The Last Half Hour

Note to Self: there is absolutely nothing wrong with spending the last half hour of a day long project just chilling with participants and reflecting on what we've covered so far (isn't that called evaluation?) :)

Recently, on a totally brilliant in-house training day with the Musical Inclusion Team at NMPAT (www.NMPAT.co.uk) led by the inspirational Isabel Jones, my head was exploding with new ideas and experiences – a really rewarding session. I'm sure we've all experienced training when we've come away feeling that we haven't learned or experienced much that's new, but Isabel's session was refreshingly stimulating and challenging.

We had half an hour left, and Isabel offered us two activity options during this time. I can now be honest and say that I was “full up” and would really have liked not to tackle anything else new at the end of the day – but it's often me that's outspoken, so I decided to go with the flow.

The outcome was that we covered another fascinating and insightful practical exercise in music-making, which really deserved far more time than we had – we could have spent much longer developing our ideas. However, within this activity there was an incident which triggered many insecurities for me, and at the end of the long day I was not equipped, emotionally or mentally, to deal with it very well.

My ongoing reflection about this has several aspects, and I may share some of them at another time. For today though, I think as a practitioner I'm going to be far easier on myself if I have a group for longer than an hour or two in future. There's no great Rule Book in the Sky that says I haven't earned my fee unless I fill every single minute to the end of the session, or that people will feel short-changed, which I think is what usually drives my work. I shall endeavour to read the energy of the group, and know that I can always save my next great idea for another time. After all, smiling faces on the way out are going to remember all the good things, and sign up for the next time :)

(Another Note to Self:  don't miss any of Isabel's training sessions, they're amazing!)