Stuttering and stammering is indiscriminate. It affects 1% of the world, spanning all cultures, races, creeds and ages. For many people who have suffered from stuttering all their lives, they are resigned to the fact that they will forever be trapped by their speech impediment. However, this is not true, and there have been many graduates from the McGuire Programme who have achieved their life long speaking goals in their later years.

These 4 veteran graduates at the Melbourne intensive course in November 2008 have a total age of 280 years and this was Dave Simpson’s 50th course! These gentlemen prove that it’s never too late to start working on improving your speech.

here are some of my experiences over the holidays that maybe some of you can
relate to…

.. it was my first ‘real’ Christmas in decades complete with a house full
of relatives including young kids, Christmas tree, outdoor lights, parties,
etc. and was quite a change to my usual holiday routine (mr. Grinch,
scrooge, bah humbug). The newness of this made it even more challenging.

.. everything mentioned in the below email proved accurate, but I didn’t
expect the intensity. it was very much like surfing a huge wave, white water
rafting, skiing a steep mogul run, sky diving, combat firefight, etc. very
difficult to focus on technique, or get in that important practice/warm-up
time … just had to go with it and do my best.

… being aware of the dynamics and complications indeed helped as did
going into the (several day) situation having done extra work to toughen my
discipline beforehand resulted in reasonably good speech. not perfect, but
much better than had I entered this challenge with complacency. Such a
challenge requires much respect for the difficulty.

One of the highlights was at the big Christmas party of my fluent speaking
buddy, George, where he finally started helping me cancel when I would first
start being sloppy rather than waiting hours or the next day to say
anything. he’s learning!!

I’m now back into my pre holiday routine of morning warm-up calls with our
little group of serious grads, practice contacts, etc. and once again feel
very confident and proud of the way I speak. Now to lose those ten pounds
from the undisciplined holiday eating and drinking .

dave

Here is a post sent to our international discussion group about why the holidays can result in more than usual stuttering blocks (aka ‘turbulence’) and what to do about it.

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(Sent Dec 20th, 2008. ” Happy Holidays, but watch out for turbulence …”)

I thought it would be good to remind everyone that this can be a tough time
of year for our speech. It seems to be full of many dynamics that can cause
turbulence and a trip to the swamp. Here’s a few things I spotted in my own
life as Christmas approaches:

… many more approach avoidance conflicts like what presents to buy, who to
buy for, who to invite, who’s invitations to accept, etc. Remember that
approach avoidance in one part of your life can lead to the old ‘fear of
stammering/desire to be fluent’ conflict.

… frequent social gatherings/parties which usually involves drinking
resulting many times in sloppy spontaneous, and not feeling like working on
speech the next day.

… this can be a very busy time of year cutting down on time and energy
available for practice.

… with busyness comes rushing which makes it difficult to resist time
pressure.

… with more social interactions, there’s more of a chance that certain
ones (introductions to strangers at parties, etc.) will be more difficult at
a time when we’re more vulnerable resulting in blocking and loss of
confidence.

… desire to spend vs. fear of the coming bad economic times (needing to
save).

… for people like myself who put on weight easily, it is difficult to stay
disciplined with a diet. poor discipline in one area can lead to poor
discipline in our speech. Putting on ten pounds during these holidays and
being back in the swamp is not good for the old hexagon.

 What to do? Most important for me is to just realize the above dynamics and
that this time of year is a tough challenge for my speech, and to not just
‘let it go’ because it’s holidays. Next is to make those warm up calls every
morning to drill the mentality and technique and to remind myself during the
day to show people I’m working on my speech and explain to my close friends
that this is a rough time and ask their help to let me know if they see/hear
me being sloppy.

Hope this helps, and hope you all have a great Christmas and prosperous,
happy, healthy, disciplined, New Year where you start doing more of those
things to realize your potential.

cheers,

dave

TESTING

Once you’ve gained some confidence in your ability to apply good technique to produce the shot you want in golf (skill), it’s time to test. My favorite test on the driving range is to hit at least 8 out of 10 shots with each club in my bag reasonably straight, with good contact and good distance. Short irions required to land within 15 feet of the pin.  It’s a bit of pressure in that if I don’t reach the 8 out of 10, I have to hit another 10 with that club with the goal of I don’t move on to the next club, or go home, until I’ve reached this goal which means spending the entire time, and possibly hundreds of balls, with the nine iron.

