'A pattern given belongs to the presenter. A pattern discovered belongs to the discoverer'. This is how John Grinder opened our five day seminar on advanced presentation skills and set the frame for training within the New Code of NLP. In the days that followed, participants were treated to use of metaphor in training, identifying generic patterns from specific examples and the application of the New Code of NLP to communicating ideas, setting exercises and calibrating group members' responses.

John proposed that mastery of a pattern is predicated on the following two conditions: First, that the user can and does apply the pattern to him or herself with consistent success. Second, that the user appreciates the intention for the pattern and its components, so can keep the intention constant and vary examples to suit the context and people in the moment.

This led to a discussion of the utility of generalising applications of patterns into multiple contexts and the skills required to do this. It became clear very quickly, that identifying the intention for any intervention, question or pattern is a useful starting point for creating applications to other contexts. An example of this is the use of intensive definitions.

An extensive definition is a list of all possible examples of something, or all possible members of a category or class. For example, if the category is 'breeds of chicken', then an exhaustive definition would list every breed in the world and leave room for an argument about whether cross-breeds should be included.

An intensive definition is a single line that frames for including all possible members of the set. For example 'all contexts in which I interact with other people', precludes any need to list those contexts or tighten or loosen the entry criteria.

Both John and Carmen flagged the need for trainers and presenters to be aware of a common pattern in students and audiences to fixate their attention on examples of patterns and individual steps if allowed to do so. They created a context where participants routinely considered the intention of any given example or step and worked from it. Generalising from examples to patterns is not a common skill and needs to be facilitated routinely as part of any NLP training program.

Metaphors were discussed in relation to cross cultural training, with reference to finding naturalistic examples like learning to walk or experiencing food, that translate universally across cultures. Again, the intention of a patterned skill was considered to find appropriate metaphoric frames for training topics, reinforcing the underlying theme of learning and teaching generalising.

The participants engaged in practical exercises to develop and refine their presentations with full engagement of their unconscious resources, and learned to craft and deliver metaphors and exercises and to give demonstrations and lead debriefs and question sessions with reference to their topic. They discovered that attending to the intention of each stage of a pattern or question facilitated their ability to offer a useful response that included other members of their audience and provided teaching points for their subject.

We have received many notes of thanks from participants, with comments reflecting their enjoyment and learning through the five days with John and Carmen. We appreciate their comments greatly.