To master any skill -- whether it's learning how to paint, hit a tennis ball, or speak to groups -- you need a supportive environment where you can practice, experiment, totally let go, and trust your inner self without fear of penalty. I learned that back in the early 1960s, when I briefly took up the study of judo.

In one of the early classes, we were instructed on the proper way to roll. The teacher divided the mat into individual lanes and had everyone practice at the same time. But the lanes he set up were so narrow that I was afraid of rolling at an angle and bashing into the guy next to me with my feet. Consequently, it was very difficult for me to relax enough to learn how to execute the move. The situation was not remedied until the number of people on the mat was reduced. Only then did I feel free enough to practice without holding back.

The same kind of remedy applies to the fear of speaking before people. Most of us are in a pressure situation when as youngsters we have our first experiences talking to groups. When the teacher calls on us, the burden of having to look good can be overwhelming. We put so much pressure on ourselves to perform and to please the teacher and other students that we never really get around to figuring out how we want to do it to please ourselves. The problem is further compounded if we're also dealing with a stuttering problem. Over time, holding back whenever we talk to groups becomes our default.

As I learned in the study of judo, to be able to let go and allow your intuitive self to take over, you need a place where you feel free enough to simply try things without worrying about how they turn out.

This is the secret behind the effectiveness of Speaking Freely.

I first heard of Speaking Freely from Joel Rutledge, a San Francisco humorist and someone who grew up both speech and vision impaired. Joel gave one of the keynote addresses at the NSP's 1991 annual convention in Dallas, and he made a memorable and entertaining presentation. I chatted with Joel after his keynote, and in the course of our conversation, he told me about an activity that had greatly improved his presentation skills and his comfort in front of audiences. He was, of course, talking about Speaking Freely, a unique public speaking class conducted by San Francisco speaking coach Lee Glickstein. Joel was regularly attending one of Lee's Freely, and several months later, I finally got up enough nerve to drop in on Lee's evening class.

When I got to Lee's on that first Tuesday, I discovered his living room was outfitted with a small collapsible platform, a floodlight, a microphone on a stand, a camcorder, and 10 chairs set up theater style -- all the trappings of a formal public speaking event. It looked very official. Yet, in this formal setting people seemed to be totally at ease when it was time to stand up and speak. They just talked -- personally and in a totally relaxed manner. I couldn't get over how spontaneous and natural everyone sounded, and how on the spur of the moment people came up with things that in some cases sounded like they'd been prepared well in advance. Even when people said they'd been uneasy during the talk, the techniques Lee had taught them for staying connected to the audience overrode any impression of discomfort they may have been experiencing.

Though I'd been in front of people many times before, when it came time for my three minute presentation, I found myself trying to perform. Yet in the second talk that lasted five minutes, I discovered that something within me had relaxed a little, and instead of trying to look good, I found I was starting to have a little fun just saying whatever came into my head. After the talk, Lee asked me, "Well, John, what was that experience like?" and I shared my experience with the group. Then Lee opened up the floor to only positive feedback, and people shared what they enjoyed about listening to me. I left feeling good about myself and about the entire evening. A few days later at home I had the opportunity to review my videotape from that evening, and though I observed a preponderance of "ummmms," "ahhhhhhhs," and "you-knows," I generally felt okay by what I saw. That's when I knew I was hooked. From then on I was a regular in Lee's classes.

As I continued to increase my comfort in front of people, it occurred to me that Speaking Freely would be an ideal activity for NSP chapters, since chronic stuttering and stage fright are branches of the same tree. In 1995, I introduced Speaking Freely to the NSP at a day-and-a-half Speaking Circle workshop in Orange County, California. A week later the NSP's Orange County chapter elected to start their own Speaking Circle, and as of this writing, the group has continued to meet twice a month. Meanwhile, other chapters around the country have also become enthused about Speaking Freely, and more and more chapters have incorporated Speaking Freely as part of their regular chapter programs.

