Field guide

Learn

Reference pages, not a sequence. Each covers one territory of the craft, and each ends where practice begins: the game that drills it. Enter wherever your last conversation went wrong.

Start here if unsure

The Hosting Palette

The six in-the-moment moves. Everything else on this site orbits them.

First 90 seconds

Openings

Nine ways to enter a conversation at a live edge, and eight ways hosts ruin the entry. Hospitality with direction.

The instrument

Questions

Nine question families, and the repairs that turn weak forms into strong ones. Shortest question, largest space.

The other half

Listening

Nine channels to monitor in any answer — nouns, verbs, time gaps, metaphors, contradictions — and the seven-step follow-up ladder.

The hour

Shape

The eight-phase spine of a long conversation and ten transitions that move between its parts without showing the seams.

Hard mode

The Guarded Guest

Scripts, slogans, charm, and deflection — and the non-adversarial forms that make them insufficient without a fight.