Practice, practice, practice - Part 1 of 2

Pasadena Jaycees Toastmasters club meeting.

To prepare for the upcoming District F contest I arranged to be an evaluator for an advanced speech. It was the Storytelling Manual #4 project which is using story to elicit emotion. I was a bit distracted as I was running a Flip video cam taping the speech. The result was I wasn't able to take notes. I then tried to use a Table Topics approach to giving my evaluation. In other words, I thought I'd try a spontaneous method.

Suffice to say, I didn't win the Best Evaluator award for the night. The person who won did a GREAT job. My club then gave me a Roundtable evaluation on my presentation.

From the experience I was reminded of two things:

First: I had taken for granted my ability to reinforce my points with gestures and vocal techniques. Having stage experience I naturally employ these things when I get up in front of an audience. In fact this ability played an important role in both my Area and Division wins. However, taking this ability for granted runs the risk that I may forget to use it at the District contest.

Second: The importance of taking notes. The importance does not lie in having the notes available during the acutal presentation. Rather it is in the fact that it gives you the raw information to figure out what is the theme of your evaluation and what information to use to support that theme.

From my younger years competing in windsurfing contests, I learned the importance of practice. It's not so much to gain new insights. Its rather to be reminded of what made you successful in the first place.

Part 2 will be Nov. 12th