Talking gestures

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The gestures with which we illustrate our speech, either help or hinder the listeners from receiving information. They say a lot about us as speakers. They make a significant contribution to the result of our performance.

The absence of gestures (that is, hands constantly hanging along the body or fixed in some kind of static position) is also a gesture that also carries some information about us.

A brief theory about gestures — what is useful to pay attention to:

Symmetry

If a person gestures with only one hand, then this often looks unnatural … As a recommendation: use both hands at the same time or equally, and the left and right hands, if they turn on alternately.

Latitude

If you are speaking in front of one person, at a distance of 1 m, then making wide sweeping gestures is probably not necessary. But if you have a hall of 20-30-100 people in front of you, then small gestures will be visible only to those who sit in the front row (and even then not always). So don’t be afraid to make sweeping gestures.

Large gestures also speak of you as a confident person, while small, tight gestures are more of an insecure one.

The most common variant of tightness is the elbows pressed to the sides. Arms from elbows to shoulders — do not work. And the movements are constrained, not free. Get your elbows off your sides! c.u. from the shoulder 🙂

Completeness

You may have observed how sometimes the speaker speaks, his arms at his sides, and his hands twitch slightly. Feels like this is it! A movement is born! But for some reason it doesn’t go beyond the brushes! Or more often — the movement seemed to be born, began to develop … but died out somewhere in the middle. And it turned out to be an unfinished, blurry gesture. Ugly 🙁 If a gesture is already born, then let it develop to the end, to the final point!

Openness

What can often be observed is that gestures seem to be there, but all the time with the back of the hand towards the listeners. Closed. At the level of instincts, it is perceived — and not whether the speaker is holding a pebble in his hand 🙂 … As a recommendation — calmly make open gestures towards the audience (so that at least 50% of the gestures are open).

Gestures-parasites

Sometimes a gesture is repeated very often and does not carry any semantic load. A kind of «gesture-parasite». Rubbing the nose, neck. chin … when glasses are adjusted too often … twirling some object in your hands … If you notice such gestures behind you, then give them a rebuff! Why overload your performance with meaningless, non-informative movements?

An experienced speaker knows how, like a conductor, to control the audience. Without saying anything, only through gestures, facial expressions, posture, give the audience signals “yes” and “no”, signals “approval” and “disapproval”, evoke the emotions he needs in the hall … See the Gesture Catalog

Develop sign language (body language)

I offer several exercises / games for the development of bright, lively, figurative, understandable gestures!

Crocodile (Guess the word)

A popular game among students. One of the best in the development of «talking» gestures.

There are usually 4-5 guessers in the game. One showing.

The task of the demonstrator is to show this or that word without words, only with the help of gestures.

The word is either randomly taken from the first book that comes across, or someone from the audience quietly whispers the word to the demonstrator, and then watches with pleasure how the demonstrator «suffers». Sometimes not a word is guessed, but a phrase, a proverb or a line from a song. There can be many variations.

The task of the guessers is to name the word that is hidden behind this pantomime.

In this game, the shower has to use/develop two types of gestures.

1. «Illustrative gestures» — gestures with which he shows the hidden word.
2. «Communication gestures» — gestures with which the speaker draws attention to himself, turns on the audience, cuts off the wrong versions, approves the right direction of thought … Gestures that allow you to communicate with the audience without words!

The speaker also develops the ability to hear the audience. At first, it often happens that the correct word has already sounded 2-3 times in the hall, but the speaker does not hear or hear it … After several dozen such games, even if several people pronounce their versions at the same time, the speaker manages to hear them all at the same time and instantly identify the correct one among them.

When the word is guessed, the one who guessed it becomes the one who guessed it 🙂

In addition to the fact that this game is educational, it is fun, gambling, exciting, and will easily serve as a decoration for any party.

Play for fun!!!

Mirror (Modeling)

How do children learn? They repeat what adults do. Monkeys! And this is one of the fastest and most effective ways to learn!

Get a videotape where the speaker has good, bright, lively gestures. It is important that you like the speaker, that you really want to model his manner of speaking (in particular, his gestures).

