How to make stage movement meaningful.

When I watch some of my early speeches, I do feel a fair amount of discomfort.

And it’s not because the content was crap. It’s because I’m not moving in a way which is useful or meaningful.

When I applied for TEDx Tamworth, one of the parts of the process was an in-person audition.

You are invited in and then deliver a portion of your final TEDx.

I delivered mine to the room, and then they gave me some feedback.

One of the bits of feedback was really quite interesting because someone said “I’ve seen your videos, and you move quite a lot, so this must feel a bit weird.”

To be honest, they are not wrong.

Now TEDx is a different ball game, and that’s one to discuss on another day, but the fact that they had noticed how I deliver was really telling.

In the moment of being on stage, I felt like I was thinking out loud, and that movement was helping me to process what I was saying.

But when the audience are watching me go from left to right, it was probably like some kind of shit tennis match.

The problem with unintentional movement is that it can distract from the message, and that’s not a great strategy.

Now, I’m not for a moment saying that you have to move like some overly polished professional speaker robot.

This is about finding that elusive balance between who you are, what you’re speaking about, and the people you’re speaking to.

Using movement intentionally means that you can support your content and your message.

It adds another layer that helps your audience to connect with you.

Just for a moment, think about what that intentional movement can do for your delivery.

Moving towards your audience creates a bit more intimacy. It’s like saying “I’ve got something I want to tell you”.

(ClaudePGTips would probably call it “leaning in”)

Moving back on the stage creates space to think about stuff.

Moving to other parts of the stage can highlight different parts of your speech, different ideas, a different time.

Then there is no movement at all.

You stop, give yourself a steady base, and you speak words that perhaps matter more than any others.

In the same way as silence at the beginning of a speech can be really powerful, being still is really bloody powerful too.

Some of the clients I work with will pull up a chair at a particular moment in their talk.

For some of them, it might be because they’re maintaining and managing their energy.

For others, it’s because they are telling the audience that something important is about to happen.

In my How To Be A Happy Human keynote, I quite often pull up a chair to tell a couple of stories.

When my arse lands on that chair and I pause and I look at the audience, you feel something different.

There is something really important that I definitely need to say here, and that is if you are neurodivergent.

If I tell you to control your movement, it might feel like I am trying to suppress who you are and get you to put on another mask. A bit like a mask that you’ve been trying to get rid of for all those years.

And that’s not what this is about.

It’s not like a radical rewrite of the way you deliver. It’s about working with what you already have, tweaking a little bit, and just making it even betterer.

Think of it this way: you have the most amazing ingredients ready for your tea tonight.

You have cooked them beautifully. They are seasoned perfectly.

When it comes to serving them, you stick everything in a blender and then throw the contents at your other half.

It’s all the right stuff. It’s just not served in the right way.

Movement is the same.

I don’t want you to get rid of the energy. I just want you to channel it in a way which supports you and your message.

So, in the service of trying to write newsletters with a bit more hints and tips in it, where do you start?

There are three things that you can begin with.

Assess the space.

As soon as you get to a venue, go and walk the room and the stage.

Know where the edges of the space you’re speaking on are.

Have a walk around the audience and see what the stage looks like from there.

Find that really nice space between you and your audience.

Because you can’t move intentionally in a space that you don’t know

Move with intention.

When you are creating your speech, have a think about what movement will really support the different parts of your delivery.

If you have a part where you want people to really listen, go for less movement.

If you have a part where you want to get the energy off in the room, move more.

Use props like chairs to slow things down.

And sometimes these movements are not big movements. They are small and they are subtle, and they’re like seasoning.

Review your deliveries.

Yeah, sorry mate, you’ve got to watch yourself back.

Part of the process that I offer to my clients is to watch your delivery without sound.

Then you get to say your body language.

Then you get to understand how you move on stage.

And only then can you bring all this together to move with intention.

How you move on stage to deliver your thoughts and your words to an audience is a lot more important than you might think.

It’s not about getting rid of you and turning you into some public speaking robot who sticks the tips of their thumb and fingers together to try and show false authority.

It’s about understanding how movement on a stage supports you and your delivery.

In many ways, it’s about becoming a more intentional version of who you already are.

And if you want to talk through how this might work in your speaking, give me a shout.

P.S. Next time you watch someone speak, watch how they use movement and how it relates to their content.