By Houston Vetter

What do you do when you think you have been impressed and then go again and receive a new definition of the statement, "He makes quite an impression!" Well that's what Carmine Baffa did for 3 days and 4 nights. The training was held in Atlanta, Ga., July 24- 27; at the Marque of Atlanta Hotel about 45 min from the Airport by Mass Transit System (rail). Next training in September will be closer to the Airport, I have been told. Room rates were $69-$89/nite. Plenty of food venues around.

The training was a Trainer's Training and boy was it ever. I roomed with a fellow I had met at the Modeling Mastery Workshop with Carmine back in April. We had corresponded via email and he had jokingly wrote, "Since he didn't know much about this NLP stuff, for all he knew, they put him in a deep trance; woke him three days later and told him, "You learned a lot and come back again."

He said the reason he was at this training was he had given five different people the assignment to write down any changes when he got back from "Hatlanter" (Atlanta for the rest of us). Well they all said there were good changes and he said after reading Holographic Universe (assigned reading from last training) his whole woldview had shifted.

Carmine started the training on Thursday evening about 7-7:30pm to about 11:00-11:30 pm. This training was different because he gave us pen and paper and gave us homework. He gave us four different states and told us to write four stories three deep. He said to leave the first story open and then start the second story, the same with the third and fourth. Then in reverse order to close the stories. The next day we knew how to open and close loops. Over the next three days he taught us, marking out (VAK), getting the audiences rythmn, anchoring, rapport, Meta & Milton Models, process language, language patterns, embedded commands, Metaphors, you name it and we all had a working demonstrable skill within two days.

Carmine's ability to impart knowledge and skill both verbally and non-verbally is phenomenal. We were done with the Trainer's Training so to speak in about 2 1/2 days. The rest of the time was spent doing change work on us which allowed the Public Speaking/Platform/NLP skills to come out. To see someone go from thoughts of suicide to actually doing change work through metaphor (and doing it exquisitely) on stage in ten to twenty minutes is one of the most amazing and exciting things one can experience. Everyone kept wanting this person to tell another story to someone and this person didn't realize what they were doing. They just thought it was natural.

My roommate said he knew he got what he came for and was curious to see how it would come out. Of course he always had the best jokes in the group and mine were the groaners. But like my Grampa Vetter said, "Where there's a will, I want to be in it." This training by far (really it was by Carmine) is the best I've been to. Maybe I'll see you in September.