My Public Speaking Coach

Back in secondary school I was hyperactive where Public Speaking was concern. That was the one thing I could win, and I really worked hard for every tournament. Well not that I don't join other competitions like debate or choir, but because PS was the one thing I could do well, that's why I placed a lot of emphasis in training.

And the coach that I could best remember throughout my PS days were 2: Miss Veronica Woo and Miss Yvonne Yew. Both English teachers, but more than teachers, they were coaches.

Miss Woo was the one that spent the hell lot time with me. She qualified to be a full-time coach the rate she went training me. And compared to any other English teacher, the way she trained me was far different from the way other English teachers not just in my school, but in other schools too would train their folks for the PS Tournaments. Here's a scenario of the how other teachers would train their kids:

"Okay Manivan.. this is what I want you to do.. you go back home, memorize this whole speech and come back tomorrow ok?"

*Next day Manivan goes back to the teacher, telling the teacher that he's memorised the speech already.

"Okay, now let's hear your speech... No no no, this part you must go louder.. And this part speak slower, you were too fast just now.. You must have EYE contact.. You must remember this line, just now you forgot to say this part.. Okay, you exceeded your time limit, now let's cut this line.. OKay, go back and memorise harder and see you tomorrow ok?"

And that goes on and on for one whole week until the tournament day.

Now I'm not against this form of training seriously, my coach too has to do certain technical refinery with my speech most of the time. But the problem here is that many teachers that train their kids don't realise something important about PS: that the essence of PS is not in the speech, but in the understanding of the topic that he is talking about, and his delivery of the speech. At the end of the day, no one remembers the speech, but rather a good speaker will be remembered for the message that he sent across to the audience.

I've heard of fantastic speeches in my life before. One was the speech presented by Prasad, then ACS boy who champed Perak in 2003. His message was a message of love, but delivered in such a way he used a cabbage to talk about love. His speech title? 'Cabbage -the symbol of Love'. And till now I still can laugh at the jokes he said back in 2003!! It's been 3 years, but I still can remember it because he gave a good speech that had a strong message.

And that was how my coach trained me. The understanding of the topic I was speaking about, and the delivery of that message.

After everytime I delivered my speech, first question she'd popped at me:

"What do you think of your performance just now?" *grin*

Well, uh.. I haven't memorised it completely yet.. Usual, I always memorise my scripts late

"No no, not about your script.. about your performance" *small frown*

Oh, my performance.. well not bad..

"Not bad, and not good enough to win don't you think so?" *pause* "Let's try it again."

"Joash, make me feel your emotions. With your expression, with your eyes, draw me into your speech. Make me cry with your eyes when you talk about the sufferings in Africa, give me hope with your face when you talk about the tearing down of the Berlin wall.."

And that was just a small part of training. She emphasised a lot on the facial expression. She hated it when I frown. To her, a good speaker doesn't frown. A frown makes the person look old, not sad nor frustrated. Use your eyes, she always said.

My speech was always drafted in a way that every section of the speech had different emotions and expressions. Different messages that run around a common theme, and that made my speech a roller coaster of expressions. My best speech ever delivered in the PS circuit was my state champion speech delivered back in 2004. Here's a small summary of my speech.

Paragraph 1: The introducing of my title, A Borderless World. Starts of with a nostalgic excerpt from Beatles. Required expression: Take the audience into a dream land, where they remember what happened back in the times of the Beatles.

Paragraph 2: The situation of a borderless world. Creation of a free market, intercultural exchange of information, setting up of new industries worldwide, global trade taken to a higher level of competency and efficiency. Required expression: Hope in anticipation, a promise of a better trade market.

Paragraph 3: The perils of globalisation. Local markets are devastated, small scale local industries jeopardised due to the fact that they cannot compete with the global companies. Required expression: Threatened, fear

Paragraph 4: The works of a borderless world. The removal of Berlin wall, the hopeful formation of a unified Korea, the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Required experssion: Conviction, tell the audience Yes! This is the marvellous wonders that a borderless world can do, convince them to believe in the wonders of a borderless world.

