Embrace the Journey: Speak Up, A Curated Blog

Toastmasters challenges me

I’ve been doing Toastmasters over ten years. It has become my marker for the beginning of my forward progress with MS. Toastmasters challenges the brain, so it’s always an adventure and needed. 

What I like about Toastmasters is the mental stimulation.   Doing a speech for the club, requires logical thinking, organizing ideas and practice. It's also an exercise in memory and articulation. I need all this and more. Since giving my first Ice breaker speech over ten years ago, I have progressed from 1) reading my written speech; to 2) talking from an outline, to 3) speaking with no notes. 

Love public speaking 

Weekly practice is a key for me. The older I get, the slower my brain seems to process information. Also, articulating exactly what I want to say is harder. I think, that with MS,  my brain needs regular training just like muscles.

Speech giving is only one piece of what we do. We also practice thinking when we evaluate another member’s speech and give impromptu responses to prompts. Constructive evaluation is important for the speaker and a valuable skill for the member evaluating. As speakers we get encouragement and praise but more important is help overcoming speaking problems. Joke telling is my nemesis. I continue working on it! 

Extemporaneous speaking is a fun and sometimes frightening portion of every meeting. It's called Table Topics and we are given a prompt to respond to. We practice composing an idea then telling the story efficiently and without filler words like ah, uh, and, you know and others. 

From Toastmasters I gained the confidence and skills to start blogging about my journey with Multiple Sclerosis. I'm still learning the language of electronic communication while blogging. I also have my own You Tube channel, judymanagesms.