Thursday, March 10, 2011

Communicate with Enthusiasm, Part II

Get Physically Involved. Here's a great rehearsal technique for those real-life acting moments. It's easy and works every time: Before you begin a run-through of any kind of presentation, do thirty (or more) jumping jacks, counting each one out loud as you go. As soon as you get to thirty, jump right in and start your speech. Don’t even pause to catch your breath. You may find yourself perspiring or breathing heavily as you speak, and that’s just fine. The point is to get your body into a state of excitement and start the speech from there. When your heart is thumping and your physical energy level is high, your vocal energy can’t help but follow. Even as your heart and breathing rates return to normal, you’ll probably find that your speech retains a quality of urgency that is non-habitual for you. Try to hang on to this heightened sense of physical involvement all the way through to the end. The great thing about an exercise like this is that it works with the principles of kinetic memory. With enough practice, your body will start to remember what it feels like to be physically committed while speaking and will automatically return to the heightened energy level it found through the jumping jacks, every time you start your speech.

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