NJ Blog - Ben Walker

NJ Participant Blog


Entry 3 - 21st June 2015

Today saw my first facilitation.

Good.

Happy.

The New Jammers programme should probably, ideally, be repeated at least every couple of years. 

Why?

It adds a another layer or facet to the jam scene.

Jamming has layers and facets.

People bring the layers and facets.

There is strength there.

The final session of the programme was a jam whereby each new jammer played a part in the facilitation. It was, by account, thought of as successful facilitation in itself.

One comment was that the joint facilitation was like a woven texture which was like jamming itself.

Perhaps something to repeat.

Perhaps a duo or trio should facilitate a jam from time to time.

New Jammers.

The community is bolstered. Some glue is introduced.

Approaches to facilitation, like in jamming, is immensely varied.

Dialogue and interaction, as happens in the New Jammers programme would help one to develop the palette of approaches to facilitation.

Plus confidence.

Todays jam was perhaps a combination of ‘old favourites’ and ‘new material’ (‘absorbed from previous experience and reintroduced in my own way’) which was either rehearsed or improvised or a combination of the two.

To have the tools for facilitation and then to be able to call upon them in a improvised way appears to me to be an appropriate aim as a facilitator.

Given the space each of the New Jammers has brought to the table there own idiosyncrasies for what jamming can mean, therefore broadening what jamming can mean to each other. People’s sensitivities, brought into play.

Credit needs to go to Penny and Tom for pulling this together.

The fruits of the work do and will exist.

They have probably touched upon a process which is slightly tricky too. Combining recreation with responsibility.

@TheGlasgowJam/ jamming is undoubtedly a very unique and valuable thing. It’s very inclusive and is rewarding physically, mentally and spiritually.

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Entry 2 - 7th June 2015

Feed

With some things I’ve always been a bit reluctant to plan or, after the event, reflect on too much. I enjoy these things in the present and although I might enjoy the anticipation and similarly savour the memory - the emotional aesthetic imprint of an event - I wouldn’t necessarily have the will or capacity to analyse such happenings. Not too much anyway. Essentially to be a facilitator of a jam is to some degree to mix the world of work and relaxation, or to find a happy balance of such. I find there can be a reluctance here to change a recreation into a thing with responsibility, when I have plenty of those already!

The flip side, curiously, is that perhaps this situation may help to some degree in facilitation by enabling spontaneous responses to the given situation - the people present, the energy in the room. A good facilitation is perhaps one that does not go to plan - not exactly, anyway. My practice facilitation at the last session certainly had a small dose of that, with some changes made on the spot and a whole planned section which did not happen to materialise. This is maybe a positive experience to feed from.

Feed from the energy in the room, feed into future jams, feedback, feed and nourish!

When planning a facilitation there is the question ‘what if’ to the idea of a certain exercise and then perhaps testing it out either, as best I can, by myself, or with my partner or simply in my imagination. Then, when approaching the time of facilitating, with it going live in the room, I might have a different feeling about how the certain exercise might work and this would influence how, if at all, it would be used. Finally, when actually doing the exercise I would be sensing how it feels and where it should go, exploring it as it happens, allowing it to lead its own life. Interesting to think of all the feedback loops!

To facilitate a jam might always involve a tad too much tension compared to taking part but a good experience of someone else facilitating will remind you of its worth. When one gains from that experience it can be fed back into another jam. I see that a jam needs a community in this way, to allow space to facilitate and to take part. 

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Entry 1 - 12th March 2015

One of the best realisations I had at the first New Jammers session was that the act of facilitating a jam is not by any means standard practice and that the culture of facilitating @TheGlasgowJam is perhaps one of its strengths. It is not to say that a jam could not be rewarding without it but that facilitation can for sure add breadth and depth to a jam scene. 

Not an easy thing to do in itself but in order to gain that extra dimension it is worth putting in the effort to keep and nurture and any individual will bring their own background, energy, sensitivities, timbre of voice and so on to the facilitation, giving a jam its own individual flavour.

I say - not an easy thing to do - and I think it would be interesting to briefly explore why I think that is and personally what my own emotions are regarding jams and facilitation.

The first thing that comes to mind is the idea that there are particular emotions involved with the journey that takes place within a jam. A jam is a different time and space to a lot of other activities and it is one which you are a main character in an unknown play, and the risk/reward dynamic involves you opening up/ being sensitive and maybe losing part of yourself in the process. Coming to a jam can therefore have a special quality in which so many elements of one’s being get rubbed and tickled. A facilitator will obviously be integral to this journey and perhaps with this comes a sense of responsibility for other peoples' journeys.

I recognise that some facilitation is better than others but that it is maybe difficult to pin down all the reasons for this and it would be wrong to think that one could be too formulaic in an approach. It does feel like there is a lot to learn. There are so many different exercises and activities that can constitute a facilitation and in either choosing them before hand or having them in store to bring in more spontaneously I guess one has to be grounded and present whilst sharing the mystical journey.

People will naturally look to be guided by the facilitator in a similar way that one might be guided by a therapist, a luxury thing in a way but a rewarding one. In a different setting one could imagine a good long course of training. Even with the New Jammers programme I’m guessing it would be a bit of ‘jumping in at the deep end and learning on the job’.