The articles and studies about body language that I have read mostly seem to be assertions made by experts about how the motivations and intentions of the subjects they observe are revealed through the stances and behaviours they adopt. “This person leans back because they are comfortable”, they might say, or “when they touch their nose you know they are lying” and on it goes. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me that I have not yet found a book that offers insights from someone studying themselves and reporting that “when I tell lies, I notice I do this”, as, quite apart from the fact that honesty is not always the best policy, the moment we become conscious of what we are doing, we are just that: self-conscious. This then leaves us with the topic of body language being subjectively skewed regardless of where the data comes from, yet it takes up a significant amount of time in my workshops and, clearly, people’s interest when it comes to developing their stage presence and leadership qualities.
This is not to say that the topic does not have merit and there are many stories and instances to show that it does. I remember once watching an interview with Sir David Attenborough during which, as an aside, he described a trait common to all primates of raising their eyebrows as a sign or recognition or invitation to engage. He described how, during a trip to South America, he had experimented with this by positioning himself at the entrance to a market square and then raising his eyebrows to anyone with whom he made contact. It worked as he predicted, and the fact that it is common to all primates is intriguing as it suggests something primal rather than habitual or social. I was able to test this for myself in the spring of 1996 during my first year at drama school when one of our classes asked that we study animals closely and for a sustained period of time in order to first observe, then interpret and finally represent their physicality in order to develop our ability as performers to transform. I vividly recall commuting every weekend to London Zoo over a period of two months to study the Silverback Gorilla in residence, with my visits lasting between one and two hours each time. On the first two or three occasions I noted little more than his utter boredom and the colourful hand gestures he had presumably adopted through the mimicry of hundreds of visiting school children. As time passed he clearly became aware of my regular returns, and in the last few weeks he would look up at me on arrival, raise his eyebrows and then wander off and sit with his back to me. I would agree that this suggests that he did not view me as a threat, but neither does Oleksandr Usyk and it’s anyone’s guess what either would make of me other than mincemeat. This leaves my understanding of his intentions general and vague, which is useful but by no means conclusive or precise. These stories and others like them have since become anecdotes that I sometimes offer during my workshops about networking when discussing how best to start conversations with strangers, because in the absence of certainty it is sometimes useful to have a vague and general idea of what we might do – or where we might look for inspiration.
People attend my workshops because they want solutions in the form of practical information or feedback that they can then implement. If we talk about things like visual aids, story structure or controlling nerves with guidelines, suggestions, best practise or – dare I say it – rules, then that gives clarity in the form of a programming language that predicts if this particular stimulus then that specific outcome. We can argue about the variables used, which results in a conversation about which colour or font to use, whether explaining something at the beginning or end creates the desired impact or how best to mitigate the effects of adrenaline, and that leads to a reasoned and evidenced debate where one option is preferred over another. But, as the following anecdote illustrates, the same does not apply to body language.
Five years ago I was delivering a presentation skills workshop in North Africa to an international audience, and about halfway through I began to detect sensations in my body that are consistent with an MS relapse. Although mercifully infrequent, they are something with which I am familiar and over the last thirty years have come to know well. I can usually predict their severity with some being too serious to ignore and others mild enough to allow me to continue what I am doing. Often I experience muscular spasms on one side of my body which leads to my mobility and posture being noticeably – but not acutely – affected, and on this occasion I continued with the workshop and finished it as planned. During questions at the end, one member of the audience first congratulated me for some of the content and then offered feedback that a workshop trainer specialising in presentation skills like me “really ought to have better posture.” It goes without saying that had I been upfront about my condition, it would never have occurred to anyone to critique it, but what fascinates me is how feedback about body language typically sits alone in a context-free area. Were I being reviewed for my visual aids, content or workshop design, the comment would probably have contained specifics about what was lacking with reasons and comparison to a better or ideal alternative. “To help people with visual impairments, it would be better to have a plain background”, “you didn’t give any examples of exercises to manage nerves” or “there weren’t enough breaks” are all critical comments offering solutions. Even the director at drama school who once told me to “act better” had suggestions for how I might do so.
An opinion about someone’s body language for the purpose of improving their performance is always well intentioned, but the inspiration for such a comment can only come from an image of what superior performance looks like. This, by definition, is measuring someone’s appearance against that of an ideal, and context, precision and specifics are needed or to ensure the advice leads to improvement rather than imitation, as has been so clearly shown by some British politicians in the not so distant past.
*The study of Transformation and Imaginative Improvisation as taught to me by Catherine Clouzot is not about representation, and I am using this word as an approximation for the purpose of brevity.
