[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Harry Dhillon
Date: 10 Oct 2010
Time: 07:16:50 -0500
Remote Name: 92.24.207.83
Hi Ross, Thank you so much for your encouraging comments. To answer your questions : "Did you find joining Toastmasters helped you to become less afraid of speaking in front of others because of more speaking opportunities,..." Absolutley. I no longer become frozen with terror at business meetings. Sure, I'm nervous, and some aspects are still troublesome, but there is a new found confidence which public speaking at Toastmasters has given me. Also, Toastmasters had made me less sensitive to my stuttering. I'm more open to talking about my 'problem' with people. I feel less shame, and I'm seeing myself more and more as a 'person' rather than as a stutterer. When I spoke in front of 50 fluent people at a formal competition, at the area level, and blocked severely at the very FIRST word, then something inside me changed - I knew it wasn't the end of the world to stutter so openly. And when I came second place in that competition, I knew that it wasn't because of my stutter, it was because I wasn't quite good enough to come first place just yet. "...or did you use techniques from a speech therapy program or did you have techniques you found to be useful on your own in order to conquer your fears of speaking?" Interesting question. Whilst I wouldn't like to promote any one technique over another, I did use anchoring (and still do) at every Toastmasters meeting. I've also had coastal breathing training too. Every technique has it's merits, and what works for one person may not work for another, and I guess it's a case of finding something that works best for us, or more usually, taking bits of different techniques and applying them to help us. I'm at that stakge now, where I far more fluent on the stage than I am in one-to-one conversations! I just need to transfer that fluency over to social situations. And finally, yes, I would highly recommend Toastmasters to ANY PWS - it's one of the best things I've ever done, and it's been the best form of speech therapy. Take care, and I wish you the very best of luck.