Lesson 17

 

   

HAND MOVEMENTS

The way a person moves their hands depends on his/her culture, age, sex, mood, level of fatigue.....Generally, socially skilled people gesticulate with their hands more than those that are not, although they don't go overboard, as they only do it during 10% of the total conversation time.

Experts recommend using your hands to accompany your words, and therefore transmit feelings of frankness and security. However, we shouldn't move our hands too much as this will distract the attention of those listening to us. An example of a situation when the gestures accompany the verbal content, would be is when saying "I can't take any more of this situation", the speaker makes a movement of both hands going in opposite ways.

But hand gesures can also be used to illustrate our emotions and attitudes. Let's look at some gestures and the emotion or attitude which is usually associated with them:

•  Puting your hand on your chest: sincerity

•  Joining your finger tips together with both hands: self confidence

•  Hands clenched, tense, or playing with an object: nervousness

•  Touching your chin area (beard): pensive attitude, decision making.

 

MOVEMENTS WITH YOUR LEGS AND FEET

Movements which are associated with tension are:

•  Rhythmic movements up and down with your foot.

•  Clenching legs together

•  Frequent changes in the positioning of the legs (crossed and to one side, then on the other side, stretched...)

The best thing is for your legs to be in a relaxed position. According to the context, we can recommend different postures. For example, during work interviews we don't usually recommend that you cross your legs; as this can be interpreted, depending on other variables present, as a gesture of excessive informality, or, on the contrary, as a defensive attitude. The ideal position for a formal conversation is the calf and the thigh forming an angle of 90 degrees.