Speaking Freely are the most effective activity I've encountered for helping people work through performance fears -- especially those fears which underlie chronic stuttering. The format is transformational because it addresses, not just the person's speech, but the entire individual. It offers the person something that is difficult to find anywhere else: a substantial block of uninterrupted time to be totally heard and supported by a group of attentive listeners.

The situation is set up to feel like a real (ie: risky) speaking experience. At the same time, the situation is made totally safe by the particular ways in which the audience supports the speaker. It is this combination of risk and safety that has such a powerful impact.

Let's begin with how the room is set up. Chairs and/or couches are usually arranged theater style. In the ideal setting, there is a microphone, a floodlight trained on the speaker, and a camcorder so that each person's talk can be videotaped. Some groups even have a small collapsible platform that they set up just for the meeting. These props help to create the experience of a real public speaking situation. The Speaking Circle can also be run effectively without all these components, but if you can provide them, they are useful in adding a measure of realism. The venue can be someone's living room or a small public room.

Every week, you bring your own videotape on which your talks for the evening are recorded. You then take the tape home at the end of the evening to view at your leisure. (The tapes are yours to keep.) The following week you bring the same tape back, cued to the end of the last session, and that evening's talks are added to it. If there are 8 to 10 participants, the meeting generally runs about two to two-and-a-half hours. Smaller meetings require proportionally less time.

During the Speaking Circle, each person has two opportunities to speak. Typically, the first talk is for three minutes and the second is for five. After the second talk, the facilitator asks you what your experience was like and then opens up the floor to only positive feedback -- not on the subject matter of your talk but on what people liked about being with you. People usually have no idea of what they're going to speak on until they show up for the meeting, and often, not even then. The subject is generally something that comes up spontaneously -- what's going on in your life, an article you read in the paper, or some issue you'd like to share with others. Often, your topic is triggered by something that someone has said in a previous talk. The subject matter is not important.

Listeners play an active role in a Speaking Circle. As a member of the audience, your mission is not to just sit passively. Your assignment is to make yourself totally available to the speaker, offering your complete, focused attention with what we call "soft eyes." This means that you're not coolly staring at the speaker but directing your attention toward the individual in a supportive, receptive, non-judgmental way. You listen, not just to what the person says, but to who the person is.

Most people grow up with an innate fear of audiences. They perceive their listeners as critical and judgmental, and this starts them worrying about "doing it right." But when the speaker perceives his (or her) listeners as supportive, it makes it easier to turn off the internal censor. This is why, as a listener, it is especially important to keep your gaze trained on the speaker, even when the person is not looking at you. When the speaker does turn back toward you, it is immensely reassuring for the individual to discover that you're still actively paying attention and not staring off into space or fiddling with your appointment book or being distracted in some other way.

Once you're up in front of the group, and after the applause has died down, you want to allow yourself three or four seconds to establish a relationship with your listeners in a quiet, unhurried manner by allowing your eyes to connect with theirs and by allowing yourself to receive their support. This deliberate moment also reduces the impulse to start off on the wrong foot by trying to adapt to someone else's time frame and rushing into your talk.

When you begin speaking, talk to one person at a time. Many of us grow up believing that we have to keep sweeping the audience with our eyes, as if we were visually vacuuming the room. But moving your gaze back and forth does not mean that you're connecting with your listeners, and in fact, such mechanical scanning can actually be depersonalizing. Instead, you want to speak to each person for four or five seconds before shifting your gaze to another individual. If there are any silences or blocks, simply allow them to be there, but make an effort to keep the connection.

Remember, that person is there for you and not to judge or evaluate you. You are totally free to set the pace and to stop between thoughts and to breathe. There is no agenda, so you can listen for what your inner self wants to say. If any thought or feeling comes up, allow it to do so without evaluating or censoring it.

See if you can keep that inner critic turned off while you're speaking. Just experience what it's like to spontaneously share your thoughts and feelings. This is a different way of relating to audiences than you're probably used to. When you're finished, continue to stay connected and acknowledge your applause. And don't start walking back to your seat until the applause has completely stopped.

But suppose you go blank and can't think of anything to say.

