Are you rigid when you speak? I sure was: Tense, serious, always expecting to stutter and trying anything to avoid it. Once I was invited to a public speaking course and the instructor noticed how serious I was as I gave a speech. He laughed, “Can’t you smile during your speech?” I tried, I really did, but I just couldn’t — I was so rigid when I talked! That’s when I decided I had to try the opposite: to play with my speech. Can you do that? Can you play with your speech?
The Problem with Rigidity
Why was it so hard for me to smile during that speaking course? There were only three people in the room and there was nothing at stake. It was just a course in which I was a non-paying visitor. But I was so tense, I couldn’t relax enough to smile.
Although I barely stuttered that day, it didn’t matter — I was still on high alert, always expecting to stutter and doing anything I could to avoid stuttering. That certainly doesn’t make for an effective presentation. No wonder I couldn’t smile.
So, I couldn’t smile, what’s the big deal? Because it shows how rigid I was. When you’re that rigid, you’re unlikely to breathe effectively, and more likely to be monotone and hurry your speaking. Combine those deficits with the tension produced by trying to avoid stuttering, and how can you feel comfortable speaking? How can you possibly enjoy talking?
It became clear to me that I had to break my rigidity before I could make meaningful progress with my speech. But how?
How to Break Rigidity: Play With Your Speech
I tried everything I could to break the rigidity in my speech. I tried relaxation techniques, positive talk, biofeedback, you name it. Nothing worked.
As in everything with my speech, I found that I couldn’t just tinker around the edges — I had to blast it apart.
I had to do the opposite. Rather than be rigid, I had to do the complete opposite — I had to play with my speech. Goof around. Mix things up. Punch holes in it.
Rather than speak in a monotone, I used all the intonation and emphasis I could muster. In place of speaking in a serious manner, I gave myself the license to smile, even laugh as I talked. Instead of rushing sentences together to get out what I wanted to say, I lived phrase to phrase, varying the length of my phrases as well as the pauses in between. Sometimes, I would play around with pauses, seeing how long I could go before the listener became fidgety!
Yes, I literally played around with my speech.
You’d be surprised all the ways you can play with your speech. Emphasize words, add extreme levels of intonation, vary the length of your phrases, take thoughtful pauses, add expressive gestures, barely touch your consonants, prolong your vowels, and so on. There’s no end to it.
Did this work for me right away? Not really. After 50 years of stuttering, I was beyond rigid — I was a walking stiff! But eventually, my attempts to play with my speech enabled me to break through and shatter the rigidity that kept me a prisoner to stuttering.
Can You Play With Your Speech?
Try it. I know, it’s intimidating. You’ve been stuck in this rigid way of speaking for years, perhaps decades. You’re not used to playing with your speech. More so, you’re used to rigid speech — hurried, monotoned, expressionless, shaky, always waiting for stuttering to rear its ugly head and take over.
You can change that. Take control. Start poking holes in your rigidity. Break it.
Give yourself a chance to breathe. Emphasize a word to use up all your breath, end the phrase, take a full breath from your diaphragm and speak on the exhale. Live phrase to phrase. Play with your phrasing, some short, some long. Play with your pauses between phrases, using gestures to hold your audience. Smile as you talk. Laugh even.
Do whatever you need to do to break your rigidity. The more you play with your speech, the more comfortable you’ll feel and the more you’ll enjoy speaking.
Every time you make an effort to play with your speech, you pick away at your rigidity. It’s like taking an ice pick to an ice sculpture: Eventually, it’s going to break. That’s when you’re really going to make progress with your speech. That’s when you’re going to relax and feel comfortable speaking, and that’s a very good feeling.
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