not convinced...

Just for the record I found very little that I didn't agree with Eric on so I'm not sure what 'convincing' I missed... It was Eric's approach that I didn't enjoy - not the content.. I remember training our intuition to notice submodality distinctions way back when I did my first 6 days (of 20) of practitioner training. This kind of training can be rewarding and illuminating and I'm sure many found it so on the night. And I did learn a great deal from Eric and the way he likes to train - it was fascinating for many reasons and myself and my partner talked about it all the way home. When I see anybody train I try and do so with as few filters as possible and I know I learn more that way.

So I'm just giving my view as best I can - filters and all...

And it really isn't a question of 'liking' Eric or not. I'm sure he is a wonderful chap and would be delighted to engage with him more - and I really do mean that. My sense is we didn't really see the real Eric until the last few seconds of last night which was a shame in my map of the world. I'd like to see more of that Eric and if you had been there we probably would have agreed I suspect - but that's just another filter of mine...

Cheers

Paul

Thanks Chris, thanks Eric, and thanks to the delegates: great evening.

Fun to meta model this thread, with all its filters and perspectives. I'm glad Paul has added to his original critique, it seemed harsh without the extra comments.

I enjoyed the evening, meeting new people, seeing familiar faces and learning some new stuff & perspectives.

My frame on Eric's question / answer session is that he chose to cover more subjects than spend a large amount of time on just one question, and that he usually invited further discussion with the questionner (is that a proper word?) after the session. That way he could cover more ground. In particular, I remember with the excercises he might say 'you are doing it wrong' and follow up with 'if there were more time I would like to see what you were doing to be able to correct it', or variations on that theme.

Indeed, my own question was quickly dealt with, but I did catch up with Eric afterwards and discussed further, and he stayed chatting with people until beyond the last orders bell rang.

Given the short timescales, I think he played it right.

Especially as people can be more interested in their own questions than anybody else's!

I liked the levels of internal dialogue, and I am wondering how to get more familiar with them.

Great seeing so many faces!

One of the joys I find of an evening such as last night is the varied and vast experience of the individuals in the room. If nothing else the posts so far demonstrate how each and every person can perceive the same event differently with their own filters operating and effecting to various degrees. So as I too was there I thought I’d drop my observations into the mix and I accept that they are just that - my experience and others may have had a different one. I’m not even going to begin to speculate why that may or may not have been.

Personally I really enjoyed the evening and found it fascinating playing with the various concepts. Sometimes with really experienced trainers I decide to attempt to track some of what that trainer is doing so I can improve my mastery of skills, on other occasions I just go with the flow and enjoy the ride. (I’ll clarify my interpretation of mastery here, that being the fifth stage in the steps of learning; the one above unconscious competence ie conscious unconscious competence – which is such a mouthful I use mastery instead ) Last night I chose to do the later, just to relax and go with the flow – yet strangely enough I began to spot some stuff being delivered I just didn’t allow myself to dwell on it. (As it happened I was using the tongue trick to quiet that analysis at the time, as I didn’t want to miss anything that followed) I do know I was enjoying not only the conscious content of the stories (the history of stuff often interests me so that’s no surprise) but also spotting (no doubt a small amount) of some of the underlying stuff.

Now for me, the most important thing is not necessarily that I can put the correct label on an activity (which is only useful if I’m communicating with another nlper, others are just normally interested in the results that they produce and the benefits for them) but rather can I do the exercise and if not playing with the concept until I can. Last night I found that certainly in the state I was in, it was surprisingly easy to do the exercises. I also know that I was in that state because I was guided there. I detected a couple of instances when that was happening and I noticed a general heightened awareness – which considering the context of the subject matter, for me, was incredibly useful.

As you mentioned it Chris, yes I did dream very vividly last night – even by my normal nlp training induced vivid dreams. Was that because of my heightened awareness? I have no idea and am more interested in the how rather than necessarily the why.

I hope that my experience was interesting to those who weren’t there (and who knows maybe even to some who were ) and if not then please take it with the spirit of with which it is offered as my personal experience (no-one else’s necessarily). I would also like to thank Eric for running the evening and Chris for playing host and I'm looking forward to playing with this area further.

It's so interesting to read reviews and then wonder if you were at the same event!
Where is the shared reality at times?