When applying “testing” to stuttering / stammering, your “driving range” is your support network — friends, family, primary coach, mcgp phonelist, street and telephone contacts. The difference here is the *standard (explained below)needs to be increased to 10 out of 10 (if under time constraint, 5 out of 5 will do).  I will do a series of 10 contacts with the first goal being of getting 10 out of 10* (see below) projecting through my chest without distortion/struggle in the articulators or vocal cords. Keeping track of successful and not successful contacts lets you know what stage of overkill you’re in as follows:

Panic stage: 0 -1 out of 10

Barely manageable fear stage: less than 5 out of 10

Exciting fear stage: 5 to 9 out of 10

Fun stage: 9 to 10 out of 10

Boring stage: 10 out of 10 (but do more to be sure)

Once in the boring stage with any and every possible feared word or sound, you can use contacts to refine your skills. Try 10 contacts focusing on good eye contact, then another ten with deep and breathy tone, etc. etc.

*There are a few reasons for the tougher standards with my speech (requiring 10 out of 10) here than in golf (requiring 8 out of 10). The biggest reason, arguably, is that golf is so much more difficult, technically, than speaking which was, although complicated, a skill aquired almost unconsciously in early childhood.

In part one, I described and made comparison between tough golf courses and tough speaking situations, loss of confidence with certain clubs and loss of confidence with certain words or sounds, and how this can spread to big stuttering / stammering blocks other words, sounds, and situations. So what to do?

The driving range and calls to supportive friends/practice contacts. 

Let’s start with golf.

Interesting how the psychological stress of a difficult course or challenging opponent manifests itself in ‘hitches’ to swings. Pro players after walking 18 holes in a tournament will go right to the driving range to “re-groove” their swings especially those that fell apart on the course. You see this with professional tennis players even after a 4 hour clay court match who go directly to the practice courts to correct those strokes that lost them points.

“Directly” because bad habits tend to put down roots if you don’t take care of them right away.

Okay, after 18 holes, I’m not in the mood, as a beginning amateur, to go right to the driving range. I’d prefer a gin and tonic and good dinner . But were I a professional, where my livelihood depended on how well I play, you better believe I’d get to the driving range after my round. As a (fairly serious) beginner, I’ll go to the driving range the next day. (There’s a serious analogy to this ‘beginner/pro’ stuff later.)

Starting with my easiest club, usually a pitching wedge, I’ll go back to basics, even breaking my swing down to three phases, until I can hit at least 5 in a row where I want with good, clean contact. Then I’ll go to the next easiest club, gain my confidence, then end up with those clubs that gave me the most trouble the day before on the course.

I will hit many more balls with my ‘challenging’ clubs than with the others. Sometimes I can get my confidence back that same session, but usually I’ll have to go back the next day and possibly the day after to totally regain confidence (at least on the driving range). Going back on a course before confidence is gained on the driving range is usually (but not always) productive.

And now to stuttering / stammering:

Call your supportive friends (for people in the McGuire Programme, use the phonelist and coaches) asap.

First an important point: Mentioned above, professional golfers will get to the driving range/putting green immediately. Amateurs usually don’t go immediately. We who stammer / stutter need to play this sport on the professional level … after-all, our livelihood depends or will depend to a great extent on how well we can verbally communicate. Therefore, we need to get to the equivalent of a driving range (phone calls and contacts) right away. Procrastinating until it is convenient or you’re not so tired is for amateurs.

Starting with those words you still have confidence in that didn’t fall apart in the pressure situation, use them in short sentences while exaggerating the speaking technique you know will lead to improvement. (In the McGuire programme this means pause, take a full costal breath, speak with deep and breathy resonance, and fully release residual air, practicing also hit and holds and block release.) Very effective is to use a lot of voluntary stammering (which we call ‘deliberate dysfluency’) on these less challenging words.

Move from the easiest words to the ones that gave you the most trouble and have becomed feared. 

 Now move up the stairway of feared situations. Starting with your support network, get these to the place where there is such an absence of fear that saying these once panic-striken words is so easy, it’s boring. 

Like with getting your swing back on the driving range, this might take a couple of days/sessions. But do it. As you repeadly experience that you can indeed regain your confidence, both with feared clubs and feared words, it will take less time on the driving range/ making contacts, to get it back.

Dave McGuire