Most people have a deathly fear of getting up in front of a group and then suddenly going blank. In the Speaking Circle, it is perfectly acceptable to simply stand there without saying a word -- what we call "standing in the void" -- and simply focus on being connected with your listeners while you wait for something to come to mind. Your three and five minute speaking opportunities are yours to do with as you wish. You do not have to worry about being interrupted or having someone jump in and fill the void for you or correct what you've just said. If you like, you can even stand in silence for the entire time. It's also reassuring to know that at the end of your five minute talk, you're going to get positive feedback no matter what you do or say. So you don't have to do anything to earn anyone's approval.

But lest you think that your mind is totally blank, think again.

It is almost impossible to have a thought-free mind. Try this little experiment. Close your eyes, and for the next three minutes, see if you can keep your mind totally clear of any thoughts by only focusing on your breathing. What you'll quickly discover is that your thoughts keep intruding, whether you want them to or not. What you learn is that your mind is working all the time, even when you don't think it is.

Then why do we go blank?

The experience of going blank has to do with two things: panic and censoring. Both of these can help to block out the thoughts that are constantly occurring.

Slipping into panic. The panic is typically associated with a fear of having to perform. The situation is perceived by your body/mind as life threatening. It involves that part of the mind that first evolved in human beings to protect them from physical danger. The "old" brain -- or the amygdula, if you want the more scientific name -- is the seat of your emotional memory. When danger is perceived, your amygdula instantly sends a message to your body to initiate a fight-or-flight response to give you added strength and energy to confront the danger or to flee from it -- just like it did with early man a million years ago. This response -- which involves the introduction of adrenaline into your blood stream, a change in breathing, and a funneling of blood away from your stomach to your extremities -- was designed to prepare you to better respond to physical threats. However, your body/mind is not set up to distinguish between physical threats and embarrassing social emergencies, so when you stand up to speak and you're worried about your performance, your body initiates the same fight-or-flight reaction as it does when you find yourself confronting a mugger on a dark street.

When your mind and body are caught up in a fight-or-flight reaction, the panic can preempt the more relaxed, creative thinking processes that you need to speak spontaneously. In reality, the thoughts are there. It's just that you are not open enough to access them.

The urge to censor. The other reason for "going blank" relates to having an over-active censor. If you simply allow yourself to give voice to the wealth of thoughts that are constantly unfolding, you'll discover an abundant and never-ending resource. But as children, some of us are pressured to sound smart, be proper, speak fluently...and choose our words carefully. Consequently, that internal parent rides out ahead of our speech, processing, evaluating, and censoring our thoughts even before we have a chance to express them. This can leave us with the impression that we have nothing to say, whereas in reality, it's that we have nothing acceptable to say -- acceptable, that is, to our internal parent.

Some of us are so performance oriented that we've never experienced what it's like to be anything else. The purpose of the Speaking Circle is to provide an environment where the internal sensor can be disabled, where self-judgment is removed, and where the only thing that matters is the fun and enjoyment of saying anything that comes to mind. This allows us to discover what that experience feels like and then build on those feelings.

Occasionally, someone shows up with a prepared topic, but most times, people simply start speaking and allow whatever comes up to come up. This process of "standing in the void" gives you a sense of how your mind operates. If you stop worrying about performing and simply immerse yourself in the relationship with your listeners and take in their support and revel in the silence, what will often emerge is a topic or an idea that you had no idea was lurking there.

After each talk, you will receive an enthusiastic round of applause, and you are encouraged to stand there and take in your applause until the clapping is done (very tough for most people!) After the five minute talk, the facilitator will also ask you what the experience was like, and then the floor will be opened up to only positive feedback -- not on the subject matter of the talk but on the positive ways your listeners were impacted by you as a speaker. What did they like about being with you? What made you likable as a person?

Offering only positive feedback may appear contrived. But it's not if the feedback is genuine. Most of us have been stacking the deck against ourselves by being overly perfectionistic and by focusing only on those things that aren't "right." Thus, positive feedback helps to get our perceptions back into balance. People are not asked to make up things to say about the speaker that aren't true, but to observe the speaker more closely than normal to discover positive qualities they might typically have overlooked.

