The Body Electric – Making Physical Expression Phenomenal

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

From the poem I Sing the Body Electric, in Leaves of Grass, 1855, by Walt Whitman

 

Nonverbal communication can account for 90% or more of the total communications process. Numerous studies have confirmed this finding.  Thus, the truly effective communicator must master the use of the body to convey meaning.  To reach people, as the iconic 19th century American poet Walt Whitman rhapsodizes, one must “sing the body electric”.  The communicator must use his innate physicality to connect with others compellingly.  Let’s discuss how each of us can enthrall and satisfy an audience through communications methods beyond mere words.

But first, we need to determine where you are performing.  The physical setting of your talk can affect your body language greatly.  Let’s start with the more traditional, formal speech.

If you are talking live before a large group, you will probably be on stage or at least at the front of a largish room.  Traditionally, you stand behind a podium. This type of presentation is very different from other speaking engagements because of the constraints on body language.  You are, in effect, anchored to that spot.  Most of your body from the chest down is concealed.  Your hand and arm gestures are more limited because of the furniture in front of you.  You can still use head movements and facial expressions to good effect though.  The acclaimed civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a master of this upper body language.  See his famous speech, “I have a Dream”, during which he vigorously nods to emphasize talking points.

If the crowd is big enough, you will speak into a microphone for electronic amplification.  The fixed microphone is a special challenge.  Most people in casual conversation pivot their heads frontally from time to time and hence their mouth position moves from side to side naturally.  But now the situation is reversed.  Your mouth must remain near the microphone to be heard and you can only move the back of your head.  This is counter-intuitive for those without much formal speaking experience.  They tend to drift away from the microphone without realizing it, thus unintentionally changing their voice quality.

If you absolutely must use the podium, the best way to get comfortable with this “unnatural” situation is plenty of practice.  A good sound check using the actual podium and microphone, preferably not too long before your speech, is advisable.

Alternately, you can “ditch the podium”.   Stand to one side of it with a hand held or worn microphone that moves with you.  I greatly prefer this method of presenting because it allows the full range of body language that we will review here. It is not surprising that most famous TED Talkers, even with large audiences, stand on a mostly bare stage and incorporate considerable movement in their performances.  It is just more interesting to watch.

How about the other extreme of settings?  You are communicating while sitting at a table with one person or a small group. The very act of sitting can make this setting more casual.  (But not always. Imagine testifying before a government committee.)  In a way, this is like the podium situation, since your body from the waist down is concealed and you cannot walk around. Again, it is an upper body language game.  Only this time you can use the table top to your advantage.

There is a whole theory around what to do with your arms and hands while seated at a table.  I can summarize by saying that (unlike what your parents said about meals) your arms and hands should be visible and relaxed, not hidden below the table.  Most of the time they should be in a resting position that is natural to you – the forearms from about middle to wrist lie flat on the table top without excessive movement.  Elbows can hang off the table, a slight distance apart from your torso. The hands can be in a number of positions, generally palms down or loosely crossed.  Holding a prop such as a pen  or a document helps.  Don’t fidget with your hands; that makes you look nervous. Don’t fold your arms; that can imply defensiveness.  When you need a gesture to enhance a talking point, lift the hands, or hands and arms together, as necessary, but go back to the resting position more often than not.  This tactic signals you are calm and organized, qualities that benefit most speeches.  In short, look like you are in command of yourself and the situation.

A table meeting is by nature a more intimate setting with its own challenges.  Acknowledging the whole group around you is key, even if it is physically demanding.  If listeners flank you at the table, move your head occasionally 90 degrees from front and from side to side to acknowledge those sitting right next to you. But do so sparingly so you does not looked staged.  Mostly, you should rotate your concentration on the rest of the folks around the table, making eye contact for a few seconds with each so one one feels left out.  And talk with a more moderate volume since the listeners are close to you.

Now what about full on body language?  I mean the occasion when you are standing by yourself, a symbolic distance from your audience, and can employ all your physical abilities.  Let’s describe the possibilities by looking at the whole body and then by moving from head to toe.  I will exclude the many aspects of your voice.  That is the subject of other essays in this series.  Rather,  I will focus on what people see you do.  An attractive picture really is worth many, many words.

Posture.  It’s so important.  When people encounter you for the first time, they invariably analyze your appearance.  That’s human nature.  In the first 30 seconds or so that you have his attention, before you even speak, each member of your new audience judges the whole of you, from your body type to how you are dressed, and he decides subconsciously whether you are worth his attention.  Needless to say, you want initial impressions of you to be as favorable as possible.

Putting aside sartorial concerns (again, for another time), your posture is one of the first things others notice. As countless counselors have advised from time immemorial, don’t slouch, stand upright.  More than that though, it is usually best to stand in an “open” manner to convey confidence and receptivity.  That means hands and arms generally resting at your sides, feet spread slightly apart, head level and looking confidently and directly at the center of the audience.  Only then does the real show begin.  By the way, you can calm down a boisterous crowd or focus an inattentive group, by remaining absolutely still and silent for a few extra seconds.  They will quiet down and look at you more quickly because they begin to wonder why you aren’t doing anything yet!

