{"id":672,"date":"2010-04-16T10:42:32","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T09:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/?p=672"},"modified":"2024-12-31T09:04:13","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T09:04:13","slug":"training-coaching-and-the-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/04\/training-coaching-and-the-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Training, Coaching and The Body"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-674\" title=\"body_coaching\" src=\"http:\/\/integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/body_coaching-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/body_coaching-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/body_coaching.jpg 580w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Summary Points<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The body has been ignored yet is vital to coaching and training<\/li>\n<li>Communication, leadership and stress management are all embodied<\/li>\n<li>Some simple things can be done to start to bring the body back into training and coaching<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To be an effective coach or trainer it is necessary to be skilled at working with the body, yet most training and coaching is a purely cognitive affair. In this article I explain where the common view of the body comes from, why this is unfortunate for <a title=\"Training providers\" href=\"http:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">training providers<\/a> and coaches and what can be done about it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Body?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Just learning theories\u00a0of stress will not reduce it, but a deep breathing exercise or working with the emotions via the body will. With stress the importance of the body-mind connection is well researched and understood, but what about\u00a0others.\u00a0The two most common ways of looking at the\u00a0body\u00a0in the Western world are not the two most relevant to training and coaching.<\/p>\n<p>The body is a machine that carries the head around, and the body as an object of desire are two viewpoints which add little. Having a rudimentary understanding of physiology and the mechanics of the body is useful for the work I will discuss but far from all that is involved. The body as I understand it includes not only the physical body but the lived experience of having a body (this is called somatics) and the energetic body (how the body relates to emotions, attentions and intention for example).<\/p>\n<p>To understand why the body has been largely ignored by trainers and coaches it is necessary to understand Western cultural history \u2013 but this is beyond the scope of this article. Enough to say that the disembodied West coming first from the repressed Dark Ages and later the reductionist Industrial Revolution is now starting to wake-up to the body again. It is also struck anew by a modern technological obsession (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.trainingzone.co.uk\/topic\/learning-technologies\/why-elearning-doesn-t-work\/134473\">my article on e-learning<\/a>).\u00a0 It is against this backdrop that many training providers and coaches ignore the body as something scary that they know little about, see education as a purely heady exercise in learning <em>about<\/em> things and the body as merely concerning survival and reproduction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why The Body is Important to Coaches and Trainers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For some coaches and trainers their interest in the body ends if a client can walk into their office and is not seriously ill. Minimal health is of course the foundation for all our actions, and without our bodies we would be dead. Note the standard use of English \u2013 \u201cour bodies\u201d, as if they were objects that we rode around in. My claim would be that our bodies are in many ways, not ours but us. The body is so intimately involved with every aspect of being human that to not address it is seriously remiss for any professional working with people.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s use a concrete example to see how the\u00a0body is relevant. I do a lot of <a href=\"http:\/\/integrationtraining.co.uk\/\">stress management training<\/a> and on courses I have found that theory doesn\u2019t help people much but exercises involving breathing and posture do.\u00a0 Talking about theorie areas?\u00a0 Next, let\u2019s take communication \u2013 the essence of effective coaching and training. A large part of emotionally significant communication is non-verbal as the work of Paul Ekman, Daniel Goleman and Albert Mehrabian shows (the graph below relates to emotionally significant communication, and despite my friend Martin Shovel\u2019s excellent critique of misunderstandings around this, still stands). If you\u2019ve ever had a mix-up with a client by e-mail, not \u00a0\u201cclicked\u201d with an internet date in real life or tried to maintain a long business partnership you will know the issues associated with disembodied communication. Leadership and management too are underpinned by the body. The impact, influence and presence a leader has is largely determined by their body, as is the ability to build trust and take a stand. This is more than just body language and more like \u201cbody-being\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-673\" title=\"body_language\" src=\"http:\/\/integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/body_language-300x183.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"183\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/body_language-300x183.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/body_language.jpg 495w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Below is a framework similar to Goleman\u2019s Emotional Intelligence model but mapping embodied competencies. Note the application of many of these to training and coaching.