Yay! It's Thursday night! It's hard not to be excited that the week is almost over when I have a long weekend coming up. And when I say long weekend, I mean two days. Yes. Since class is Monday through Saturday, I have Sunday and Monday off this weekend for the UK Bank Holiday and that is considered the long weekend. Whatever, I'll take it!
Anyways, todays morning class was a pretty normal routine of our semi-supine relaxation exercises, a bunch of random voice exercises, and then more work on our sonnets. Today we did the sonnet from Romeo and Juliet that begins with, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" It was really fascinating to see how each person executed the sonnet differently. What our voice coach wanted us to do was not to recite the poem, but to read it, be able to say each line without looking at it on the page, and put our own emotion and story behind it. He wanted us to talk to whoever we were reading the sonnet to, not TELL the sonnet to them. It was eye-opening how quickly the tone of people's voices and the way they read the sonnet changed so drastically. It also was eye-opening to see how the sonnet took on so many different meanings depending on who was reading it. Our next assignment is to choose one of Shakespeare's sonnets to share with the class at the end of the month.
Walking to class today, Maggie and I realized that we are already coming to the end of our second full week here in London! Could it be true that we only have two weeks left? After a bout of homesickness, I am now at the point where I am definitely NOT ready to leave this beautiful city! I also am realizing how much of this city I have been taking for granted, as well as my time here. Every little moment counts, and there's so many small things about London that I want to make sure that I will not forget. So I am going to try and work on that for the next two weeks so that I don't leave with any regrets.
In our afternoon class, we had a workshop with two men who have created a company called, "Craft of Communication" which goes into big businesses and corporations and teaches employees how to communicate effectively. Obviously, with only two hours time we didn't learn that much, but we did take away some pretty interesting information. One thing that I found interesting is how much the fight or flight reaction has to do with the way we present ourselves and the way we communicate. When someone is shy or closed off, they tend to slouch and lower their heads. Little did we know that this is actually instinctual as they are protecting their visceral organs in the stomach and the jugular in their neck. If someone is insecure with themselves, this is a natural defense mechanism. On the other hand, someone arrogant and confident may hold their head high, exposing their neck and jugular and instinctively saying, "I am not afraid. Just try and hurt me." Another fascinating fact that they told us was that only 7% of communication actually has to do with the words that you say. The other 93% is body language and the tone of your voice. So as much as you think what you are saying may matter (which it still does, of course) it is more about the total presentation of yourself. Finally, we were given the "Status Toolkit" of things we can do to present ourselves with a higher sense of status. These were:
1. Own the space and time. - If you walk into a room, from the second you cross that threshold you should be holding your head high and maintaining eye contact. Not only that, but when you begin to speak, you must believe that these people are here to listen to YOU and YOU own that room and that it is YOUR time. This will help you to slow down and thoroughly get your ideas across.
2. One thought, one breath. - It is so easy for people to stumble through their words so fast that not a single thing is actually heard (sounds like me.) If we focus more on separating our ideas into separate smaller ideas, and giving a breath to each one, we will learn to slow down our speaking and pause more often to make sure our ideas are coming across the most efficiently. Which leads me into the next point...
3. Punctuate your words. - It is important to actually finish each word you say and make it finite. If you are saying "project" don't say "projec." Say "projeCT." You know what I mean? There is a big difference; one that separates you from lazy to articulate.
4. See and be seen. - We all believe eye contact is THE most important part of communication. And in some ways it is. But it also important to allow yourself to BE seen. You must have that openness in both ways, seeing people and letting them see you that they can better empathize with what you are saying.
5. Maintain your three points of contact. - It is important that each of your feet keeps three points of contact; the heel, the big toe, and the little toe. With these three points of contact comes the most stability, and the appearance of the most stability, which makes you seem more confident in front of a big crowd or audience.
6. Divide your audience into three sections. - Many people who want to keep eye contact with their audience do something known as "the sweep" where they constantly swing their eyes back and forth across the whole group of people in front of them. Little do they know that this behavior just makes it harder for the audience to concentrate on the words that they are saying. Instead, it is better to separate the audience into three different sections: a left, a right, and a middle. Always start with the middle, and transfer your eye contact at the end of an idea or phrase. This way, you are engaging the whole audience without making them dizzy.
After all of this talk about communication, my brain was buzzing with new information and it was time to wind down. It was happy hour at Benito's Hat, a little mexican joint down the road from class, so we went there with a bunch of the girls and got delicious burritos and watermelon and strawberry margaritas. We ended up staying there for almost three hours just talking, but it was really nice. It was way better than just going home and sitting on my computer!
It's getting late now, and tomorrow we have to be up by 7:30am to get to Shakespeare's Globe by 8:45 for a backstage tour! We aren't supposed to have a full day of class tomorrow, and Maggie and I are hoping we will make it to the famous Tower Bridge (aka London Bridge) before the day is through.
Until then!!
No comments:
Post a Comment