Monday, August 30, 2010

Do some jumping jacks before you rehearse your speech!























Today I ran across a brief posterous post that referred back to an article by Pete Williams which appeared on the Core Performance web site back on August 5, 2009. It was titled Sidelined by Anxiety, and it contained the following quote from an interview with Dr. Jim Afremow, who is a sport psychologist at Arizona State University:


“No matter how hard you try mentally, it’s difficult to simulate a heightened nervous condition. ‘It’s not enough to say, ‘Okay, there are two guys on base,’’ Afremow says. ‘You need to get your heart rate up. I challenge them to do some intense cardio for a minute. You recreate that feeling of flight/fight and then practice. That way, you learn that body response.’

Afremow says this applies even to public speaking. Instead of just practicing a speech in front of a mirror, do a minute of cardio and then deliver the speech. That way you practice under the raised heart rate you’re likely to have the day of the speech.”

That is interesting advice, to practice like you will play. The image is a partially clothed version of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man.

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