25/09/2023
Have you ever felt your heart race and palms sweat at the thought of speaking in public? Do you find yourself stumbling over words or forgetting what you wanted to say? If so, Public speaking can be a daunting task, especially for those with little to no experience in this field. That's why a public speaking workshop was designed.
The aim was to unlock the secrets to feeling at ease and confident while talking or on stage and the approach was not limited to beginners; those with prior experience in theatre or public speaking were also welcome.
Jesse, the facilitator created a workshop specifically for individuals who have never ventured into public speaking. He began the session by emphasising the importance of punctuality, sharing a small story related to his brother to illustrate the fact that stress can sometimes freeze our mind causing us to forget the name of our own sibling.
Throughout the workshop participants engaged in various exercises and practices to support everyone and become more comfortable when speaking in front of others.
One exercise that stood out was the ‘zaaaaaaa’ exercise where all participants formed a circle and each of the participants pointed to another participant while loudly saying “zaaa”. It may have seemed silly at first but this exercise revealed the rhythm, the intonation of our voice, the way of pointing the finger at others etc and could impact the energy of the group while catching the attention of the audience.
Jesse also showed us different exercises to relax ourselves before going on stage.
After that everyone started to practise.
Each one of the participants went on stage in turn, saying hello and their name. Well, it turned out that it was not so simple between the rhythm of the walk, the intonation of voice, positioning on stage, body language, the way we look at the audience or the way we run away from it. All those details turned out to be super important. But very quickly forgotten because of the stress.
In brief awareness, relaxation and slow down are the 3 keys to success for mastering public speaking.
All the participants were delighted with their participation and interested in doing a second session of this program.
Let us know if you would be interested in us hosting another one by sending us an email at youthlink@auroville.org.in
Written by Gwjwn