(Extract from the Circling Guide, 3rd Edition)
Origins in the Bay Area
You can read about the history of Circling and Authentic Relating in Appendix A, and on Adam Coutt’s epic post (google “history of Circling”). Without repeating all of that here, I do want to explain some things in relation to the history of the movement and how it evolved, and name some of the major players.
Circling began before Authentic Relating, in the year 1998. The practice was “discovered” by two men, Guy Sengstock (who now runs one of the major 3 schools of Circling) and Jerry Candelaria, stoned on LSD in the desert at Burning Man. On returning to San Francisco from Burning Man, they brought the practice into the world through a workshop called “The Arete Experience”, which ran for 10 years and then shut-down after Guy burned-out. They also started a free men’s group on the beach of San Francisco which became very popular.
In the year 2003 approximately, Guy and Jerry (along with friends / allies that include Alexis Shepperd and some other women) were found by two other men, Decker Cunov and Bryan Bayer. Decker and Bryan were college friends in Missouri, and had independently discovered the Circling practice (or something very similar) even earlier than Guy and Jerry, although they did not call it “Circling” in those days. They had moved to San Francisco and created a community called “Soul2Soul”, which became the blueprint for Authentic Relating. When Decker and Bryan found Guy and Jerry, they realized that Circling and Authentic Relating were very similar in concept and practice. They trained with Guy and Jerry and joined the Arete training and community.
Not too long after that (2004), Decker and Bryan developed a program targeted to the “Pick-Up Artist” (or PUA) community called the “Authentic Man Program”, or AMP. PUA was a movement, which has since been discredited, to teach men how to pick-up women and have sex as quickly as possible. AMP became globally successful through their DVD training series, and was important for turning Circling and Authentic Relating into a worldwide movement in the mid-2000’s. Unlike PUA, the AMP program presents a way for men to meet women and create meaningful connections in a way that has integrity and heart. It’s also much more effective than PUA techniques (and to note here that PUA was always more effective at bonding men, than it was at creating meaningful connections with women). Thus, it can be said that AMP was the first practical application of Circling and Authentic Relating principles, into the real-world problem of sexual relationships.
Later (2011), Decker and Bryan moved to Boulder and took over the Boulder Integral Center, which became the second major school of Circling. Boulder Integral shut-down in 2019 and Bryan and Decker moved on to other things. Decker now coaches silicon valley entrepreneurs, so it could be said that entrepreneurship was the second application of Circling “technology” into the real world.
In 2008, two young men from the UK, Sean Wilkinson and John Thompson, who had also independently discovered the practice in 2002 approximately, found Guy and Jerry and trained with them. They brought the practice back to the UK, applied it to their tennis academy (which became the third application of Circling into the real world of performance sports), and later started the third major school of Circling which is called Transformational Connection (TC) and is based in the Netherlands. TC later spun-off Relateful.com, based in Austin TX. I received my Circling training at Relateful, through their Level Up program.
So, what happened to Authentic Relating?
Authentic Relating was picked-up again by Sara Ness and Jordan Allen, founder of Relateful. They created the Austin community. Simultaneously, Sara started a school called Authentic Revolution and ran it for 10 years very successfully, becoming the #1 school of Authentic Relating. Sara is no longer active in Authentic Revolution, but it remains one of the major global schools of Authentic Relating, along with ART International.
There are at least a dozen smaller schools of Authentic Relating and/or Circling (see Appendix B), some of them online and a few of them on-the-ground and doing great work, but the largest are the three remaining schools of Circling (Transformational Connection, Relateful, and the Circling Institute), and the two remaining global schools of Authentic Relating (ART International and Authentic Revolution). In addition to this, many cities, especially in North America and western Europe, have local communities of practice for either Circling, Authentic Relating, or both, and there are several peer-led or gift-economy communities as well (see Chapter 11). Look for local groups on Meetup.com and on the communities map at AuthRev.com.
Where we stand today
Where we stand today is that the movement is just over 25 years old and there are thriving online communities who meet via Zoom, plus on-the-ground communities in many places, particularly Austin TX, the Bay area, Boston, Portland Oregon, Seattle, Montreal, London and Amsterdam. There are smaller on-the-ground communities in many cities in the USA, western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Authentic Relating has proven itself to be a solid model for building friendship and community, which you can read about in Sara Ness’s article in Chapter 7. The early history of Circling and Authentic Relating in San Francisco is especially inspiring as a great many friendships and collaborations were created, and large parties happened as well, the so-called “Gratitude parties.” Read Adam Coutt’s history on this, it’s on the web.
Circling variations and copyright issues
As discussed above, there are 3 primary (original) lineages of Circling, of which two have survived: the Circling Institute, Transformational Connection, and the now-defunct Integral-style of circling. Relateful.com is a branch off Transformational Connection, and is similar enough to not qualify as a separate lineage. In any case, each of those practices are slightly different, and people in those lineages have been arguing about “what is circling” forever and quite passionately.
Since 2023, Circling™ has been a registered trademark controlled by the Circling Institute. There has been considerable community opposition and the trademark is currently under legal challenge in both US and EU jurisdiction, and will likely return to the public domain soon as the case for a trademark is quite weak. As a result of this, however, most providers have moved away from the “Circling” brand, calling their work “relational leadership”, “Authentic Relating” or similar. The most important rebrand has been by Transformational Connection (TC), which was previously called Circling Europe. TC now mostly teaches a Circling variation called “Surrendered Leadership” (SL). You may read John Thompson’s wonderful article about SL in Chapter 6.
My take on the situation is that “Circling” is a practice inside the larger umbrella group of “Authentic Relating” (Guy Sengstock, the founder of Circling, appears to agree with this, by the way). “Authentic Relating” will remain forever an open-source brand, according to Decker Cunov who has first-use.
It’s important to realize, however, that Authentic Relating started as Circling, and Circling continues to be the dominant practice inside the AR movement; and so, to take “Circling” out of the conversation altogether, would not be helpful or honor the lineage.
Be aware that there are different “flavors” of Circling. Surrendered Leadership is one of the more powerful and popular flavors, but not the only one. People in Europe, in particular, tend to conflate “Circling” with Surrendered Leadership. Refer back to Chapter 1 for my definition of Circling, along with the distinction between Circling and NVC, and between Circling and other “circle technologies”.
