I've always been interested in how we create the right coaching environment for our coachees and especially how we can use that space to add even more value to our work. This summer I had some experiences that have made me think differently about the coaching space.

I have been playing Tai Chi Chuan for over 15 years. I've also been teaching, or should I say coaching(?) Tai Chi for a couple of years having completed a 3-year Chen-style Tai Chi teacher qualification.

The more I coach, the more I am aware of how I rely on both mine and my clients’ felt experience as primary guides in the coaching space. Through this, clients also report that they become more aware of, and connected with, their felt experience. But more importantly they're able to use it practically, to be 

If you have read my previous two pieces here on rhythm, you’ll already know it’s a bit of theme in my coaching work. But I'll admit to you upfront that how I bring myself to coaching is still a major piece of inquiry for me. I don't quite know yet and I'm intrigued by how this is unfolding as my coaching practice develops.

In my first piece about rhythm being an untapped dimension in coaching and one that, for me, was born out of a domain full of speed and risk, it follows that what I do in coaching has to do with rhythm. I help my clients to find better rhythms, of course, but what about me?

It was around five thirty in the evening. A warm, sunny August evening. Delightful. The course was now almost deserted as I descended the start ramp on foot with Finn, my 9 year old son.

In the second part of this series I described how, to get a sense of this Chinese (and South East Asian) way of thinking, I had to learn a way to park my intellect. Not only that, I had to drop this idea I held about patterns appearing to be consistent and coherent - in my normal reasoned sense anyway.

This is a continuation of my story about finding a new way of coaching which unbeknownst to me drew me in to begin living in the paradigm of systematic correspondence...

When I properly embarked on my journey into coaching, I couldn’t have dreamt the direction in which I was going to end up going. I say properly because for years I’d been stuck in a vacillation between head and heart in my career.