LIVING WORDS was the last in the Autumn series of seminars presented by McKenna Breen in 2000. Some 40 people were treated to three days with Michael Breen and John LaValle.

John LaValle is the President of the Society of NLP. He regularly teaches Persuasion Engineering with Richard Bandler in the USA, and lives in New Jersey ­ regarded by some as the attitude capital of the world.

John started out by reassuring us that we all had just as many words inside our heads as he did in his - in fact, probably more. "I don't need as many," he explained, commenting on the British thing of "Excuse me, I'm terribly sorry, would you mind awfully..." In New Jersey, "Fuck you" would suffice.

John explained that what allows him to make the best use of the words he has got is good 'brain juice' and this is down to how he practices language patterns. He pointed out that a common experience for people is coming up with a smart answer after the event. "All the same words are there," he said "I can just get to mine quicker." When people ask him how to get good at language patterns his answer is always the same. "Write them out. And keep writing them out."

We also covered syntax, semantics and the odd ambiguity; the structure of humour and flexibility; and management by stealth. John asked us when was the last time we had "some antics" and had we paid our "sin tax." When he was asked if he watched The Sopranos his response was simply, "Where I come from - we are the Sopranos."

The first thing we were told to do was to take what people say literally. The first intervention was to simply repeat back to them what they had just said but with a change of emphasis. Sometimes John even punctuates their sentences for them. In response to someone who had said, "I don't think it will work." John agreed with him, "You're right. You don't think." He said. "It will work." Then we were told to ask meaningful questions, such as "What do you mean by that?"

Richard Bandler used to draw people's attention to the fact that they could be running their own brains by asking them "Who's driving the bus?" When talking about working with other people, John LaValle used the analogy of taking a ride in a taxi. If it were you getting in the taxi the first question you ought to have is, "Do you know how to drive?" If you are the driver, you need to know where you are going and how to get there. Since every question and statement that you make is an intervention you need to be able to keep track from moment to moment and know the purpose of every thing that you do.

Before challenging presuppositions you must be able to tell the difference between simply agreeing with what someone says and what must be true for that to be a valid statement. Then challenge only useful and appropriate presuppositions. Not, as John overheard one delegate do, when they questioning someone about the fact that they had family living in Australia. "Living?"

When you hit on a key presupposition and notice a shift in their thinking you can then take it to the next step by making it as ridiculous as it actually is. Humour and flexibility in thinking go hand in hand and we spent a lot of time looking at the structure and patterns of humour. We were given plenty of examples of puns and ambiguities to work from that included Newspaper headlines such as 'Prostitutes appeal to Pope,' quotes from American comedian Steven Wright, and answers from recent GCSE papers that were a reflection on the funny state of our education system. One of the most appropriate seemed to be: 'Analysing humour is like analysing a frog: you can do it, but the frog tends to die in the process.' We weren't dissecting jokes to find out why they were funny, we wanted to spawn even more.

We did some voice work and concentrated on speaking in rhythm, so that when you speak you breathe in rhythm and this regulates the oxygen flow to your brain. Also when someone is listening to you they have to listen in a rhythm. Then they'll breathe in a rhythm. You don't have to follow them. They will follow you.

We spent a lot of time exploring the impact of different elements of language on ourselves and other people. We worked on our own internal dialogue and applied everything we had learned to ourselves so that we could have more useful conversations inside our heads as well. We felt the effect of Modal operators in two different ways. Comparing the difference between when we were talking to ourselves and then having someone else tell us. John told us in order to have more direct communication eliminate the use of modal operators, 'It's one less filter for your communication to go through.'

John was always direct in what he said, but sometimes all it took was a certain look. We learned to use our non-verbal behaviour to get someone to question what they had just said for themselves. His explanations were succinct and insightful: Time is just something prevents everything from happening at once. Experience occurs only in the present. All resources come from the past. Resources are states or skills. Goals are always behaviour.

It was, as John would have put it, 'A Kick Ass Experience.' Personally, it brought a lot of things together for me. There were many "Ah ha" moments and "No shit" too. I thanked John for all the abuse. It really helped.

© Copyright 2000 Tim Kenning