ILC Fundamentals Arc (13-week Level 1)
A candidate model for how a newcomer is introduced to the EPI tools in sequence — the onboarding arc, as distinct from the developmental arc (twelve-steps), the in-the-moment form (practice-cycle), and the ongoing competency arc (six-facets-developmental-arc).
Layer note (CLAUDE.md §0): This is WRAPPER (layer 3), not core. What it sequences — SEW, the Inner Map, Withhold/Withdraw/Project, the Karpman Triangle, personas, integrity, and the rest — is the canonical Tool library (layer 1) and is not in question here. Only the scaffolding — the order, the pacing, and what gets introduced when — is what’s filed here.
⚠️ Sequence ≠ delivery format. The 2025 ILC Master Curriculum delivers this sequence through a structurally facilitator-led form (recurring
[FACILITATION]notes, teach→demo→breakout→integrate, “RIPPLERS!”, buddy assignments, Mighty Networks infrastructure, a 13-week schedule). This page files the sequence. The delivery format is held separately in structured-curriculum-vs-open-meeting — open fork, not resolved. A practitioner reading this page should hold both questions cleanly: is this the right order to introduce the tools? and is this the right form to introduce them through? They can resolve separately.
Status: CANDIDATE
Live, in contention. First filing in the onboarding-arc slot — no
coexisting candidates yet. The sequence is in active use (the ILC has
been delivered in this shape for multiple cohorts); filing here makes
it visible to the wiki as one structured shape among possible others
the team may surface.
What it is — the arc
A 13-week introduction that moves a newcomer from welcoming and orienting to body awareness to power and integrity to inner-world work to the orientation map, returning at the end to integration and intention.
| Week | Theme | Tool focus |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Welcome / Get Started | intentions, commitments, introducing Reactive/Creative Brain (see inner-map) |
| 2 | Translating the Body’s Wisdom — SE- | sew (the SE part), bodify, the arguable-vs-unarguable discipline |
| 3 | SEW: Knowing What You Want | full-body-yes-no (the W of SEW) |
| 4 | Sourcing Your Own Safety | sourcing-your-own-safety |
| 5 | Experiencing Your Feelings | experiencing-your-feelings, emotional-cycles |
| 6 | Withholds | withhold-withdraw-project, introduces projection-work |
| 7 | Discovering True Power — Integrity | four-pillars-of-integrity, incompletion-inventory |
| 8 | The Karpman Triangle I | karpman-triangle — recognition |
| 9 | The Karpman Triangle II | karpman-triangle — getting out |
| 10 | Navigating Your Inner World — Personas I | personas, persona-interviews |
| 11 | Personas and Projection | personas + projection-work interlock |
| 12 | Introduction to the Inner Map | inner-map as integration |
| 13 | Last meeting | Completions, top takeaways, looking forward |
After Level 1, the curriculum proposes a Level II ongoing structure organized by the Six Facets — filed separately as six-facets-developmental-arc.
What it gets right (why it’s a candidate)
- Body before story. The arc front-loads the body-based tools (SEW and its depth practices through Week 6) before any framework (Karpman, personas, Inner Map). A newcomer learns to drop into the body first, then meets the maps that explain what they’re already experiencing. This is consistent with principle-2 — body’s wisdom as the core mechanism.
- The Inner Map at the end, not the beginning. Week 12, not Week
- By the time the orientation diagram appears, the practitioner has already practiced moving across the Bridge dozens of times. The map becomes a confirmation, not an abstraction.
- Power and integrity early. Karpman Triangle and Four Pillars by Weeks 7–9, before personas. The practitioner has the power vocabulary before they begin the navigation work, which makes persona work less disorienting.
- Containment of intensity. Sourcing Your Own Safety (Week 4) precedes Experiencing Your Feelings (Week 5) and Withholds (Week 6). The practitioner builds the capacity to stay with their own state before being asked to face intense material.
Where this arc differs from a developmental arc
- Different time scale. Onboarding is weeks; the developmental arc
(twelve-steps or whatever succeeds it) is years. They answer
different questions:
- Onboarding arc: what order do we introduce the tools in?
- Developmental arc: what shape does a practitioner’s long-term work take?
- Different completion logic. Onboarding has an end (Week 13). The developmental arc has no end — stations a practitioner returns to, often many times, as the practice deepens (from twelve-steps).
- Different orientation. Onboarding orients to the tools. Developmental orients to the practitioner’s life.
A practitioner could plausibly complete the ILC Fundamentals Arc and
then enter a developmental arc as a separate phase. They are not
alternatives to each other; they are sequential. (See Slot taxonomy
in /glossary.md.)
Open questions
- Whether the order is the only good order. The arc as filed reflects the current ILC sequence. Other onboarding orders are imaginable — for instance, Inner Map first as a frame and SEW as the practiced move, rather than SEW first and Inner Map as integration. Surfaced for team consideration; no alternative filed yet.
- What “completion” means at Week 13. The last week is completions, top takeaways, looking forward. In the curriculum it’s thin; the team may want to specify what the arc completes into — a developmental arc? Ongoing competency work? An open meeting practice? This is part of the post-onboarding question that six-facets-developmental-arc addresses for one possible answer.
- Whether the arc is delivered as a closed cohort, an open meeting with a curriculum overlay, or another shape. This is the delivery-format question — held in structured-curriculum-vs-open-meeting, not here.
What would move this
- A second onboarding arc as a candidate, so the team has alternatives to compare.
- Team conscience that this order is or isn’t the best introduction.
- Resolution of the delivery-format fork — which may reshape what an onboarding arc is, regardless of the sequence.
Coexisting candidates (same slot: onboarding-arc)
None filed yet. Per CLAUDE.md §5, all candidates in this slot would
link ALTERNATIVE_TO each other and coexist until the team converges.
Related
- structured-curriculum-vs-open-meeting — the open fork about delivery format; the question that runs parallel to this page.
- six-facets-developmental-arc — the candidate ongoing-competency arc the curriculum proposes for Level II (after this onboarding completes).
- twelve-steps — the developmental-arc candidate (different slot).
- practice-cycle — the in-the-moment form (different slot).
- facilitator-pathway-vs-no-professional-class — the resolved fork the delivery-format question lives in conversation with.
Source
raw/2025 ILC Version AT Master Curriculum.docx.md, Level 1 (Weeks 1–13).