Communication Dojo IN-PERSON Tuesday Drop-In Class - Sep 9th, 2025

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​​Tuesday, Sept 9th 2025, 7pm - 9pm (Pacific Time)

Weekly drop-in class

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​$40 - $25 sliding scale.

​This means we'd love to receive $40 for the sustainability of Communication Dojo. We've also provided an early bird price $25 if you register a day in advance. We use Eventbrite for registration, so there is an small admin fee.

​If the price is an obstacle for you please let us know as we can sometimes offer discounts.

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​SF Zen Center Conference Rooms

308 Page Street, San Francisco

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9/9/2025 Empathy Guesses - Deepening the quality of our listening and aiming to understand what's most important to the person we're listening to. Empathy guessing will often increase our capacity to connect and strengthen our relationships with those we want to be close to. It also allows us to build a foundation of shared humanity with those who see things differently to us. If we can get clear on our needs and theirs, new outcomes can emerge that honor the needs of all involved.

Sep 16th 2025 Evaluation/Judgment/Blame and other flavors of "Pointy Communication" vs Observation & Ownership Language Expressing yourself with evaluations, judgments, blame and other "pointy" modes of communication will simply invite defensiveness on the part of the person you're talking to. This makes things less connected, less efficient and less likely to lead to changes that you'll enjoy. This evening we'll look more closely at this, and at more empowered and connecting ways of expressing yourself

Sep 23rd 2025 "Umbrella" or "Finger-Pointing" Feelings - "Umbrella" or "Finger-Pointing" Feelings - When we tell someone that we feel "abandoned" or "rejected" or "manipulated," etc., it's very likely that they will start to defend themselves against a perceived accusation. An argument often follows that might resemble this exchange: "I feel rejected" "I'm not rejecting you," "Well, that's how I feel," "That's not even a real feeling!" etc. In this class we'll look at different ways of hearing and expressing these words that can be so full of information and meaning, but also so frequently triggers for disconnection and conflict.

"Nonviolent communication (or Connected Communication) has helped me and my partner speak in a much more conscious and effective way. It was a perfect transition and supplement to our prior couples therapy. It helps in every way, at work, with friends, with family, etc. I can't recommend these classes and Newt as a teacher enough. I wish we all had to take NVC classes in school, it would change the world." ~ Elise H., San Francisco

JOIN US AT THE COMMUNICATION DOJO FOR THIS WEEKLY OPPORTUNITY TO IMMERSE YOURSELF IN NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION AND TO WORK ON REAL CHALLENGES FROM YOUR LIFE

Changing how you communicate means changing habits, developing new skills, strengthening existing skills, and finding new ways to understand your thoughts and actions, and those of the other people in your life. As you gain greater proficiency and mastery you find that situations that used to trouble you greatly now seem surprisingly easy to navigate, and situations you would previously have avoided completely now fall within your capacity to handle.

The Communication Dojo provides an excellent environment to bring about this change with a combination of:- Study- Practice- Community- Your commitment to a more joyful life

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We don't just want you to understand the skills, we want you to be able to access them when you most need them...

Whether you’re already a student of Nonviolent Communication or not, we all know that in moments of anger, upset, sadness, fear or frustration there's a much increased chance of us falling back on what Marshall Rosenberg called "Jackal" communication - the kind of communication that leads to disconnection and conflict - communication that takes your time and energy but does not give much in return.

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Your body probably tries to give you instant feedback when this happens - even before you get to the bigger signals like hot face, tight stomach, tensed muscles, increasing loudness of speech. The momentum of defense and counter-attack, shut down or flee, can easily take over - but what if you get more quickly tuned in to the signals your body is giving. What if you start listening more to what your body is saying, and including your body, its signals and its movement in a kinesthetic approach to Nonviolent Communication?

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You'll discover how play, movement and bodily gestures can all accelerate the sense of "getting NVC in your bones." Our aim is that you'll develop greater bodily awareness, and respond more quickly to steer yourself in the direction of connected communication any time you start to veer in a less useful direction.

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As soon as you concern yourself with the 'good' and 'bad' of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.--- Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of Aikido

Some features of the Communication Dojo practice environment:

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• Chances to use your real-life situations to guide experiential learning
• Efficient use of group time to maximize learning
• High proportion of time used for small group discussion and practice in pairs - learning communication by communicating.
• Minimal "jargon" i.e. language that might be confusing or alienating for those not familiar with NVC.
• Little likelihood of people developing any sense of "Doing it wrong" or "Trying to do it right."
• Mixture of experience levels deepens practice and learning

Bring your real situations to the dojo

​Experienced with NVC? - Do you sometimes find that your attempts to use NVC do not lead to the connection you want? Perhaps they even lead to greater disconnection? Or are you looking for a different kind of NVC learning environment for friends, family members, or colleagues you really want to introduce to the power and potential of NVC.

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New to NVC? - Come try out the Communication Dojo. You'll find that whatever your current approach to communication, you can start from that point and expand your range of options from there at a rate that suits you.

We rotate through 14 topics, and add a bonus topic every 8 weeks.

Every class is a drop-in, so there's no beginning point or end point to the topic rotation.

You can drop in any week. Each class is designed to stand alone.

​If you'd like to know which topic is coming next, and the dates of the following 4 to 8 weeks of classes, please subscribe to the weekly reminder email. This will simultaneously subscribe you to our monthly newsletter.

​Here you'll find links to handouts, videos and other resources:

https://www.communicationdojo.com/resource-page

Host or Publisher Newt Bailey