Sugar Blossom

How To Improve Your Movement

If you want to acquire a magnetic personality, your movements must be elegant and balanced.
Let’s say you move a lot - you make sweeping, exaggerated ges¬tures. You have to learn to control them and limit them to some ex¬tent. Overwhelming and uncontrolled gestures generally indicate an extroverted, flamboyant character, which can become somewhat tiring to the people around you. If you fall into this category, learn to moderate your movements!

On the other hand, if you’re an introvert, you’re probably very stingy with your gestures. In this case, you have to learn to liberate your body to some extent. It’s like you’re wearing an emotional and physical straight jacket, which you must absolutely tear to shreds if you want to liberate the magnetism and personal charm that, at the moment, lies sleeping somewhere deep inside you.
Controlling your gestures automatically means controlling your emotions, because our movements are nothing more than a reflection of the way we feel.

Movements are the reflection of the way we feel. Become aware of your movements!

Would you know how to describe your gestures? Are you aware of them? In order to tone them down or amplify them, you abso¬lutely must become familiar with them. If you have doubts, the fol¬lowing test will help you to methodically classify the way you move in various situations.

Test: Become aware of your gestures

Here is a list of descriptions that could apply to your gestures:

• Generous
• Uncertain
• Brusque
• Slow
• Restrained
• Clumsy
• Erratic
• Methodical
• Exaggerated
• Precise
• Insufficient
• Jerky
• Rapid
• Dry

Answer the following questions with three of those descriptions.
1. When you wash in the morning, your gestures are:

1. _________________________________________________

2. _________________________________________________

3. _________________________________________________

2. When you pack your luggage your movements are:

3. When you’re getting ready to go out and realize you’re run¬ning late, your movements are:
4. When you’re gluing a broken object together, your movements are:
5. When you’re relaxing with friends, your gestures are:

6. When you’re working and you know someone is watching you, your movements are:

7. If you’re sitting at the head of a large table at a dinner party, your movements are:

Now take the qualities that appear three or more times on your list and write them down on a sheet of paper. You now have a profile of the way you move your body. You are ready for an exercise that will teach you to be totally conscious of your gestures.

Exercise: Mime

This exercise is somewhat special because you can adapt it to any anxiety-causing situation, whenever you instinctively feel the need for more self assurance.
1. Get comfortable in front of your mirror.
2. Imagine that you’ve been invited to a party. You are standing, holding a glass in your hand, in the midst of a conversation with another guest. A waiter approaches with a tray of hors d’oeuvres.
3. Now analyse every one of your gestures:
-You smile at the person holding the tray and look them straight in the eye.
-Without moving your hands, you glance down at the contents of the tray.
You slowly lift your free hand to the tray and reach for the hors d’oeuvre nearest you.
You calmly lift the hors d’oeuvre and smile at the person you were talking to before taking a bite.

This very simple, but very effective exercise, can be adapted to any situation. You could imagine, for example, that you’re at the cash in a supermarket, paying for your groceries and arranging them in boxes.

Make a list of all the situations where you are consistently clumsy, and adapt them to this exercise. Then look for results after just a few days of practice.

Exercise: Staying calm

You may belong to the category of people who gesticulate a lot when they talk. This exercise will help you stay calm when you speak to friends or colleagues.

1. Get out your faithful old mirror and sit down comfortably in front of it.

2. Talk to yourself about your day, or about any other subject that comes to mind, without making the slightest gesture. If you move your little finger, start again.

The first session shouldn’t last more than 3 minutes. When you get used to it, you can extend the duration a little. If, after a few weeks, you’re able to tell yourself a story lasting 15 minutes without moving at all, then you’re cured. You will face your friends and colleagues calmly, and be composed and convincing.

In this way you learn to economize your movements in a natural way.
Some advice for making your gestures more confident and flow¬ing: read a book on personal development.

But how many clumsy gestures do you think are caused by a lack of self assurance?
Knowing exactly what and what not to do in a given situation will help you master your gestures, making them more supple and more studied. This will add to your sense of security, and you’ll be more self assured.

How’s your handshake?

You’re surely aware that shaking hands is a very important ges¬ture. It is one of the ways people form an immediate judgment of someone.

Could you describe your handshake? (If you can’t, ask someone else to do it for you.)
My handshake is: _______________________________________

Have you ever shaken someone’s hand, only to have your fin¬gers crushed in a vice-like grasp? Has a handshake ever reminded you of a dead fish - limp, clammy and cold?

The ideal handshake is firm and dry. Observe your own, and make an effort to correct it if necessary. Keep in mind that a handshake is one of the pieces of the puzzle that defines our personality.