I found Eric's presentation interesting from several perspectives. Yes there was state elicitation going on while he was presenting and I realize that master trainers of Eric's caliber do things for a reason, it's not because they just feel like acting a certain way for fun. I asked him afterwards, ok, so what's with the three anchors (that's all I consciously spotted) as I was getting absorbed in the content.
Having spoken to Eric about UI at another event, I know that part of the process is that if you know how it's done the trick fails to do it's magic. A good magician does not let the secrets out, he lets the audience enjoy the illusion. The secrets can be understood another time when one is learning FROM the master, not experiencing the results OF the master.
He gave me what I needed to know and the explanation satisfied my curiosity at the conscious level.

I found the part regarding AD levels of internal dialog really cool.

I'm curious as to why people would want to try and make a decision regarding anyones ability as a trainer on a two hour something gig?
It surprises me that trainers with evidently much more training experience than me are quick to judge, when training by it's very nature consists of multilevel criteria. How can anyone truly judge something that has not happened? This was not a training,it was a short talk with a few demonstrations and experiential exercises.
Do people always judge the film by the trailer?

If one wants to judge Eric's training ability, surly do him justice and go on a proper NLP training?

As always I found Eric personally engaging and gave me the time to answer my questions fully after the event. I have found that one of Eric's qualities is to deliver the information at the level that the student requires to understand, and that is not condescending but artful

I enjoyed meeting the old and new faces, and Al your right about the avatars. Some serious internal adjustments were having to be made.

Peter.
Chris I look forward to the next one.

This is a fascinating thread as I can understand where most of the seemingly contradictory posters are coming from.

I enjoyed the evening but I did have a frustration that Eric was covering different material to that advertised. This meant that I was constantly reframing to avoid a feeling of being let down.

"At this very special evening event, Eric will be demonstrating the submodality eye accessing cues he has developed. These techniques allow you to ‘see’ the pictures that other people imagine and ‘hear’ their internal dialogue."

The demonstrations were very brief, so brief that it wasn't clear that he was using submodality eye accessing cues rather than simple cold reading. I wasn't able to " ‘see’ the pictures that other people imagine and ‘hear’ their internal dialogue."

What I did get was some improvement in my sensory acuity and some stories about how Eric developed his new techniques. Well worth going for but I would have preferred longer demonstrations of the submodality eye accessing cues. Eric spoke about giving evening talks about these in the US, so it seems that he has addressed this topic in a short form before.

Did I learn what I thought I was going to? No.

Did I learn something new? Yes.

Was it beneficial? Yes, because I learnt some really cool new skills.

Did I learn what I hoping to learn? No, better than what I was hoping for!

Especially the hand exercise, as Eric had said focus on the energy, the only way that I could do it was by looking, and it worked for me. With the hand I was picking up of the energy shifts going on in the body rather than the single point we were looking for, by using my eyes, I could get it every time.

Did I learn a different perspective? Yes

Do I agree with some of the comments? Yes

Do I agree with some of the other comments? Yes also

What will I remember from the evening? That some girl was raped not far from where we were training.

The importance of the above? Not much if you are that girl


What a world, we live in

Great perspectives, everyone!

I'm sorry I missed it and I'm glad to have read all of the reviews.

For me, one of the great things about the wide variety of views represented here is that I get an insight into all of the different and unique perspectives that people can have and a wonderful demonstration of how many different people can engage with (or witness) the same interaction and have such different subjective experiences.

This is, I think, one of the most useful functions of this 'An Evening With...' format. In my experience, not everyone finds every trainer to be a match for their own learning style, personal taste or level of preparedness on a specific topic category or at a specific time in their respective experiences. Therefore it makes a *lot* more sense to have a 'taste' to see if someone is right for you at this point of your learning experience or perhaps is not the best fit at the moment.

I also think it can be important to realize that we all change and that 'poor fits' might perhaps be 'perfect fits' at other stages of our learning, of their work or perhaps in other contexts or categories.

Also, sometimes a challenging or off-putting trainer or training can also hold out the possibilities of profound learning. Many times, when confronted with this sort of reaction in myself, I've found it profitable to ask myself the question, 'who would I need to be to benefit from this' and then walk for a while in those shoes (assuming they're not too small or too smelly!). That's probably a holdover from my Zen days. Whether or not you would find that a useful distinction is, of course, for you to judge.

Personally, I look forward to meeting Eric sometime soon and having the privilege to watch him in action! Besides I've got a set theory-related question to to ask him about his work on levels of internal dialog...

Thanks again for all of the reviews and the discussion!

Be Well,

Michael Perez