Strike a pose, take a stance

Coach stance ‘What are you looking at? Strike a pose.’ (Madonna)

Coach stance Written by: Nick Wright

Madonna’s musical masterpiece – coach stance

Opened the 90s with classic escapism, a subcultural call to discover freedom, in art, that had evaded people in the midst of blistering life struggles in the real world.

coach stance – To dance, and to pose, felt like a light and life-giving relief. In coaching, we sometimes use physical posture, gesture, and movement too.

Take, for instance, a Gestalt coaching workshop I once took part in, led by Jenny Stacey (co-author of Counselling Skills for Creative Arts Therapists, 2001). coach stance

In front of me – the coach stance

One activity:

Three colleagues were asked to stand with me. I was then invited, physically, to depict my past self, my current self, and my future self with each colleague mirroring, physically, one of those three postures in front of me.

As I looked at them standing silently in front of me in the role, it was as if they were depicting my life story set in stone.

I was then invited to depict the future self I aspired to most and to notice how it felt to do that. It was a profoundly impactful experience.

Another example: I worked with a Gestalt coach, Brian Watts (Karis), and spoke of a forthcoming presentation that I felt nervous about. Instead of discussing the issue, he invited me to leave the room, then to re-enter as if I was facing the group I was due to present to. I did so and, as I now stood in front of him, he commented that my hand was on my chest as if covering my heart.

‘How would it be if you were to reveal your heart?’

That simple insight proved, for me, transformational.

Since those earlier days, I have incorporated physical movement into much of my own coaching, training, and facilitation practice. (For examples, see: Just do it; Crab to Dolphin; Let’s Get Physical in the free e-resources section on my website – below). I’m also reflecting on the notion of posture as stance. In contrast to posing as a way of escaping reality or drawing attention to oneself; stance is about a far deeper spiritual-existential decision and direction and the actions that flow from it.

I flashback to my karate days as a teenager.

Stance meant posture and different postures enabled power, movement, mobility, or stability. ‘Powerful, fast, accurate, and smoothly executed techniques can be performed only from a strong and stable base’ (Dunham Martial Arts). Whereas many coaches strive for neutrality vis a vis the agenda and choices of a client, the notion of stance raises ethical clarity, courage, and consistency into the frame. ‘What’s my base? Where do I stand on this?’

I worked as a life coach in a project with neo-Nazi young people.

What does neutrality mean in that context?

One of their goals was to be more effective at terrorizing local migrant young people. Could I wash my hands of responsibility if my coaching enabled them to be more successful at it? Not at all. Y

et some of the agendas that clients bring to coaching have implicit ethical, relational, cultural, or systemic effects that layout of view and coaches are often very unwilling to raise or address them.

So herein lays a challenge: how to make a conscious and deliberate stance without inappropriately imposing our own agendas onto a client.

How to be true to our own values, to be willing to “go there” and challenge in the difficult territory, without compromising our coaching role by doing so. I’m sometimes asked how being a follower of Jesus influences my coaching. Would it be congruent to say it doesn’t?

No. Be real. Neutrality is a myth. Hold to your ethics. Strike a pose, take a stance.

Nick Wright is a psychological coach, trainer and organization development (OD) consultant who works with leaders and organizations in the UK and internationally. (www.nick-wright.com)