Kung Fu Candour

“Don’t think. Feel.”

When Bruce Lee says this classic line in 1973 martial arts movie ‘Enter the Dragon’, he’s instructing a student in the ways of unarmed combat, of allowing things to flow without letting conscious thought cloud the process. This is also pretty good advice for anyone standing up in front of a group of people to speak.

                                                                                                                   www.chanwu.altervista.org

When it comes to conscious thought and skill, you may already be aware of this theory:

1.) unconscious incompetence: I’m unaware that I’m hopeless at public speaking.
2.) conscious incompetence: Oh. I’ve realized that I’m hopeless at public speaking.
3.) conscious competence: Hey, I’m good at it, but I think too much about the process.
4.) unconscious competence: What’s that? I’m a zen master, you say? I had no idea.

Try to get half-way between stages 3 and 4.

If you’ve done your preparation, then all you need to do is trust in it, and let everything fall into place as it should. If you haven’t, well, none of my advice is going to be any good to you; come back when you’ve done it properly. Go through your material, get it right, and make sure you know it thoroughly. (See also my martial arts flavoured post on adaptability: ‘Be Like Water’.)

So, to sum up:

In preparation: refine, rehearse, relax.
On the day: don’t try to remember any of it. Just let it happen.