In many ways, the single most important thing a public speaker can do to improve her performance is to stand properly.  How we stand signals to the audience – unconsciously – whether or not we perceive threats in the room, and the audience picks up those signals – still unconsciously –and goes into flight or fight mode accordingly.  The result is that a nervous speaker makes the audience nervous and it all goes downhill from there.   And of course it all happens before the speaker even opens her mouth to begin to speak! 

Standing with confidence and authority, then, is key to beginning a speech successfully.  If you stand with a confident, open posture, you’ll send unconscious ‘trust’ messages to the audience and begin much stronger than the frightened speaker.  And you’ll create a happier bond with the audience. 

The Alexander technique is one of several methods designed by charismatic founders that will help you in precisely this important way.   Alexander was an actor in Australia who found that his posture was injuring his voice, and he developed his technique to heal himself. 

The founder and director of the Alexander Technique School New England, Missy Vineyard, has written a book on the technique, and it is mostly about standing and sitting properly.  How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live, is an extraordinary exploration of how posture and motion influence our lives.  I recommend it highly for anyone who wonders if his posture is helping or hurting his public speaking performance. 

In the meanwhile, here’s a quick way to test your posture.  Stand, feet shoulder width apart, looking forward, arms at sides.  Now raise your arms as high over your head as you can, touching them together, and let them fall naturally back to your sides.  That quickly aligns spine, neck and shoulders – though you should be warned that your natural slump, if you have one, will quickly take over again.  Gravity is never defeated for long.