There's another reason for positive-only feedback. It has been shown that people build confidence in a non-judgmental environment much faster than they do in the face of criticism, even though that criticism may be beneficial.

If you do want constructive feedback, you can get it from the best source there is (yourself) by watching your tape at home. If there are things you're doing that don't make you happy, you can make a mental note and work on changing them at the next Speaking Circle. In viewing my first ever Speaking Circle, in addition to an abundance of "ummms" and "you-knows," I discovered I had a tendency to start every sentence with "and." The next week I made a concerted effort to remove those annoying distractions, and when I went to view the tape, the change was positively dramatic.

Giving positive feedback

In giving positive feedback, most of us tend to focus on just the person's obvious qualities. You hear comments like...

All of these are great observations that will help to build the confidence and comfort level of the speaker. What becomes more challenging is when you start going after the subtleties. This is particularly important when the person may have struggled in front of the group or dealt with a particularly difficult bout of stuttering. We all have a natural inclination to home in on the salient aspects of someone's presentation and overlook what is less obvious. Consequently, if the speaker is stuttering or seems uncomfortable for whatever reason, it is easy to overlook what may actually have been working well.

There are always some things that a person is doing well. Perhaps she uses her hands expressively. Maybe she has a nice smile or a twinkle in her eye. If she shares her discomfort when it first arises, perhaps her candor creates a deeper level of intimacy and puts you more at ease. She also might have a quiet elegance. Or a knack for using colorful metaphors. Maybe it's just that she is showing enormous courage in being up there and expressing herself.

Broadening your awareness of what makes a good communicator does two things. First, it helps to break you and others of the habit of thinking that fluency is everything. Secondly, it encourages you to "dig for gold." If there's something about the speaker you didn't relate to, you don't have to give one of those gooey "you were wonderful" comments that everyone knows is insincere or avoid commenting altogether. If you broaden your perception and sharpen your focus, you will begin to see little nuggets that did work for the speaker. This will not only help the speaker, it will also help to give you ideas about things you can do to make speaking more pleasurable for you.

Feedback should be brief and to the point. No fair making a two-minute talk in the guise of providing feedback. Stay alert to whether you're putting the focus on you or on the person in front of the room. And if you don't have any feedback you'd like to share, it's perfectly fine to take a pass.

Finally, avoid making comparisons. Sometimes, when a person does well, there is an overwhelming impulse to tell them that they did "much better" than their previous talk. This immediately starts putting value judgments on the talks, something we want to avoid. It also implies that perhaps they weren't very good the last time they spoke.

Speaking Freely are not about "doing better." They're about allowing yourself to receive the support of listeners and about staying connected and being genuine and trusting yourself and others. When you learn to do all those things, a by-product is that speaking becomes more fun and you gradually become more communicative and charismatic in front of the group -- whether you stutter or not!

Some years ago when biofeedback machines were all the rage, I attended a lecture on the use of electronic biofeedback to control the body's various functions. The lecturer demonstrated how biofeedback could be used to increase the brain's alpha waves (related to meditation and right brain thinking) and even to increase the skin temperature on the palm of your hand, helpful for sufferers of migraine headaches who can learn to draw blood away from the head and reduce headache pain. At the conclusion of the presentation, the speaker noted that with the proper feedback, almost any bodily or behavioral activity could be controlled. This principle applies to public speaking, as I'll show you in a moment.

Part of what makes public speaking a painful and unsettling process is that people judge themselves by how they feel while making the talk. If they were nervous, embarrassed, or terrified, they assume that everyone in the audience knew it and that they showed up poorly as a speaker.

The truth is something else.

What governs how listeners relate to you is how you appear to be. If you seem comfortable, they'll be comfortable. If you act nervous or embarrassed or upset, they'll be nervous, embarrassed, or upset. Audiences are easily programmed, which is why movie makers constantly cut away to reaction shots and provide background music -- both are effective in influencing audience reaction.

