The photo above is of one of the quintessential masters in movie history, Yoda. Not by coincidence, my greatest mentor in life, Ed Percival, was nicknamed Yoda by the global coaching business we were both a part of, the name being a form of the utmost reverence for his mastery. Ed was somehow who, in over five decades of coaching, constantly learned from masters in many other disciplines in his quest and passion to always be learning and growing in his own chosen field.
I am reminded of this by a recent Feldenkrais session with Ryan Jansen, a master practitioner who I previously wrote about at length in a post entitled, yes, “What I learned from a master practitioner“. During our recent conversation, Ryan recommended I also seek treatment from a specialist in another field. This field is one that has been of great value to him personally, and after something like forty sessions over time of this treatment, he also at one stage started studying to learn this and so add it to his already large set of tools to serve his clients. After a time, though, he recognised that gaining mastery of this would take many years and then chose to not pursue that any further.
Now, the thing is, when you have the particular form of treatment he recommended, it seems very, very subtle (I have had two sessions of this last year), so almost surprising that it would take years to master. However, it does, there is much empirical data and then knowledge to learn for practitioners before they can go into practice. Mastery at that level can often be observed to sit behind a clear presence of ease and flow in the practitioner.
Apart from reminding me of the parable of “the old man and the hammer“, in listening carefully to Ryan I also was paying close attention at different levels, both as the client being treated and following his instructions, but also observing his process, and how he is able to operate so fluently and in flow precisely because, in his own chosen field of Feldenkrais, he has many years of both learning and practice experience.
I then shared with Ryan a related thought, that in my world I can often spend many hours preparing (eg for facilitating a client leadership team offsite or retreat), precisely so that I can then be in flow in the moment. I wrote about this in-depth in “Prepare then throw away the script“.
In closing this musing, I am currently in the planning stage to “pay it forward” by offering some of my own mastery (such as it is) to support a brilliant mentee with an upcoming project where they will be supporting a client team in a series of retreats and meetings. This mentee is a brilliant individual and qualified coach who has been given a great opportunity with this client. What I noted to them though was that they are not yet at a level where they have done such group coaching work to a level where they can “throw away the script” so as to be in the moment when with that team. I, therefore, offered to work with them on this and be in the room for the meetings. That way they can know that, while they lead the meeting, they will have me there listening and observing, knowing the script. With that support, they will be able to be even more in flow than they otherwise would. I hope, through this, to help them accelerate their learning and so their own mastery.