In this series on rehearsal techniques, we are focusing on using the five senses as a way to play with our content. When we prepare for a talk, an interview, a training, even a tricky conversation, it’s important to surprise ourselves by using techniques that bring out the unexpected. We often think of preparation as simply “looking over” or “running through” the content. This is great for familiarizing ourselves, but keeps our relationship with the content pretty superficial. In rehearsal, we deepen that relationship, giving the content an aliveness, a spontaneity. We’ve talked about hearing the sound of the words, tasting the language, and this week we use sight: we use our bodies to show the words, to move them. We’ve all seen speakers who seem divorced from their bodies, their arms, faces, breathing held tight, rigid, as if they are more electronic speaker than human speaker. By showing the content in our bodies…Read on.

Anyone here fallen asleep during a production of Hamlet? I may have…Certainly the text is pretty extraordinary. So why might someone be bored or not able to connect to this most human drama? Most likely be cause the story is only told verbally and not inhabited physically. There is no coherence between the words, the expression, the body, and the intention. And haven’t we all experienced the strange pit in our stomachs when someone’s words do not match their expression? Maybe they tell us that everything is “just fine,” while tears pour down their cheeks. Or that they are not angry, though their jaws are clenched tight. Or that they’re listening while scanning social media. When our physical communication is incongruent with our words, the other, the audience, the group, feels that tension. They hear one message and receive another.

Most of the time we communicate without words at all—just gestures, expressions, sighs…read on for ways to find congruence…