What do you do with your hands when speaking?

How to take control of runaway, fidgeting, twitching hands

Have you ever noticed your hands have a life their own?

Once you've opened your mouth to begin presenting, suddenly they're off doing stuff all of their own accord.

They're flapping around like a pair of hyperactive butterflies, wringing and clasping at themselves like desperate lovers. Put them in your pockets and they fiddle with coins...

Hands. What can you do with them? How do you tame them, and better still, how you make them work for you, rather than against you?

You want the audience focused on what you’re saying, not the antics of your fingers.

Here's a couple of suggestions to try.

1. Video yourself presenting

You'll become conscious of what you do because you'll see it. Most of the hand wringing, pocket jingling, clothes tugging, or other distracting behaviors occur because we are unaware of them. When we actually look and see what we do, we can do something about it.

2. Look for the natural places to gesture

Begin with your arms relaxed and by your side. Then go through your speech aloud as if it were a conversation with a friend, looking for the places where gestures would normally and naturally arise. (You’ll know where they are because you’ll feel the urge to make a move.)

These are the places to give your hands permission to play. They can emphasize and enhance a point by showing, for example, size (small, large, huge), feeling (bewilderment, resignation, anger…), or relationship (close to my heart, distant).

Be sure to make whatever gesture you use clean and clear, decisive and unambiguous. When completed, return your hands to their at ease position, down by your side.

If you are using notes or note cards, put them on a lectern to one side of you - close enough to see them easily. The temptation, if you have them in your hands, is to hide your face behind them or, wave them around. (And if they are papers rather than cards, they rattle.) Put them down. Glance at them when you need to. Turn the page when required, then bring your hands back to the rest position.

The only way to take control of runaway hands is to practice. It will feel strange at first, however using them to gesture consciously will boost the overall effectiveness of your speech. Try it and see for yourself.

For more see: 6 ways to make your body language more powerful while presenting.

Until next time,
Susan

PS. Please don’t force gesture. If you do, it will come across as artificial and awkward and that will seriously undermine your credibility. Take your natural, organic response and enhance it.

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