Paragraph 5: Closing with the same excerpt from Beatles used in the beginning. Required expression: Make the audience ponder, leave the stage with them left in their own thoughts of what a borderless world can really do, leave them to decide whether they are ready to enter a borderless world in the near time to come.

That was my script. In a matter of 7 minutes, my job was to take the audience in for a roller coaster of emotions, to bring them to laughter and tears, to lead them into a world of imaginations and dreams and colours, to bring hope and conviction to them about what I am talking about.

All of this, with my face, my eyes, my voice, and simple hand gestures.

And who said PS's easy?

After every time I present my speech, my coach would ask me questions like, "Tell me what you know about globalisation." "What do you know about the quota and trade tarriffs as you mentioned in your speech just now?" The whole idea of asking these questions is to get me to think on my feet. She doesn't believe in a memorised script, she believes in an internalised speech. The difference is that you don't just swallow what your teacher has written for you and vomit it out on stage in front of the mike and audience, you internalised it by understanding what you are talking about.

So the more I researched and read up on topics and issues like human rights or globalisation, the more I understood what I was talking about. And the more convinced I was in myself that "I know what I'm talking about" and that gave me more convidence to deliver a more convincing and expressive speech. A dynamic speech is not in how loud you can speak, but how convinced you are in yourself about your speech. And my coach taught me how to do just exactly that.

Every speaker has a fair share to say about his or her training. Well in my case, there were the times that I'd just make a total blunder during training.

"What on earth were you talking about? That was pure nonsense Joash." BOOM

"Out you go! You lost." BOOM

The reasons to why she said that?

No expression. I nearly fell asleep listening to your speech.

You don't even believed in what you said.. convince me!

You frowned! Lousy..

Well there you go, and everytime that happened, I'd have to redo the whole speech or the problematic section again.

Trust me, that was only the prepared speech. In the national PS tournament for secondary schools, 2 main sections would be the prepared speech and the impromptu speech. If you thought prepared speech was bad, wait till you hear how she trains me for impromptu speech.

"Okay Joash, let's do this topic: Maid Abuse. You can start speaking now, 3 minutes. Go."

Huh? No time to prepare? I thought we had 5 minutes usually..

"Nope, no 5 minutes for you. Start NOW"

Sheesh.. I'd be standing in front of her yaking like a total moron who just came out from a 3 month jungle camp, not knowing what on earth I'm talking about or what in the universe I'm supposed to talk about, and more often than not I'd be talking just to fulfill my time quota of 3 minutes. And more often than not, the comment I'd hear from my coach after a lousy impromptu speech - that I always expect to hear:

"Nonsense. Out you go."

Then she'd get me to sit down beside her and she'd take out a piece of paper and start talking to me.

Okay, tell me what you know about maid abuse.

Well maid abuse.. probably the case that just recently happened.. the maid got scalded, burned, tortured, bruised, beaten up..

How did you know about it?

Newspaper.. articles.. pictures..

So who did that job?

The press..

So here we are looking at the media as a powerful tool of dissemination of knowledge right? But in this case, the media is more powerful than merely sending out information, it is about the formation of thoughts. So we are addressing an issue of the media influence in controlling the mindset of people. By just publishing photos on the main papers, the media has already sent out messages to the people by telling them that the maid was abused by the owner, and the people who read the papers and saw the photos buy their story. This is the media power and the media influence. This is the key issue that you should be tackling in your speech.

Wow.. that's cool..

Okay, one more issue.. what about human rights?

Oh yea, human rights.. the maid had rights to be protected..

No, not talking about the maid, I'm talking about the owner.

Huh?

Now basically people are already pointing fingers at the owner, saying that it was all her fault and stuff, but did people give her a chance to make her stand of defence? No right? So isn't this a violation of the human rights in that manner? How sure are we that the maid was abused and the injuries were not self inflicted? Now we have 2 major issues to address here.

Wow..

So ready to try your speech again?

