Speaking in public
Jun. 19th, 2005 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenMy turn came up to speak at Wafflers on Friday.
Wafflers is an after-dinner/speaking group - meetings on a monthly basis, we have a rather nice dinner at a hotel in Killara, and after dinner five members speak for ten(ish) minutes each. Each evening has its own topic, set by whoever's chairing that night, although most speakers take it very loosely, which helps to avoid duplication. Each person ends up speaking about twice a year.
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reynardo is a long-time member, and I'd been going with her as a non-speaking guest for a couple of years before I finally decided to join. I'm shy about public speaking (aren't we all?) but although nice people, some of the other Wafflers were a little on the reactionary side - it has a strong Rotary Club element - and some time in late 2001 it began to get rather grating. Not that people talk politics in their speeches (not modern-day, at least); that's one of the big no-nos. But when people assume that everybody else in the room thinks the same way they do, it generates a certain atmosphere that can be rather uncomfortable if you don't think the same way, and so I felt it might be time to make myself a little more visible. Plus, I do try to overcome my irrational fears now and then.
Friday's topic was "What news from the Rialto?" and I had six weeks' notice to prepare a speech, which of course means that I did most of the preparation on Friday afternoon. I knew immediately how I was going to tie in that line - I spent five years of my life with the SCA, much of it on rec.org.sca, which is nicknamed the 'Rialto', and I knew what I was going to use for material, but it took a long time to figure out what I was actually going to do with it; the tone kept turning out far too negative, which wasn't something I wanted to do and wouldn't have been much fun for the audience either. Who wants to hear me bitch about SCA politics?
Around 6 pm I had a couple of printouts of source material, and I'd worked out the structure. Rey andda_norvegicus went out to get dinner and a DVD for him, and I tried to rehearse it.
I really must learn not to do that. Rehearsal simply doesn't work for me. I get nervous, I stammer, I stall. I forget what comes next and have to check my notes, then I have no idea how to link what I just said to what comes next. I stand there for thirty seconds without anything to say thinking "oh god imagine if I did this in front of PEOPLE!" and I come away from it more rattled than when I began.
When we got to Wafflers, I reminded myself of what does work for me: not worrying about it. Had dinner, chatted with friends, left my notes in my pocket and paid them no mind. One brief look-through in the break, and then I paid attention to the two speakers who were on before me. Got up, gave my talk, and it went beautifully. It flowed from one thing to another, I kept the tone upbeat, spoke confidently, and got a very positive reaction. I had my notes in hand, but I only needed them once, and that was for a foreign name; looking through them afterwards, I'd remembered everything I meant to say. All in all, one of my better efforts, which surprised me very much.
I think there are two things to be gained from rehearsal: knowledge and confidence. But neither of those really work for me. I prefer to base a talk on things I already know, rather than looking them up for the talk, and the best way for me to learn a structure seems to be through the process of planning it. (The productive thing about notes for me is not reading them, but writing them.) As for confidence, rehearsing only seems to destroy that in me; the only thing I've found that really works is to take my ability to do it on faith. Once I know the material and how it hangs together, I can make the rest up as I go, and this works far better than trying to write a mental script for myself and then regurgitate it.
Wafflers is an after-dinner/speaking group - meetings on a monthly basis, we have a rather nice dinner at a hotel in Killara, and after dinner five members speak for ten(ish) minutes each. Each evening has its own topic, set by whoever's chairing that night, although most speakers take it very loosely, which helps to avoid duplication. Each person ends up speaking about twice a year.
reynardo is a long-time member, and I'd been going with her as a non-speaking guest for a couple of years before I finally decided to join. I'm shy about public speaking (aren't we all?) but although nice people, some of the other Wafflers were a little on the reactionary side - it has a strong Rotary Club element - and some time in late 2001 it began to get rather grating. Not that people talk politics in their speeches (not modern-day, at least); that's one of the big no-nos. But when people assume that everybody else in the room thinks the same way they do, it generates a certain atmosphere that can be rather uncomfortable if you don't think the same way, and so I felt it might be time to make myself a little more visible. Plus, I do try to overcome my irrational fears now and then. Friday's topic was "What news from the Rialto?" and I had six weeks' notice to prepare a speech, which of course means that I did most of the preparation on Friday afternoon. I knew immediately how I was going to tie in that line - I spent five years of my life with the SCA, much of it on rec.org.sca, which is nicknamed the 'Rialto', and I knew what I was going to use for material, but it took a long time to figure out what I was actually going to do with it; the tone kept turning out far too negative, which wasn't something I wanted to do and wouldn't have been much fun for the audience either. Who wants to hear me bitch about SCA politics?
Around 6 pm I had a couple of printouts of source material, and I'd worked out the structure. Rey and
da_norvegicus went out to get dinner and a DVD for him, and I tried to rehearse it. I really must learn not to do that. Rehearsal simply doesn't work for me. I get nervous, I stammer, I stall. I forget what comes next and have to check my notes, then I have no idea how to link what I just said to what comes next. I stand there for thirty seconds without anything to say thinking "oh god imagine if I did this in front of PEOPLE!" and I come away from it more rattled than when I began.
When we got to Wafflers, I reminded myself of what does work for me: not worrying about it. Had dinner, chatted with friends, left my notes in my pocket and paid them no mind. One brief look-through in the break, and then I paid attention to the two speakers who were on before me. Got up, gave my talk, and it went beautifully. It flowed from one thing to another, I kept the tone upbeat, spoke confidently, and got a very positive reaction. I had my notes in hand, but I only needed them once, and that was for a foreign name; looking through them afterwards, I'd remembered everything I meant to say. All in all, one of my better efforts, which surprised me very much.
I think there are two things to be gained from rehearsal: knowledge and confidence. But neither of those really work for me. I prefer to base a talk on things I already know, rather than looking them up for the talk, and the best way for me to learn a structure seems to be through the process of planning it. (The productive thing about notes for me is not reading them, but writing them.) As for confidence, rehearsing only seems to destroy that in me; the only thing I've found that really works is to take my ability to do it on faith. Once I know the material and how it hangs together, I can make the rest up as I go, and this works far better than trying to write a mental script for myself and then regurgitate it.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 08:53 pm (UTC)Make no mistake, I can have personal conversations, sometimes for hours on end, maybe have days without any speech problems. But put me in front of a bunch of strangers for a seminar or speech, and I'll be grinding out each word like I have a bad case of vocal constipation, to the point that I'll sometimes forget the beginning of my sentence by the time I get to the middle.