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Bicycles and Public Speaking

· 2 min read
Adam Kecskes
Adam Kecskes
Speaking Coach & Leadership Advisor

At whatever age you learn to ride a bike (if you have done so), it's safe to say it's no easy task, at least initially. When you're young, you're own body and pressure from parents and peers gets in the way just as much as learning how a bicycle work does; and when you're older, habits and attitude can be just as inhibiting.

Yet, once a you pass some magic threshold, it's as if you've always known how to ride. Sure, you're not an expert; you're not going to be doing stunts and you'll stumble here and there, but the hard part is done and a "naturalness" replaces most of the struggles. Why is that? And how does it apply to public speaking?

"Motor Learning" is the key to a person's success in riding a bike. It's less habit and more... ingrained physicality. From the wikipedia article on the topic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_learning):

"It often involves improving the smoothness and accuracy of movements and is obviously necessary for complicated movements such as speaking, playing the piano, and climbing trees."

The same thing applies to public speaking as well. Practice does approach perfection. But I want to take this a step further; good public speaking is more than just words coming out of your mouth. It's also gestures and gesticulation, body movement and physical presence. Riding a bike involves a significant amount of body interaction; this muscle memory portion of motor learning is what makes cycling so intuitive after awhile.

You can make public speaking as intuitive by adding in body language components to your speeches, deliberately. Common, culturally shared patterns such as spreading your hands apart to represent growth or large size, not only engage your audience, but they also help you embody your speaking habits more readily. Not unlike riding a bike.

A stereotype of many public speakers is the dry professor standing behind a lectern, barley raising a finger. That professor would be a lot better off teaching class having applied the same basics of bike riding to speaking. Take advantage of motor learning!

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