Perhaps the most important benefit of watching your tapes -- more important than identifying things you'd like to correct or improve -- is to be able to compare your experience of making a talk with how you looked when you made it.

An early turning point for one Speaking Circle participant occurred a year or so after he joined the weekly group.

Incidentally, we always tell newcomers at a Speaking Circle to watch their first few talks at least two times and preferably three. The first time, they'll traditionally home in on all the things they don't like. The second time, they'll begin to see past the imperfections. And the third time, they'll start seeing things that...welllll...might not be too bad at all.

A Speaking Circle is a very simple program to put on. You don't need an advanced degree or special training. You just need a group of people who want to support each other and have fun. However, there are certain things that the facilitator can do that will help the program to be more satisfying for everyone.

Introduce the evening

If you are the facilitator, before the talks get under way, take several minutes in front of the group to warm up the room by sharing something personal -- a thought, an idea, an experience -- and by reviewing what will take place over the course of the evening.

Do everything you can to create a safe space

This is a major role for the facilitator. If people don't feel safe, they'll be more cautious about opening up. One way to keep the space safe is by making sure that audience members confine their comments only to the speaker's presentation and not to the subject matter that was talked about. Sometimes in the safety of the room, speakers find themselves bringing up sensitive issues, and for that reason, it become important that they feel they can let the subject matter drop once they're done talking.

Similarly, during the break, one should not go up to another person and start discussing about what that person said in their talk without asking their permission to do so. Nothing can make a person more up tight than suddenly find themselves having to answer for something they brought up in a spontaneous presentation. Nor should anyone talk outside the group about any personal information that may have been revealed. The rule of thumb is -- when in doubt, let it lie. Remember, the purpose of the Speaking Circle is simply to help people become more comfortable in communicating with others and not to assist them in working through their life problems.

As the person who's facilitating, you play a big part in setting the tone for the group. People will automatically look to you for guidance and to be a role model for them. This means that if the energy falls, you can enliven the group by talking more energetically than you normally do, and by adding animation to your voice. If you're willing to let your excitement and enthusiasm show, others will be more willing to let go.

If you're running the videocamera, go for some interesting visuals. Don't just shoot just distant shots of the speaker. Get some close-ups. Add a little variety. Give people a sense of how they visually come across, both in full-body shots and in tighter head shots. Notice how the cameramen shoot people on TV, and see if you can duplicate some of that framing.

After practicing Speaking Freely for a while, some people may find themselves looking for a new level of experience and challenge. At this point, they're ready for an Advanced Speaking Circle.

This hybrid format combines the basic features of a Speaking Circle with the ten exercises in the first section of the NSP's public speaking book, How to Conquer Your Fears of Speaking Before People. The basic practices of the Speaking Circle features are still maintained -- three and five minute talks, standing in the void, receiving audience support, speaking to audience members for four to five seconds each, taking your applause, and allowing only positive feedback. However, in addition, speakers now have the opportunity to stretch themselves each week by practicing another of the book's 10 exercises.

We who stutter often grow up restricting how we present ourselves. We make sure we never take up too much space on the platform, or speak too loud. We express our emotions only within narrow limits. We make sure we don't intrude on our listeners by keeping an invisible shield between us and them.

But do we really have to stand that still when we're in front of a group? What would happen if wemoved about, even walking down the center aisle or to the back of the room? Suppose wespoke twice as loud as we normally do? Or added drama to our voice. Or deliberately put in long pauses. Or found ways to actively interact with the audience. Suppose we actually took over the room like Oprah Winfrey or Geraldo Rivera. What would happen? What would it actally feel like? Many people who stutter haven't the slightest idea because their only focus has been to simply survive the experience and nothing more. But when they try out these new behaivors, they often discover that this is really who they are, and that they've just been holding themselves back all these years. The ten exercises in the Public Speaking book are designed to broaden your comfort zone by giving you opportunities to practice specific things you can do to remove these and other self-imposed limitations.