I’m going to write a series of blogs on rehearsal, because it’s a practice more honored in the breach than the occurrence, and it should be the other way around. 

People wiggle out of rehearsal in a variety of ways.  They say, "I’ll just wing it."  That’s usually fatal, and ends up turning a modern virtue — the casual approach — into a sin — verbal chaos of one kind or another.  Or they say, "I don’t want it to get stale," as if that were a serious problem.  It’s far more likely that it will never come to life to begin with, let alone get old.  Or they say, "I’ve run it through in my head," as if that were enough.  The problem is that every communication is two conversations, a verbal one and a non-verbal one.  That second conversation is just as important as the first one — in some ways more important — and you can’t, by definition, run that through in your head.  You can’t. 

So you need to rehearse.  How do you do it?  As often as possible, but at least three times.  Here are the basics.

The first rehearsal is for the content.  The first time, just try to get the words out.  Don’t worry about what actors call ‘blocking’ — how you might move around.  Just get the words out.  Find out if anything needs to be changed or fixed.  See how long it takes, and how well the transitions work.  Test it.

The second rehearsal is for the non-verbal ‘conversation’.  The second time, with the text stable, work on finding out how you’re going to stand, to move, and where during the speech you need to do what.  Don’t worry so much about getting the words perfect, but do feel the speech, as a dynamic production of your body.  Ideally, you’ll have someone tape you, so you can see how you’re doing.

The third rehearsal is for the emotional journey.  A good speech takes its audience on an emotional as well as an intellectual journey.  So on this rehearsal, go over the top finding places to express all the emotions of the speech.  You should map them out in your mind just as you map out the movement.  Where do you start?  Where do you finish?  How do you get from one to the other?  Go crazy, because when you give the actual speech, you’ll retain some of the life of this rehearsal.  Most people are too bland, emotionally speaking, because they’re afraid of showing their emotions when they speak.  Unfortunately, that just makes them boring. 

That’s the bare minimum.  And you should always try to rehearse at least once in the actual space you’ll be talking in — either rehearsal 2 or 3.  In subsequent blogs, I’ll talk about other kinds of rehearsals for people who really want to be ready.