Practice vs Rehearse

There's one interesting article that i have read in Toastmaster magazine Nov 2004, written by Dave Zielinski, a freelance writer in New York and Minneapolis. He can be contacted at zskidoo@aol.com; and the tittle of the article is called 'Perfect Practice'.

As previous post i hav posted about overcoming PSP, now i shall be telling (quite) in depth the ways to be prepared in speeches. Well you see, you are given a time to practice your perfect speech; let's say maybe around 2 weeks (according to the foundation course timing), but you will be using less than 1 week to practice, or probably the last 3 days to nail your speech. That; is normal. Even i do that. Well, the thing is, despite any given hours, minutes, days, weeks or months, you will always have not enough of time. True? Oh, we understand you. I know what you are thinking about, we all are busy people.

Regardless how many time left for you before you were to do speech remember this:
Practise, Practice, Practice; then, Rehearse, Rehearse and Rehearse. Chant after me please;
Practise, Practise, Practice; then, Rehearse, Rehearse and Rehearse.

Sounds stupid, but this is the one you have to remember when you are preparing for your presentation.

What the difference between Practise and Rehearse?
Practice: You do it all the time from 8pm to the next 8am morning before you go to school. You keep on mantra-ing and remembering all the lines and texts everywhere you go; toilet, classes, dining table, under table, at the house garden, next to the washin machine; basically even when you are in your lalaland. You keep on practising on your speeches when you are busying with activities. It's not wrong; but it's not the only way to survive your speech. You may remember it, but you won't be good in delivering it.

Rehease: It combines the art of speaking and non-verbal communication. It's more, i will dare say, better than just practising. Well you see, when you are rehearsing, you are on your feet, standing and rehearse as if you are in front talking. You will be using your hand gestures, some eye contacts (with the plants, television or wink at fish in the aquarium), pacing and interacting with the AV equipments. When you are used to rehearsing, using a bit of movement here and there, eventually when you are up on stage (obviously you will be standing) and then you are begin with a smooth flow and every non-verbal communication of yours is under control. It is better if you are going to do presentation with visual aid, you can rehearse with your powerpoint to help you in it. Make sure your presentation is clear enough, not too long and it is easy to read and for you to tell.

Nevertheless, you should always revise after you hav practised and rehearse.

"Too often we overlook what we are going to say during practice, and under-work how we are going to say it during rehearsal. If it were only about the material, we could simply e-mail our presentations to audiences and have them e-mail any questions back."

Liew Hui Qing, Jaime