Reviewing the NLP Trainers: Nick Kemp

I realise that Nick Kemp is not very well known, but StanNLP65 asked me to write about him and since I've met Nick several times while assisting on Bandler's training in London, I'm happy to give some feedback.

Nick is an NLP Trainer based in the North of England (Leeds or Manchester, not quite sure) and the only reason I know him is because both of us were assisting on the Bandler/McKenna-Breen courses in London. The last time I met him was during one of Derren Brown's TV specials where all sorts of NLP people were invited to come to London. Since then, we only had a few exchanges in online groups.

He has very good rapport skills and seems to be very good at PR, meaning he is good at getting people to think that he is an excellent trainer. According to StanNLP65 "Nick's Master Prac was mostly about Nick and what a great trainer he is. Training was okay, though!"

So, it seems that as a trainer he is certainly not one of the best, but probably not one of the worst.

He used to have a business partnership with Tina Taylor, an NLP "Master" Trainer, who is nice enough, but quite a lightweight when it comes to NLP training. She also was one of the perennial assistants at the McKenna-Breen courses in London. They had some kind of a bust-up, but I don't know any details.

Nick is also one of the few trainers (that I know of) who has been kicked out of the Society of NLP (SNLP), which should make him my hero (fight the machine!), but again, I don't know what really happened.

Nick is also very vocal on LinkedIn, where he has become a top contributor on several forums/groups by posting LOL and ME TOO in just about every thread, which I find highly annoying.

One thing that he deserves a lot of credit for, though, is his re-discovery of Frank Farelly, creator of Provocative Therapy and one of the forgotten (or at least rarely mentioned) therapists who were modeled by Bandler and Grinder when they started the whole NLP thing. Provocative therapy, if done by a master, is a wonder to behold, so kudos to Nick for introducing Frank to a wider audience.

Reviewing the NLP Assistants in London

After I had asked in an earlier post which NLP trainers you would like to hear about, I received several emails from people who wanted me to comment on certain assistants on Richard Bandler's and Paul McKenna's NLP courses in London.

They asked about

- the psychic vampire who everybody tried to avoid

- the top assistant who was thought to be so good at getting people into trance because his breath could stun a rhino

- the NLP Master Trainer who got her certificate because she sucked up to Richard

- Richard Bandler's "Apprentices" who ranged from highly impressive and skilled to total morons

I thought about commenting on those people, but really, none of them are household names in the field of NLP (maybe the "Master Trainer"), so any comments from me would just be mean and nasty and I would hope that I've got most of the nastiness out of my system.

I might actually mention one of them, but need to do a bit of research, so no names at this point:

As far as I know, Rhinobreath actually took somebody's gig to run an NLP course abroad, because he was not bothered about certain ethics, whereas the trainer who was first invited to run the course, was.

If I got the story right, then the foreign promoter wanted the original trainer to cut some corners, which he declined to do.

So the promoter kicked him out, and all of a sudden, Rhinobreath was announced as doing the course, and if my information is correct, ran at least 2 of those courses and finally stopped being invited back after he tried to push his "own" courses, which apparently were not very well received.

For now, I will focus on the more well-known NLP Trainers and the next one coming up will be Wyatt Woodsmall.

What is an NLP Master Trainer?

I once presented at an NLP conference in the UK and after my presentation (which was very well received, he stated modestly), I sat in on some other seminars and generally had a good time listening in on other people's stuff and learning about their approaches.

I am not 100% (would have to look at my notes), but I seem to remember enjoying a presentation by Penny Tompkins on clean language and a seminar on sub-personalities by a trainer whose name I forgot (but who I seem to remember was very pretty).

Then there was this guy I'd never heard of before who presented on something called Thought Pattern Management. Turns out that TPM is a very interesting concept and I will be writing more about it in another post. The guy who presented it was not very impressive, but since I was interested in the topic, I introduced myself and asked him where he learned about it and whether he was an NLP trainer. His indignant answer was: "I'm not an NLP trainer, I'm an NLP MASTER trainer!". I was quite shocked that this guy who I had never heard of before should be one of the chosen few. A Master Trainer? Wow! 

So I researched  bit and found that you can actually attend courses to become a Master trainer. You also have to present a certain number of events before they let you get the tattoo, golden underwear and whatever status symbols are bestowed upon NLP Master trainers (I'm just guessing here, as I am only a lowly trainer). I think this procedure is similar for ANLP and INLPTA, two of the largest NLP organisations worldwide. Not sure if the people certifying you are Master Master Trainers or Meta Master Trainers, but at one point your title wouldn't fit on your business card anymore.

If I got my history right, Wyatt Woodsmall was the first NLP Master trainer, because he handed Richard Bandler a certificate stating "Master Trainer" and Richard signed it. Wyatt is grumpy, but very good at what he does and he really contributed to the field of NLP, so he probably would be a good choice for a Master trainer. 

On the other side of the coin, the SNLP side, you can't attend courses, but you can be liked by Richard. Which helps. Allegedly, some SNLP Master Trainers received their certificates because they helped Richard move house, kissed his ass, or just because he likes them. Not a lot of quality control there. 

Truth be told, some of the Master Trainers I've met are really, really good. Many are not and it taught me not to look for the label, but to evaluate a trainer on his or her own merits. Titles in the world of NLP don't mean that much and Bandler seems to think along the same lines, as he once said that we shouldn't take these things too seriously, because, after all, he himself is not even an NLP Practitioner...

Reviewing the NLP Trainers: David Snyder

David Snyder might be an unusual guy to review, partly because I had never heard of him before until a few weeks ago. David is an NLP trainer and hypnotist out of San Diego, who is also an experienced martial artist.

I stumbled across him on youtube and was really impressed with his presentation style (which I felt is quite similar to my own. We even share the same dress sense....). Lots of good stuff and some very long and detailed videos on stuff like pain control, language patterns, hypnosis, even dating.

Again, I don't know the guy at all, but he comes across as very likeable and very skilled.

Update: Just noticed that he has an alter ego and also puts out stuff under the name David Van Arrick, which seems to be mostly focused on stealth hypnosis. And he is also known as David X, who I am pretty sure I have come across when I was researching stuff on speed seduction.

I think I have written about my dislike of speed seduction and the whole PUA community before, but just based on his youtube channel, I would say that he is really worth checking out when it comes to NLP.

Here is the address: https://www.youtube.com/user/SanDiegoKarate/videos