Tips to Try
Hand Gestures
Recently a friend asked me about hand gestures. One person told him he used too many, so he reduced how many he used. Then another person told him he didn’t have enough. He wanted to know my thoughts.
I told him that usually hand gestures are to be natural and fit the situation. The biggest concern is not “how to use them,” but “how to eliminate gestures that distract.“ They are like a frame for a painting. We all know that a frame should never distract from the beauty of the art. When a picture has been framed properly, a person doesn’t even notice the frame. So it is with hand gestures. When the story is told, it comes from your face. The whole body is to frame the face, and shouldn’t distract from it.
Hand gestures change according to the audience and situation. If I am telling the story to a friend across a restaurant table, I will use very few hand gestures, except what would be natural in a regular conversation. If I am telling the story before a thousand Christian school teachers in a convention hall, my gestures would be big with a lot of body movement. How I tell the Creation story to 30 children in Junior Church will be different than how I tell it to 12 adults in a Sunday school class.
I told my friend that the fact that both people were talking about his hand gestures meant that attention was being drawn away from his face. As you tell a story, allow it to light up your face, and people won't talk about your hands.
Don’t forget to check out our ‘Story of the Month’ as well
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