Many of my clients ask me what they should do with their hands when they are speaking. The simple answer is that when your body is centred, with good, relaxed posture, you will find that your hands move naturally. When you have that feeling of confidence and esteem then the skill is to draw on your repertoire of natural gestures.
If you think you need to work on what to do with your hands, there are a few things you can try and I find these work well with my clients:
Observe yourself in relaxed situations: Find your natural gestures – notice what you do when you are relaxed and at ease (you may find it helpful to video yourself) – at dinner, glass of wine in hand, chatting happily. Those are the gestures that will also help you express your ideas in front of an audience.
Observe your nervous tics: Notice what you do when you get nervous. Do you cross your arms? Grip your hands or a pen? Point? Put your hands behind your back? You need to stop these tics. It takes a little discipline to notice them when they show up but if you breathe and relax your shoulders then your hands will relax. If you are worried your nervous gestures will surface when you speak, do some rehearsals on video and see if you can cut them out. Or get a friend to watch you rehearse and call out each time you fall back into nervous habits. You can stop nervous twitches pretty quickly when you pay attention to them.
Relax your body: The absolute best way to ensure that you always know what to do with your hands is to relax your shoulders, hips and ribs.
When performers warm up they shake out and swing their legs, arms and shoulders. They know that when the body is relaxed you don’t have to worry about what to do with your hands as your body will be able to move more naturally.
This is a great exercise for keeping your shoulders relaxed. Do it whenever and wherever works for you.
1. Pick up your shoulders on the in- breath, drop them on the out-breath.
2. Roll your shoulders slowly forward in a circle. Roll them back. Do this five times.
3. Checking you won’t hit anything, swing your right arm forward and back. Do full circles if that feels good. When you’ve done ten circles, swap over to your left arm.
4. Give your hands a gentle shake out to release any tension.
5. Finally – and you can pay attention to this all day – keep your shoulders wide and open. It can help to imagine angel wings!
Please share how you find this!
Have a great week.
Caroline x
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