To be fair, I was exaggerating when I used the phrase at war. I basically like people. I've always, in many ways, liked the participants. And, in many ways, I have not liked them. Not due to anything about them, but a sort of.. invisible structure I felt? Like a pressure that would ask me to hold myself in a particular way. And so in the past, I was in the workshop as an avatar of the entity CFAR, and an avatar of Holding the Cool Skills, and that invited in a lot of masking which blocked genuine connection. I used to spend as much time hiding outside of classes as possible. But at this most recent workshop there was an immediately apparent and distinct quality that I felt of.. I'm not trying to sell anything. I don't need to be in any way. In the absence of pressure, then it was so easy to be around participants and like them — and some of this is personal growthy stuff, my social anxiety has gone down etc etc, but I believe there's a bigger change in how CFAR is inviting staff and inviting participants that made for an even more wholesome and friendly environment. 

This is a great write-up!

re: "As best you can, try not to worry about the other participants' experience, when it is your turn to be the focus of the circle...." 
I think it's pretty important to hit this point strongly in the initial context setting part, ala "Then (even if everyone present has already been in a Hamming circle before!) it helps to have someone explicitly set context, and to remind the group".

Even though you had the paragraph referenced above and the paragraph with "The idea is that, for the duration of the circle, instead of having access to just one brain's power...." I want to hit even harder that everyone in the hamming circle, when it's not their turn to be in the focus, are genuinely there to be of service to the primary individual. There's an important leaving of ego behind, an important checking at the door any sort of politeness, a handshake that says, "No really. We want to hear what you have to say, fully truthfully vulnerably. We want to give you our full undivided attention here. We're going to help you in whatever way you want to utilize the help we have on offer." This both serves to encourage the one in focus to relax / open up / actually do the thing, and it encourages the ones in the support role to focus on why they're there vs eg "doing it right" or "not saying the wrong thing". 

While people show up with good intention, they're not always able to follow the format of Hamming Circles. Sometimes the one in the center isn't willing to interrupt. Sometimes the ones supporting don't notice that they're not synced with the main individual. As the facilitator, I make sure to be tracking this. An example of that in practice: if it's Bob's time in the center and Alice has been talking for 3 minutes straight, I might interject with, "Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I want to double-check: Bob, is this the thread you want to be on?" Clumsily done, it can make things worse than better, but I do prefer installing these kinds of safety rails as the facilitator.

Also while "Prerequisite: Hamming questions" is at the top here, I want to emphasize explicitly that doing the Hamming questions or something like it is essential to successfully doing a hamming circle.