Intentional improvisation

We all improvise every day. None of us goes through life with a script telling us what to do, and we don’t want one either. We like to connect with others, share ideas, take a few risks, learn and make decisions as we go.  It’s a rational response to the predicament of life. The map […]

The Headless Way

Who are you? What are you? These are some of the deepest questions we can ask. I came across some novel ways of answering these questions while listening to some ‘pointing out’ experiments by Richard Laing from The Headless Way. These experiments offer some intriguing, visual ways of discovering that awareness is our experience. Or […]

A couple of things

I recently did a couple of days training in creative facilitation for a lovely group at the University of Suffolk. I love sharing facilitation as a practice and a performance, and the conversations with the group got me thinking about the ways my own practice is changing. Here are a couple of things I shared […]

Desire lines of play

We’ve all seen those images of desire lines made by feet across urban landscapes to take us from point A to B with the least effort. BUT…this weekend I spotted a desire line that was created by the desire to PLAY. Wandering near Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol I came across The Slidey Rock. This […]

Whose feeling is it anyway?

‘Whose line is it anyway?’ was one of my favourite shows as a teenager. I would tune in every week on the small telly in my bedroom, captivated by the wit and dexterity of Paul Merton, Mike McShane and Josie Lawrence and others. At school the next day with my friends we just talked about […]

We’re using mute all wrong

Would you ask participants in a face-to-face meeting to put duct tape over their mouths when they are not speaking? Of course not. So why have we made ‘default mute’ the norm in online meetings? When I facilitate virtual sessions I ask people to only use mute if there’s a distracting noise in the background. […]

Bring a brick

When you truly surprise yourself, the ripples can last a long time. In an improvisation class with Jules Munns some years ago he asked what skills or challenges we wanted to work on. I said that I kept hanging back, judging things, editing myself and that I wanted to follow my impulses and get more […]