The Definitive Best Man Speaking Guide Part 3
Gestures
A gesture is simply a specific movement that reinforces a verbal message, or conveys a particular thought or emotion. Although gestures can be made with head and shoulders, even legs and feet, most gestures are made with have hands and the arms. Your hands can be the best aid in communication your message. Therefore, it is important to know your speech and not be gripping a piece of paper or notes to prompt your speech. By doing this you basically remove the most powerful tool you have in your speaking arsenal to help get your message across.
Inexperienced speakers are unsure what to do with their hands, some try to get them out of the way by putting with in their pockets, or behind their backs. Or even wave their hands with no real purpose, or use their hands in a manner that distracts from your words. Don’t do this! Your actions with your hands should be purposeful and suggest the precise meaning of what you are saying.
Other gestures can have universal meanings, so are easily understood by your audience. Things like nodding your head up and down as to signify a “Yes” statement or an “Agreement” as an example. Whatever your gestures you choose to incorporate, they should be purposeful and add to the impact of your speech.
Good Gestures can have the following effects
They clarify a statement, or give visual support to a statement
They dramatize your ideas and help illustrate your points
They add emphasis and punctuation to your words
They help dissipate nervousness and tension
They function as a visual aid for your audience
They stimulate participation
They will arouse visual senses in your audience
Despite the vast number of movements that qualify as gestures, all gestures can
be grouped into a few categories.
Descriptive gestures
Emphatic gestures
Suggestive gestures
Prompting gestures
Descriptive gestures are used to clarify or enhance your message. They help the audience understand comparisons and contrasts. They can help visualize shape, size and movement or location. Emphatic gestures are used to underscore what’s being said. They indicate earnestness and conviction. For example, a clenched fist suggests strong feeling, such as anger or determination.
Suggestive gestures are symbols of ideas and emotions. They help a speaker create a desired mood or express a particular thought. Eg. A shrug of the shoulder can indicate ignorance, or a suggestion of a question.
Prompting gestures are used to evoke a desired response from your audience. If you want listeners to raise their hands, then you must first raise your hand. If you want to raise a glass, then you should prompt this by first raising your glass.
Some tips on using gestures effectively
1. Respond naturally to what you think and say. Don’t suppress your natural
instincts.
2. Create the conditions for gesturing, not the gesture itself. That is – be involved
with communication, not worrying about your hands. By immersing yourself
into the speech, your gestures should come naturally
3. Suit your actions to the words and your speech
4. Make your gestures convincing
5. Make your gestures smooth and well timed
Body Movement
Changing your body position during a speech is the most obvious form of visual communication you can give. The trick is to use this powerful communication effectively and purposefully. When you control your movement your entire body is supporting your speech in three ways:
It supports and reinforces what you say
Attracts the audiences attention
Burns up some nervous energy
All of these however can work against you. So just remember that you should never move without reason. Your eye is always attracted to a physical movement. Notice that the whole audience attention is disturbed by someone entering the room late? Or someone dropping an item to the floor?
Make sure you don’t move around too much, or inherit nervous movements such as rocking or swaying. These can have a disastrous impact on your speech. Practice movement in your speech beforehand to help train yourself to move in a purposeful manner when you speak.
Facial Expressions
Certain facial expressions can be a dead giveaway to nervousness. Maybe a straight expressionless face is good for poker, but it is absolutely the opposite in a good best man speech. People will tend to watch your face when you are speaking, so it is a good reason to smile and be happy. Remember that your audience is a mirror image of what you are saying, so if you smile, chances are you’ll get plenty of smiles back. This is a great occasion, so a smile throughout your speech is a fitting emotion to convey on your face. Try not to frown, or let an other nervous behaviors effect your facial expression. As with gestures, to your audience, your facial expression is a barometer of how you are feeling. They will look to your face primarily for evidence of sincerity, so make sure your face is a mirror
image of your words.
Examples of nervous facial expressions include jaw clenching, quivering bottom lips, excessive blinking, biting teeth and lips. Show the audience and the bride and groom that you are pleased to be able to congratulate them publicly with a great smile and suitable facial expressions that syndicate with your words.
Eye Contact
When you speak, you involve your listeners with your eyes. This makes your speech personal and conversational. It includes everyone in your speech about those with whom you are talking about. One sure fire way to break the communication bond with your audience is to fail to look at them at all. No matter how large an audience may be, each listener wants to feel important, to sense a personal connection with your words.
When you are speaking about someone and that person is present, you need to be looking directly at them. Turn your shoulders to face the person and look directly at them when you speak. Once you see that your audience and your subjects become increasingly interested in what you are saying, the easier it will be to make eye contact.
Additionally, by watching the audience’s reactions, you’ll be able to assess the audiences attentiveness and reaction to certain parts of your speech. And if you are really cleaver, you’ll be able to adjust your speech and points of reference and emphasis accordingly.
How to Make a Good First Impression
This part is easy! You’re at a wedding, so no doubt you’ll be wearing an outfit fit for a wedding. Tailored or not, it will be smashing. However, part of making a good first impression is in your mannerisms too. When you are being introduced, don’t be shuffling paper around, this is a distraction to the audience. You shouldn’t need to by now as you should have rehearsed your material and know it well enough not to require notes. Breath slowly, and count from 5 to 1 in your head to help center yourself and relax before you stand up. This will help project a cool calm persona to your audience right from when you stand up.
When you initially speak, if you aren’t well known to the whole audience, it will help to include some form of introduction. Something that is light hearted often works best. Something like:
“Hi, my name is John, and I’ll be your best man for this evening…”
If you need a microphone, but are not used to speaking in a microphone then don’t blow or splatter any tests into the microphone… it is better to include your audience with your tests to see if it is working at the right level for you.
Here, use something like…
“Don’t worry if you can’t hear me at the back. The silence from those in front will assure you you’re not missing out on anything…”
Conclusion
Public speaking from hear shouldn’t be as terrifying as you initially think. With careful planning of your movements, and knowing what your nervous tendencies are, you can help by replacing them with other purposeful movements that tie in with your words, thus creating an overall image in your audiences’ minds. The best public speakers have learned how to overcome their nervousness and create good powerful speeches that are accompanied by gestures and movements that create a powerful impression on their audience.
Good luck with your speech
Gareth Berry