Happy 2015!!
Nine folks braved the cold for the first meeting of the year!
We started with a comical conversation about using flame throwers to kill weeds which stretched into a metaphor for taking out stutters too. In terms of speech over the holidays, members mentioned that with all the family visits and reconnections over the break, it was more difficult to use speech strategies and to be as fluent when in a normal routine. For example, having to say over and over that they go to school at UVM was tricky when blocking on the “U” every time.
Some members mentioned having more stuttering with strangers (when anxiously waiting in line and rehearsing what to say when ordering food or the dreaded reading out loud in class/church) or with family (less avoidance and more talking overall). One member has to consciously relax the muscles in his face and ease out of a stutter if it catches him off-guard, and he tries to put out voluntary stutters when he feels his stuttering is getting a little out of control.
We talked a bit about “power postures” to try to appear self-confident when nervous speaking (one member pretends she is wearing a crown and has all the time she needs). We mentioned the excellent movie about Alan Turing, a person who stuttered played by Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game, even though his stuttering in the movie wasn’t very prominent.
We ended with our resident joke-teller sharing a holiday-themed pun — go Team!