Turn on the TV. Get close. Start video recording. And start copying the pose, facial expressions, gestures, movements of your model (if possible, copy the voice, intonation, speech …). At first it can be difficult, you will be late, not on time … This is normal. But after a while, suddenly there will be a kind of click, and your body will already begin to move, gesticulate in the same manner as your model.

In order for such a click to occur, it is important to do this exercise for at least 30 minutes at a time.

It is advisable to take not one model, but four or five. To be not an absolute copy of any person, but taking a little from several successful speakers and adding something of your own to their manner of speaking, you would create your own unique style.

Compliance of facial expressions, gestures and words

Reading the next paragraphs will require you to have a good imagination — the ability to create small video clips inside yourself … Because it will be about matching gestures and words!

When gestures correspond to the spoken text, then everything is perfect! The visual video sequence illustrates well what is being said, which makes it easier to perceive the information. And this is good.

To develop such explanatory, “speaking” gestures, you can use the “mirror” exercise.

It happens that gestures flicker randomly, like white noise, i.e. do not correlate with the spoken words in any way … This is usually a little annoying. It seems that the speaker is fussing, making a lot of unnecessary movements, it is not clear why, it is not clear why.

To get rid of such erratic gestures, it is sometimes recommended to take a large thick book in both hands. It becomes difficult to make non-functional gestures with such weights.

The following technique also helps with small finger movements: you close your thumb and forefinger in a circle (oval) so that the fingertips rest against each other. The technique seems quite simple, but it works very effectively! In addition to improving gestures, self-confidence also increases!

But what is really capable of causing irreparable harm to the speaker’s speech is the discrepancy between gestures and spoken words.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen” — to the word “ladies” — a gesture towards men, to the word “gentlemen”, a gesture towards women.

“The criminal must be punished… Such bastards should be put in jail…”, the prosecutor’s speech is good, but the fact that he makes pointing gestures towards the judge at the words “criminal” and “scoundrel” makes the latter shudder slightly each time.

“Our firm has a huge advantage over its competitors…” On the word “huge” the thumb and forefinger for some reason show a small slit of one centimeter.

“The growth in sales is simply impressive …” On the word “growth”, the right hand moves from top (left) — down (right). Represented?

And as psychological studies show, the listener believes more in non-verbal messages (what gestures, facial expressions, posture, intonations say …) than words. Accordingly, in all cases when gestures say one thing, and the meaning of the words is different, the listener has a certain stupor and misunderstanding inside … and, as a result, confidence in the words of the speaker decreases.

Moral — be vigilant 🙂 If possible, rehearse your speech, paying attention to what gestures you use at key moments.

Hint: It’s easier to analyze your gestures when you’re rehearsing without words. Those. words you pronounce inside, in an internal dialogue, and gestures go outside (as in a real speech). If you look at yourself in the mirror at the same time, it is even easier to see what exactly your body is saying.

To be or not to be… that is the question…

Or maybe completely abandon the gestures? Well, them … In addition, they say that the presence of gestures is a sign of the speaker’s low culture — the speaker does not have enough words, so he tries to replace them with hand movements …

The question is debatable… If we move away from theoretical constructions, then in practice 90% of successful speakers (those who gather stadiums…) use gestures, and use them actively. Therefore, if you are a practitioner, not a theorist, then draw your own conclusions.

As for the statement that «gestures reveal the lack of words», then here we are most likely talking about chaotic gestures, which we talked about a little higher. And here I agree that it is necessary to get rid of disorderly gestures (white noise).

As for the illustrative, «speaking», gestures that facilitate the perception of information, it is worth using them! On the one hand, taking care of the listeners — they will not need to strain much to understand what it is about. On the other hand, for my own benefit — if I gesticulate, then the audience will remember 80% of what I’m talking about … and if I don’t, then God forbid 40%.

This completes the philosophical reflections on “to be or not to be” gestures in our speeches.

If you have your own interesting thoughts about gestures, share them with the outside world.

You can learn how to effectively use gestures in the process of communication by studying at the training «Oratory».