I was having a chat about faciliation with Rob Paterson on Skype and he came up with the analogy of dressage. If you watch this (amazing) Youtube of a horse doing its thing, chances are you'll be watching the four-legged animal, not the two-legged one. After all, its the horse that's doing all the work, and the guy is just sitting there.
In fact, the rider is doing all sorts of small stuff with his muscles to co-create the show - but he's not drawing attention to himself at all.
It's not a perfect analogy, of course. Facilitation isn't about control but I'm focussing here on the apparent lack of activity, the discipline that requires, and allowing the other(s) to be the star, not yourself...
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Comments (4)
In that connection you might be interested in the origins of the word manage, it comes from menege and the story of that origin relates to your clip
May 13, 2007 14:42 Permalink for comment
Johnnie and I were talking about how tired we get when facilitating. It seems that we are doing nothing but the amount of energy used is huge.
In dressage, the rider does do lot but using only small movment - my dressage friends tell me though that it is really all about the use of energy and the relationship that the horse and the rider establish.
We are so used to action being a simple leverage idea - it is hard to connect to wheh action is the consequence of the use of an energy field
May 13, 2007 20:12 Permalink for comment
In some ways, this is what separates good referees in sports from ordinary ones. The good refs do just enough to help the players get on with it. The ordinary and bad refs seem to want to be stars as well and so they try too hard to be seen to be doing something.
May 14, 2007 09:53 Permalink for comment
I couldn't help but watch the horse. I love the analogy of dressage for facilitation - less is more for the rider and energy flows between rider and horse or facilitator and group.
You have also made me feel more comfortable with "horsing around" in faciliation. Thanks.
David Zinger
May 16, 2007 15:42 Permalink for comment