Eye contact.  At the very least, even if you use little other body language, make sure you look at the audience.  We all know it’s important. But how should you do it?  As you begin your speech, lock eyes with someone in the audience (or with large audiences look at a subgroup), as if only that one other person was there to see you.  After you finish your first thought, usually a couple of sentences long, shift your attention to another person or subgroup.  Continue this way around the audience, lingering for several seconds each time.  (Not too fast please.)  Time your eye shifts with the progression of your talking points.  That makes sense because you are sharing one complete thought with each person on whom you focus.  Plus it is more natural for you and easier to remember to do.  If time and audience size permits, it’s good to double back to people at whom you have already looked.  That way they feel they are part of the continuing conversation between you and them.

Facial Expression.  Preferably pleasant, nonthreatening in most cases, even for serious subjects, and vary it.  And of course, smile, smile, smile, unless, once again, it’s about danger or death.  With big audiences facial expression in my view is less importance than whole body movement and gestures.

The head.  Panning and tilting the head goes along with content changes and significance.  Generally, when one looks down, it conveys thoughtfulness or humility.  It is best not to speak too much when looking down for any length of time because you have broken eye contact.   Looking up implies importance, vision, pride.  You are literally appealing to the heavens.  Finally, swiveling a level gaze implies inclusiveness.  You signals the entire audience is important to you and you want to ensure they get your message.

Whole body movement.  Communications is part theater. And just like other types of theater, choreography separates the masters from the novices.  Gracefully moving can reinforce your message and add visual interest to your presentation. Again this is a vast subject in itself.  Nevertheless, here are a few tips I’ve formulated from hundreds of speeches by myself and others.

The general rule is, move with purpose, not just to “change your mark”.  Otherwise, you can communicate just as well standing in one place.  Avoid “caged tiger syndrome”, roaming relentlessly around the stage, endlessly back and forth.  That is tiring to watch.    Instead, pace your movements with major parts of your speech, to reinforce their meaning while signaling the progression of the speech’s structure.  For example, let’s say you have four main points to make in your talk.  Stay in your original place for your entire, initial point.  Then pause vocally and take a few steps.  Begin your second point, either on the move or after stopping at your second standing place.  Finish the second point.  Pause and move again.  Repeat.   As you come to your concluding segment, return to the first place you stood.  This signifies the intellectual journey you and the audience have taken together is close to its (successful) end.   Coordinate your shifting eye contact with your pacing to make your total presentation even more purposeful.

Advanced communicators can do many other skillful things with movement.  For example they can walk through the audience, even sit down for a moment within the crowd to engage them more personally.  They can dance a  little, disappear in the stage wings for a while, or do other seemingly crazy things.  You can inject levity and surprise to make even the direst subject more palatable. Of course, if the speech is extremely serious, about danger or death for instance, then tone down the theatrics in keeping with the gravity of the situation.  Otherwise, though, more of the dance is probably better then less.

Gestures.  Now here’s a subject I really enjoy.  What can I say, I’m Italian!  But seriously, this is a vast subject. As above, let me share some time-proven pointers.

The arms and hands.  There are significant symbolic differences in how arms, hands, and in particular individual fingers are displayed, especially between open and closed gestures.  An open hand (visible flat palms, straight fingers) can convey honesty, calm, reason.  A closed one (the clenched fist with tightly curled fingers) can convey guardedness, tension, passion.  Pointing with a single  index finger (or more rarely both index fingers) denotes importance of talking points.  Former US President Bill Clinton is famous for his single bobbing, pointing index finger.

Also, how arms and hands move together can reinforce meaning or distract from it.  If you are describing a process, or a series of happenings in a story, then using rolling or revolving motions of one or both hands is appropriate.  They act as a subtle time or distance metaphor.  If you push your hands away from your torso, palms facing each other as if holding a basket, they signal giving to the audience.  In reverse they tell of taking from the audience.   Such back and forth gestures establish in an unspoken way that the communications process is two way, even of you are doing all the talking.

For less experienced speakers, it is safer to use major arm and hand gestures while standing still.  Combining meaningful arm and hand gestures while walking takes practice but can be very powerful.   I know that some cultures use more gestures than others;  you can give a perfectly serviceable speech without much gesturing.  Still, I feel intuitively that skillful gestures make a speech so much more effective. Indeed the graceful, body loving  communicator raises her performance to the level of fine art.

Eyes, face, head, arms, hands, fingers, feet, torso – all paired with voice.  Each of us is endowed with a marvelous collection of physical tools.   Most people don’t do nearly enough with them.  If you want to be a truly successful communicator, it is essential to incorporate your unique physicality into your presentations.

So in short, sing the body electric.  You will embrace and connect with your audience.  You will sway them, entertain them, motivate them.  In return your army of fans will “engirth” you with admiration and the ultimate reward, a charged soul.