Do you have good gestures? Unfortunately, your answer is known to me. In ten years of working as a business coach, I saw a maximum of 5 people who had too many gestures. And the shortage is for everyone else. Most often, I often see closed gestures, cuffed hands, or the same gesture, which is monotonously repeated throughout the performance and flickers before the eyes of the audience.
Why are gestures necessary? Are they really necessary? Yes, they are needed and required.
Gesticulation when talking makes the brain work more efficiently. Scientists have long established that in the motor area of the cerebral cortex, the projection of the hands is extremely close to the speech motor area (Broca’s area). Gesticulating, we excite the corresponding part of the brain, this excitation goes to the neighboring area responsible for speech. Gesticulating, we help ourselves to think in the process of public speaking.
Experiments conducted by psychologists at the University of Chicago with the participation of almost a hundred adults and children showed that those lecturers who helped themselves with gestures during a speech memorized the material better and were less tired during the speech.
Gestures hold the attention of the audience. Thanks to gestures, you can place accents in speech and highlight important semantic pieces. There is a lot of text, and if you do not highlight the main thing, only porridge will remain in the head of the people listening to you. How to highlight the main thing? The easiest way — yes, it is with gestures.
Gestures give the speaker a state of confidence. To make sure of this, follow during the performance where your elbows are. I quite often see that if the speaker is frightened, then his elbows “stick” to the body from fear, in a state of fear you just want to shrink … And you go from the opposite — take up more space with your hands. There should be air, space between the elbows and the body. When you open up bodily, it gives you more confidence and freedom inside. Check it out! Wider gestures!
Gestures — enhance energy. In the process of speaking, when the speaker speaks, the auditory perception is actively turned on in the audience. And the visual perception of the audience is dormant … Do you need a sleepy audience? And do not rely on slides, slides will not charge the audience with energy. Only you can do this, and only with the help of your voice and your hands, your gestures. Turn on gestures!
How? Experienced tennis players, preparing to receive a powerful serve from the opponent, jump in advance at the moment of his swing. They are already «rocking» themselves, preparing themselves for an accurate jerk to the ball. This will help you too. Before you start recording a webinar, for example, rub your hands vigorously, make a few free swings of your hands to the sides, forward, up — swing your arms. You will feel that after that the recording of the webinar will go much more lively, you will like the result much more.
Yes, we need energy. Turn on energetic gestures, and your listeners will admire your confidence and your pressure! Here are some simple exercises to help you.
Exercise 1.
Make five different gestures in space. For example, several times try to push away something or someone imaginary, several times to ask for something with gestures, grab something, say goodbye, give, hug, call, hit, open up, etc. Result? Soon you will feel emotionally warmed up. Yes, by working with the body, we change our emotional state. As the great Russian actor M. Chekhov said: “You can’t get angry, stamp your foot, and a feeling of anger will appear inside.”
Exercise 2.
Now take some phrase, for example, an excerpt from the monologue «Hlopushi» (one of Vysotsky’s best roles): «Let me through, let me see him, I want to see this person.» Say a phrase, connecting it with a gesture. First, put the whole phrase on the push away gesture, then say the phrase with the gesture to ask, grab, use different gestures. You will see when gestures change, the emotional content and intonations of the voice change, the way the audience is influenced changes.
Exercise 3.
At the «Acting in Public Speaking» training, I often use a gesture warm-up that activates the hands of the participants. Checked: after a warm-up, the palette of gestures increases. expressiveness of gestures appears. Try it yourself, start using at least illustrative gestures! For example, start telling a story (absolutely any), but — but at the same time show with your hands everything that you are talking about. At first, there will be a lot of gestures, but don’t let that scare you: later, from all this variety, you will select the best. Now it is important to train your hands to work, and after that you have a selection of your best gestures: those that emphasize your main ideas and attract the attention of the audience.
Do you need to keep your audience’s attention? Do you want to boost your own energy? Activate the brain? Then — learn to include the most expressive gestures!
Useful links
Where can I go to do voice acting? Recommended:
- School of natural voice — Kirill Pleshakov
We recommend public speaking trainings in Moscow:
- THE ART OF SPEECH: rhetoric and public speaking
- WINNERS: The Psychology of Influence and Charisma
- BATTLE RHETORIC: The Word as a Weapon
Details by phone:
+7 (499) 705-5695
+7 (925) 602-4430