How to Break the Rules and Break Out of the Boundaries.

Welcome to QuickBites — public speaking tips and techniques you can digest in five minutes or less. Here's your host, Peter George.

People often wonder what they should do with their hands while speaking. The simple answer is whatever you would normally do — within reason. And to help keep it within reason, public speaking coaches often use shapes to describe where your hands should stay while gesturing. Whether they call it a circle, box, or square, the suggestion is the same: keep your hands roughly between your chin and your waist, and about the same distance side to side.

Why the Boundaries Exist

Keeping your hands within these boundaries is a solid rule of thumb. It prevents your hands from flailing all over the place and becoming a distraction. When your gestures stay contained, your audience focuses on your message — not on the movement happening around it.

Why Breaking the Rules Matters

But as always, rules are made to be broken. And occasionally breaking this rule offers you a tremendous opportunity to call attention to specific parts of your talk. If you're telling a story about a child being chased by a monster, you might raise your hands high above the boundary to illustrate the monster's size. If costs are way down in a business presentation, you might drop a hand lower than your waist to drive that point home. If the fish in your fishing story grows from 18 inches to four feet over the course of the telling, your hands have no choice but to break the boundaries to show it.

Size Your Gestures to Your Audience

The size of your gestures also depends on your proximity to the audience. With smaller, intimate audiences close to you, your gestures will generally be smaller. With larger audiences, your gestures will usually be more prominent. However, even with large audiences, your gestures don't need to be nearly as big if you're projected onto large screens — the camera does the amplifying for you.

It comes down to this: gesturing within a defined space has its merits, but both you and your audiences are best served when you let your content, circumstances, and desired effect determine when you break the rules and break out of the boundaries.

Thank you for devouring another episode of QuickBites. Until then, remember — when it comes to speaking in public, you've got this. I'll see you next time.