As those of you who stutter will know, it’s always nice to hear some positive encouragement regarding our speech. Many people in everyday life receive praise for speeches/presentations/toasts, brush it off and never think of it again. Yet, for those of us to struggle with stuttering, such praise is always a lot more meaningful.

A McGuire Graduate, Adam, recently posted to our internal discussion list regarding one such experience. Eighteen months into the programme, he had met a lawyer in private practice. Fifteen months later, he met the same lawyer and after speaking with him for some time, the lawyer remarked;

“Last time we talked, your speech was so bad I was seriously worried [about your ability to practice]. Today, I wasn’t sure I recognised you.”

Adam has worked tirelessly at his speech since he joined the Programme two and a half years ago and is continuing to reap the rewards for his efforts.

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

OBSERVATIONS by Jake Dean

If you’ve ever wondered whether the blocking behaviors associated with stuttering are present in other performance activities, this golf story should win you over. Jake is a freshman at Cornell University in Ithica, New York.

Hello, I am a freshman at Cornell, and I have had a problem with blocking in my speech for about six years. I read your article, and it really applied to me.

I am working with some counselors on campus right now to try and make some progress. When I am alone (as the case with many people) everything is fine, but the moment I have to talk to people, things get all tight, much like the isolated incident you were talking about when you were in San Francisco, except my incidents are not isolated. They are ongoing all day.

It is not very noticeable to other people, but it frustrates me. I look ahead to words that I am going to say, and when I do, I always stop before them. Something really interesting, though, is I had the SAME EXACT thing happen to my golf swing.

I started playing golf competitively at age 12, and I started to care about the result of each shot. I developed this habit of going up to the ball and setting up to it and not being able to pull the club back. It felt as though my arms were frozen and could not move at all.

Eventually the feeling would lessen, and I could just barely get the shot off, but I was not playing to my full potential.

Another interesting point is that when there was no ball there, I could take a swing without a block, which is sort of analogous to the fact that I can speak with no blocks when there are no people around.

The spring of my senior year in high school, I went out to the driving range and I said to myself, “Wow, this does not matter anymore,” because I knew I was not going to play golf in college. And those feelings just stopped immediately. I could now control my mind and choose what I wanted to think about.

I have not had that block happen in a full year now. That was pretty remarkable because for six years with my golf it happened on every single shot. I really think there is a link with that and my stuttering, and several psychologists have told me I have an obsessive-compulsive personality.

I recently received this email from the UK regarding my previous posts;

I just found your posting regarding golf – it was last Thursday. I introduced my use of Golf in 2001 at either Swindon or Bristol and it takes the form of an interview between a well know golf pro and a golf commentator;

Commentator: – Well Tiger, why do people refer to you as the luckiest golfer?

Tiger: – What do you mean, Barry?

Commentator: – Well, every time you find yourself in the ‘rrrrrough’ you put yourself back on the fairway with just a simple shot. You pause – - – to assess the situation and decide which club or iron to use, you swing a few p p p p practise shots (block release) then with your eye on the ball, draw the club right back and assertively hit the ball and follow through (eye contact, long hit and hold, and assertive first sound and keep moving forward, no holding back) and each time your ball lands back in the middle of the fairway. The same thing happens when you land in a bunker, you pause – assess the situation, choose a wedge, swing a few p p p p practice shots (block release) then with your eye on the ball you draw the club back and assertively but controlled you hit the ball with follow through (eye contract short hit and hold, keep moving forward, no holding back), your ball lands on the green next to the pin/hole. That’s what I mean. It always looks so easy for you, no matter what difficulty you have it doesn’t seem to worry you. You just take your time to put it right. You must feel very lucky.

Tiger: – Well, I must think about this (pause – resist time pressure) Well Barry, all I can say is this, the more I practise luckier I seem to get. A club could be used to demonstrate the various points.

Regards,

Geoffrey Liddington

After my previous article I got sent the following question; “How do we practice repeatedly at the work place where there are not many opportunities to ’screw-up’”

You’re right about “practicing” at work. Just like going out on course with your serious golfing friends is not the best time to practice you swing by throwing down an extra ball or two. Again, in golf, you prepare and practice for the ’serious’ rounds on the driving range and/or going out alone on a quiet, uncrowded course. Work is your ’serious’ speaking round for which you must practice in easier situations that have no consequences.

Having said this, in a serious round of golf where you start playing poorly and have no chance of a decent score/winning, the best thing to do is look at it as a ‘practice round’ and forget about the score. At work, if your stammering / stuttering has overwhelmed you and your fluency is falling apart, what are your choices? You can either continue to struggle for ‘fluency’ with tricks and avoidances, but we all know this only makes it worse, or, you can do an attitude re-adjustment and use it to practice those tools, if you have tools, that will lead to better performance/speech.

In our programme, we encourage each other to make a ‘disclosure’ saying something like: “boy my speech is really falling apart today, I’m going to have to concentrate on some things to get it back. just bear with me.” Most times the colleagues are very supportive and understanding and appreciate something being said (rather than you/us continuing to try to hide the problem). If you get ridiculed, it’s time to take a good look if this is a job you would want to keep as such disrespect/lack of support is probably not limited to your speech.

Another thing about practicing is what I said about “feared word/sound” = “feared club”. Just like you have to hit maybe hundreds of balls at the driving range to gain confidence in a club that has let you down, you have to make many many contacts (phone and street) using the word or sound that caused you to block/avoid or use tricks in order to regain confidence. and this will carry over to the work-place to improve your speaking performance.

Dave McGuire

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