[ABC is the Association for Business Communication.]
This October (15–18 October 2025), I had the privilege of joining the Association for Business Communication’s annual conference in Long Beach, California. It was a vibrant gathering of scholars and practitioners dedicated to exploring how communication shapes organizations, leadership, and learning.
I was fortunate to contribute in two very different formats: a 20-minute presentation and a two-hour workshop. Each offered its own rhythm, its own kind of attention, and its own possibilities for connection.
The presentation, “From Embodied Practice to Linguistic System,” followed a more traditional academic structure: a slideshow, clear sections, and the familiar discipline of fitting a complex argument into a tight time frame. In these twenty minutes, I first traced how experiential learning — including aikido-inspired pedagogy — deepens clarity, engagement, and retention far beyond what knowledge transfer alone can achieve. Second, building on that embodied pedagogy, I made a case for analysing aikido as a linguistic system. There is a certain beauty in this concision: the focus, the precision of phrasing, the sense of collective listening that briefly aligns in a clear, substantiated, thought-provoking idea.
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| Two workshop participants in the middle of an aikido interaction. 📷 Greet Angèle De Baets |
It was the workshop, however, “Beyond Roleplay,” that allowed something else to happen. Over the course of two hours, we could move — literally — together. The aikido metaphor came alive through posture and social touch. Participants explored what it means to sense balance, to receive pressure without collapsing, and to respond with clarity rather than resistance. In these embodied moments, theories of communication and leadership turned tangible.
What struck me most was how quickly a group of academics, trained in using words and cognitive learning, could shift into learning through the body: discovering, as many aikidoka know, that understanding often begins in movement, not in speech.
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| Greet Angèle De Baets presenting at the ABC Conference in Long Beach, CA, USA 📷 Dr Jenn Martinsen |
I am grateful for the platform ABC provides to bridge the cognitive and the experiential, the verbal and the physical. Whether in a twenty-minute presentation or a two-hour embodied practice, each format invites its own kind of dialogue. Together, they help our field evolve towards greater clarity, reciprocity, and presence — the gentle strengths of genuine communication. I am already looking forward to continuing these conversations at future ABC conferences and beyond.
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| At the 90th Annual International ABC Conference in Long Beach, CA, USA 📷 Dr Geert Jacobs |
Greet Angèle DE BAETS
Director at Large, Association for Business Communication
Researcher, Engage UCLouvain Saint-Louis, Brussels
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