That's how I was trained for impromptu. A higher level of thinking and preparation for impromptu speeches would require me to think not only on the basic level of "Answering the 5 W's question" but on addressing key and pressing issues related to the impromptu speech.

Part of my training required me to deliver my speeches everywhere, anytime. I was once called into the office to do my speech, some of my training sessions were held in the canteen where thousands of small kids and animals were running around like mad people, I had training sessions in the biology lab assistant's quarters before, classrooms were a normal training outlet, speeches during assembly, and the worse one ofall..

I was made to train in other school's assembly. Twice actually.

And at both occassions I had to talk non-stop impromptuly for 1 hour straight. Personal best record, talking officially in front of an audience non-stop for 1 hour straight. And after I finished, I nearly collapsed and fainted on the spot, not because I was physically tired but because I was mentally drained. You see an impromptu speech required you to use your brain power a lot.. so that's the real reason why..

Come competition day, my coach would pyschic me up before every tournament.

"Slept well? How do you feel now?"

"Ready to rock and roll?" Yeah, I loved that statement..

"Now, it's not about winning here. Just go up, make me believe in what you have to say, make me cry if I have to, make me laugh when you tell me a joke, and above all stay focused. Your job is not to win another title for the school, it's about making a legend of your speech." Wow, a legend of a speech.

I know what she was talking about, some speeches are just legends. People will live to remember that one fine morning a small kid went up on stage and made all of us cry with a heart warming story. Yes, there are legend speeches, so why not just do one that's equally good as that?

And I'd go up, take a deep breath, and everything would just pour out so naturally. And the audience who never paid attention would suddenly just stop doing what they were doing before, stop breathing and followed my speech as I flow along. With hundreds of pairs of eyes stuck to me, I had their attention, and they were listening. That was the golden moment for me to do my job.

But the pressure on the stage was always immense. I had no stage fright anymore (I was basically immune to it) but the pressure of not losing their attention was great. I had a lifespan of half a minute to grab their attention and not lose it. Once I lose their attention, it will naturally mean that the judges' attention is lost too, and then I'd know that I've blew my chance.

And the satisfaction of presenting a good speech comes when you take that step back from the stage and bow, the audience clap and cheer. That's when you know, they got the message. And the joy that comes from that satisfaction - beyond what words can describe.

I won the state trophy twice, and at both occassions when the hall cheered and applauded, from the stage I could see my coach just sitting down quietly. She wasn't cheering, she wasn't applauding. She was just smiling and nodding her head. And that meant the most to me, because when she nods her head in approval, I know that I did a good job up there. No nonsense, I didn't go out, it wasn't lousy.

And as I took the trophy to her, the only thing on my mouth was:

"Thanks coach, I owe you one."

And her reply was simple.

"Take a break for one day, I'll see you on Tuesday. Better start preparing for nationals."



Postlude: I have a little ritual that I kinda perform before delivering my prepared speech, whether during training or tournament, is that I'll jump around like a monkey to the tune of the BeeGees song "Stayin' Alive".. and one Saturday morning before going off to nationals my coach couldn't stand it, she burst into laughter and said "You monyet kah?" and that became my personal hit phrase. Some teachers even adopted that phrase when they tried to tick me off in a more humorous manner.

I was a school represent in PS from 2002 to 2005, and my coach trained me from 2004 to 2005. Those 2 years were the toughest, and yet best training I ever had in my life. When I lost in nationals back in 2004, she sent me a letter that quoted a famous bible verse:

Surely you know that many runners take part in a race, but only one of them wins the prize. Run, then, in such a way as to win the prize.
Every athlete in training submits to strict discipline, in order to be crowned with a wreath that will not last; but we do it for one that will last forever.
That is why I run straight for the finish line; that is why I am like a boxer who does not waste his punches.
I harden my body with blows and bring it under complete control, to keep myself from being disqualified after having called others to the contest.

1 Chorintians 9: 24 - 27

More than merely a coach, she's been a friend. A friend that truly cares, a friend not just to me but to the school.

This post is in tribute of the 2 great coaches who taught me everything about PS. Thank you so much for giving me the chance.