What Do Yoga and Public Speaking Have in Common?

Both yoga and public speaking are disciplines that require commitment and regular practice and each demands that you stretch beyond your comfort zone to increase your flexibility. Nobody knows that more than Molly Boyd Hunt, Executive Faculty member at Ty Boyd, who has been practicing yoga for a long time, and speaking in public for even longer.

Yogis caution their students not to push to the point of pain during a yoga pose, but instead to increase stretches over time in increments. Doing so allows you to eventually achieve poses that seemed nearly impossible at the start of a yoga practice. "The same can be applied to public speaking" says Molly, "ongoing practice allows you to stretch your speaking skills enabling you to become a more effective communicator."

Yoga and public speaking have something else in common: breathing. It's all about the breathing. Every yoga pose relies on proper breathing techniques to relax the body and focus the mind so that you can get the maximum benefit from your practice. Control your breath and you can control anything...even your speaking.

Molly suggests that before you begin speaking, take deep, solid breaths to steady yourself. Whether you are speaking to a large crowd, or engaged in a conversation with just one other person, get in the habit of steady, regular breathing to calm your voice and keep you relaxed. And don't be afraid of the pause. Speakers often want to avoid silence, so they use filler words like "um," "ah," and "like," as a verbal bridge to the next word. But they really aren't bridges at all. In fact, they are roadblocks that distract the audience and interrupt the flow of the message. Molly is quick to point out that filling the silence with "um" does not make you sound smarter than when you say nothing at all. Molly teaches her students about the power of a pause and encourages them to embrace it.

A pause causes your audience to lean in and listen. It introduces an element of anticipation and heightens expectations. Not only does it make your speech easier to listen to, it makes your communication come across as more compelling. And remember, a pause is never as long to the audience as it feels to you. Each time that you take a significant pause during a presentation, take a deep breath. Maintaining steady breathing helps control your volume and tone making you come across as clear and confident to your audience.

In the Excellence in Speaking course, Molly Hunt teachers her students to be better communicators through preparation and practice. And when the time comes to deliver a presentation, she tells them to focus on three part breathing:

1. Take a deep breath slowly through the nose as though you are filling a glass of water.
2. Bring all the air to the bottom of your belly, then upper belly, then chest.
3. Exhale in reverse.

Breathing is infectious; how many times have you yawned causing those around you to yawn, as well? A yawn is nothing more than a deep breath and there is very little that a deep breath can't fix. Try taking a deep breath at the start of your next speech and see what it does for both you and your audience.

Namaste.