<\/p>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"308\"><strong>Embodied-Self-Awareness<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Body awareness (with attention)<\/li>\n<li>Awareness of attention<\/li>\n<li>Postural and movement (includes breath) awareness<\/li>\n<li>Mood and emotion awareness<\/li>\n<li>Sleep\/rest\/activity cycle awareness<\/li>\n<li>Felt Intuitive sense<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"308\"><strong>Embodied Social Awareness<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Social body awareness (awareness of others \u2013 individuals and group moods)<\/li>\n<li>Social attentional awareness<\/li>\n<li>Somatic assessment (evaluating others by looking at their bodies)<\/li>\n<li>Group mood awareness<\/li>\n<li>Felt intuitive sense of others (via unconscious mirroring)<\/li>\n<li>Empathy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"308\"><strong>Embodied Self-Management<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Postural and attentional adjustment<\/li>\n<li>Breath control (e.g. diaphragmatic breathing)<\/li>\n<li>Mood management \u2013 e.g. confidence building<\/li>\n<li>Sleep\/rest\/activity cycle management (Excitation, centring, grounding, etc)<\/li>\n<li>Relaxing or enlivening<\/li>\n<li>Accessing intuition (e.g. focusing)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"308\"><strong>Embodied Social Management\/ Connection<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nonverbal mimicking, leading and rapport building<\/li>\n<li>Interruption of unconscious mirroring (e.g. during vicious conflict cycles)<\/li>\n<li>Empathic and emotional connection<\/li>\n<li>Leadership\u00a0 impact (charisma, presence, gravitas)<\/li>\n<li>Trust building &#8211; sincerity<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><strong>Embodied Tips for Coaches and Trainers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Working with the body is no easy thing that can be tagged onto what trainers already know. It takes some years of a regular body practice (e.g. yoga or a martial art) to get back \u201cinto\u201d the body and specialist training with one of world\u2019s few embodied training companies to apply this work with any depth. That being said there are some things any coach or trainer can do to bring the body back into their work at least to some degree immediately.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Notice your own body while coaching or training \u2013 just doing this will add a new dimension to your work<\/li>\n<li>Pay attention to participants\/clients physicality \u2013 how they stand, sit and hold themselves \u2013 again just this will make a huge difference<\/li>\n<li>Get a body awareness practice yourself \u2013 yoga, tai chi and martial arts are fantastic, though any physical activity done with attention \u00a0is fine<\/li>\n<li>Learn to manage yourself under pressure by practicing the ABC \u201ccentring\u201d process<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Become <strong>Aware<\/strong> of your body especially your breathing<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Balance<\/strong> your posture and attention<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Relax your \u201c<strong>Centre<\/strong>-line\u201d (eyes, mouth and stomach muscles)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make your communication as embodied as possible with clients \u2013 face-to-face is better than Skype is better than phone is better than e-mail, is a good order to consider.<\/li>\n<li>Learn to access and trust your \u201cgut\u201d instinct<\/li>\n<li>Get feedback on what mood your body conveys (we are all blind to this so you may be surprised)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Embodied Training and Coaching Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For those wishing to take this further I would recommend world leaders The Strozzi Institute, Paul Linden, Wendy Palmer and Arawana Hayashi in the US. In the UK the field is excitingly fresh with my company Integration Training, Roffey Park and The Beyond Partnership being pioneers. In Europe The Newfield Network provides excellent coach training with an embodied element. \u00a0Books or Richard Strozzi Heckler and Paul Linden are also excellent resources and I would like to honour these two mentors as the source of much of what I have discussed here.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mark Walsh is a UK pioneer of embodied training. Based in Brighton, Sussex, he heads Integration Training &#8211; business <a href=\"http:\/\/integrationtraining.co.uk\/\">training providers<\/a> specialising in management and leadership training, team building, stress management and time management training.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;\"><span lang=\"en-GB\" style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/markwalsh.info\/\"><span lang=\"es\">Mark Walsh<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<em>or visit his<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\"><em> training blog<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summary Points The body has been ignored yet is vital to coaching and training Communication, leadership and stress management are all embodied Some simple things can be done to start to bring the body back into training and coaching To be an effective coach or trainer it is necessary to be skilled at working with the body, yet most training and coaching is a purely cognitive affair. In this article I explain where the common view of the body comes from, why this is unfortunate for training providers and coaches and what can be done about it. What Body? Just <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[901],"tags":[1062,1131,1230,1725,1835],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/body_coaching1.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9xvDN-aQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6062,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions\/6062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}