What Do You Do With Your Hands?

Is your audience focussed on what you are saying or distracted by what you are doing with your hands? If you have a problem with this you are aren't alone; speakers run into a variety of problems such as some of these:

• Playing with their mustache
  
• Clasping their hands in front of their waist
  
• Hands stuffed into their pocket
  
• Playing with their fingers or electric cords on microphones
  
• Playing with pieces of chalk they are holding like dice
  
• Playing with change in their pockets
  

But remember that all of this is very distracting to your audience and should be eliminated by practicing your presentation in front of a mirror or a video camera so you can detect and consciously work at banishing such nervous mannerisms

Some very good speakers getting away with resting them – gently – on the sides of the stand holding their notes if there is one. It all depends on the speaker. Just make sure that you don't clutch it or give the impression that you are clutching it for support.

The best place for our hands when you are not using them to give some emphatic or descriptive gesture according to speech professionals like Peter Urs Bender and Ron Hoff is by your sides with your fingers slightly curled and index fingers lightly touching.

This might seem unnatural and awkward at first but it will become more natural the more you practice this.

And from this position it is easier to use your hands to create meaningful emphatic and descriptive gestures that will help to drive home the main points in your presentation and make it more interesting.


Watch professional speakers and presenters and you'll see that the best and most relaxed eliminate the problem of what to do with their hands by using them  -- when appropriate to give these effective emphatic or descriptive gestures.