How to run a practice session on Robin

This is our opinionated guide to practice sessions. Robin polices none of it. The platform is shaped around a view of what good practice looks like, and this page sets that view out, so you can use it or push back on it.

Here is the one-line version. A practice session is a real coaching session where the client happens to be a coach. Everything below follows from that.

Before: decide who is coaching

One of you coaches. The other brings something real to be coached on. Decide this before anyone books anything. It is the single decision the whole session hangs on, and it is why every Schedule button on Robin asks who is hosting first.

• If they are coaching you, book one of their sessions from their booking page.
• If you are coaching them, offer them a time from your own booking page. They confirm with one tap.

The booking card shows both roles before anyone commits, such as "Jon: coach · you: practice client". There is no ambiguity about what you have each agreed to. For more on what those words mean, see Host and participant.

If you want both directions, book two sessions. A call where you swap halfway sounds efficient, but it shortchanges both of you. You get two half-sessions instead of one full one each, and it muddies whose hours and whose records they are. There is more on that below. Take a turn each: two sessions, one role per session, each one whole.

Before: bring something real

Here is our strong opinion. Practise on real topics, not invented ones. A made-up scenario gives the coach a client who does not resist, does not surprise, and does not care about the outcome. That is no practice at all. As the practice client, bring something genuinely on your mind: a decision you are circling, a stuck project, or a pattern you keep noticing. It does not have to be deep. It has to be true.

This is also what makes peer practice worth more than practice on friends and family. Your practice client is a coach, so after the session they can tell you what the coaching felt like from the inside.

During: one role, the whole hour

Hold the frame for the full session. The coach coaches, and the client is a client. Not a co-coach, not a commentator, and not "let me just step out of role for a second". A break of role mid-session is the most common way practice sessions go soft. The moment it becomes a conversation about coaching, nobody is being coached.

Run it like the real thing:

• Contract at the top. What does the client want from this hour? How will you both know it was useful? Two minutes, and a real contract.
• Keep the time. Sessions on Robin have a scheduled length. To finish on time is part of the craft you practise.
• Transcribe if it serves you. The host can turn on transcription for the session. The transcript is the host's to keep, and their responsibility to protect. See who controls your data. A review of your own coaching verbatim is one of the fastest ways to improve. If you plan to ask for Robin's feedback on your coaching, tell your practice client before the session. That page has the words to say.

If feedback is part of your practice, keep it until after the session proper. Coach the full arc first, then step out together. Better still, put it in writing. Hosts can attach a feedback form to a session type, and Robin asks the client to fill it in after the call. See feedback after a session.

After: log it, then mine it

• Log the hour. The session lands in your logbook against the session and the partner. It is coaching given if you coached, and coaching received if you were coached. To keep this clean as you go beats a reconstruction at credential time.
• Read your transcript, if you took one, with one question. Where did the client do the work, and where did I do it for them?
• Book the return leg. If your partner wants their turn, that is their session to host. It takes a minute from your chat.

Why one role per call

It is how the profession counts coaching. The ICF defines a coaching experience hour, verbatim, as "A full 60-minute session with a client who has hired you specifically as their coach (not in any other capacity)" (ICF experience requirements). Peer practice qualifies, because the ICF counts barter as payment: "You receive payment (or barter, such as peer-to-peer coaching or coaching in exchange for goods or services) for coaching a client." It is the coaching that counts, so only the time you spend as the coach counts toward your hours. Time being coached does not. A 60-minute swap call is two 30-minute fragments. Two full sessions are two full, cleanly countable hours.

There is one nuance to get right. Coaching inside a training programme does not count on its own. In the ICF's words, "coaching within a training program, or with students, trainers, or mentors, doesn't count unless it's done outside the classroom, with a real client, and separate from the training credits." Independent peer practice on Robin is outside the classroom, with a real client, so it counts.

It is how responsibility stays clear. One host per session means one coach is clearly answerable for the transcript and everything disclosed in it. A swapped session has no clean answer to whose records they are. Who hosts a session covers who is responsible for what, and the professional standard behind it.

It is better practice. The full arc is the thing you practise: contract, work, close. Half a session practises half an arc.

The ICF does not forbid a swap of roles in a meeting. Its rules are about what counts and who is responsible, and one role per session is the shape that satisfies them cleanly.

For a shorter rehearsal without a practice partner, how AI Practice helps you learn explains Sarah’s client role and Robin’s reflective debrief.

Questions

Message Jon directly in the app. He reads every message and answers personally.