The Body Speaks
“Do you have an egg?” A customer enquired to a grocer.
The grocer replied “No!!! I have egg” (egg size to be shown)
Toastmaster of the Day, Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests! A very good evening to all of you!!
Some of you are probably thinking that Ashfaque is just too lazy to think of a real title for his speech, so he has labeled it “The Body Speaks” just like labels on generic products in supermarkets, “Rice,” “Juice,” “Biscuits” “Oil,” “Milk”….. “The Body Speaks”.
But, you are wrong. “The Body Speaks” is really the title of my project.
According to the toastmasters manual “When you talk to your friends or co-workers, you move your hands and arms, walk around, make eye contact and change facial expressions. These expressions are called “Body Language”.
The body language normally works as the part of vocal communication. Like “Do you have eggs?”, “Give me a Pen”, “I want playing cards”, “Where is my Calculator?”, “He was drunk!!!”, “I am hungry”
We would never call loudly to our friend Aftab to come from his house to play cricket. Hitting on a drum 2/3 times below his building would make him understand that. He would come in the balcony and alert us with a signal………(showing a signal that his father is at home, you proceed and he will be coming after some time)
I remember an incident that happened with me in Mumbai. My friend Raheem and I visited his uncle’s house in Andheri. I had never seen his Uncle before. When we reached and knocked the door, his uncle opened the door and gave a pleasant welcoming smile and requested us to wait outside and looked inside the house and asked the ladies to go to another room and then he asked us to come in.
I was surprised, only later I came to know that Uncle was in the Traffic police!
Among body language expressions, the most important is eye contact. For example you are reading a news paper and your son ask your permission to go for a school picnic. Your slowly closing your eyes and then again slowly opening it gives a clear idea that he got the permission, on the other side if you are taking your eye balls to the corner of your eyes and look at your son, will clearly signal that you are not giving him permission.
These kind of expressions do not apply everywhere. I can never forget an incident where this eye contact did not work. I had been to attend a wedding ceremony in my village. Since I reached one hour early, most of the seats were empty and so I sat in a corner seat. After sometime an elderly known person came and sat in front of me and started chatting, describing the details of the wedding ceremony of his daughter celebrated a month earlier. I was thinking, “why this old man was describing everything about the wedding ceremony even when I was there in the wedding”. Looking at the old gentlemen I was just quietly listening to the story by giving proof of my attentiveness by doing the necessary haan, yes,… right. Suddenly the old gentlemen asked me “How are the other relatives in Saudi Arabia”. I was surprised!!! and even more surprised when a gentlemen sitting behind my seat said “All are Alhamdulillah fine”.
I realized that the old man was cross eyed.
Have you ever heard the speech of a dumb person? I had the privilege of this in the television news when Lalu Prasad Yadav asked a dumb person to address the audience. Initially I was thinking what kind of game is this? Was this person really a dumb one? Or he will be acting as dumb? Through the news reporter I came to know that Yes he was dumb. I was stunned when I saw the movement of his hands with the yelps coming from his throat, his facial expressions and his eye contact. Since it was the news, I could see only a small clipping, I could not understand what exactly he wanted to say. However, I could feel his emotions and feelings; he was confidently conveying some important message to the audience. I was lucky to be preparing for my 5th Toastmasters project with objectives as body language. This incident only made me to write the speech on the subject and title it as “The Body Speaks”.
Normally everyone is using body language while expressing their message to another, whether a Toastmaster or a non-Toastmaster. Body language comes naturally.
However, when new speakers come on the dais they just cannot involve themselves 100% in the matter.
Why?
Just because of the fear of speaking!
If they involve themselves fearlessly in the talk, then their hands, eyes, facial expressions starts reacting naturally with the words.
Deborah Bull the British dancer, writer, and broadcaster said,
“Body language is a very powerful tool. We had body language before we had speech, and apparently, 80% of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body, not the words.”
Over to the Toastmaster of the Day!