The Art of Presenting Yourself

  • Charisma and physical presence are essential when presenting an idea, a product or a service.

    Focus of workshop:

    - Show physical presence
    - Presenting vocal presence
    - Convey authenticity/credibility
    - Recognize and optimize your own prerequisites and strengths
    - Learn more about yourself and your effect on others
    - Recognize your own limits and expand them

Report by Dr. Julia Syurik (2016)

The Art to Present Yourself was my absolute favorite among the 12 YIN workshops I attended so far. Given by a real theater and opera director, the 2-days workshop was imbued with a spirit of art, play-acting and mystery. With a small group of 6 people, the workshop started with presenting ourselves and our research in a way we would do it during a conference, so that our couch could estimate the field of "work". Afterwards, he proposed to start from the beginning. We learned and re-learned to say hello, shake hands and go to the stage. I never realized that a presentation starts before the talk – by going onstage, greeting the audience, choosing a pose and a place to stand, etc. Another surprise was how many things one can do wrong without even noticing them. Unlike other similar courses, no camera recordings were needed, as our tutor could easily mimic gestures, tones and mistakes of any participant. Over a year has gone by and I can still remember mine very well… Step by step we worked on every tiny detail to make our stories vivid, real and colorful. Instead of taking science, we were explaining how to make ice, Borsch and bake baguettes. The miracle happened at the end of the workshop when we were able to implement the obtained knowledge in our scientific presentations. They were, similar to baguettes and ice, tasty and colorful. The whole group decided to also participate in the continuing course The Art to Present Yourself Part Two: Dramaturgy of Attention. Here, we have learned not to lose ourselves in front of presentation slides. To me it was a surprise that giving presentation with slides is actually harder than without. We finished the workshop with greatly improved presenting skills and presentations. The intimate warm atmosphere during both courses would never have been possible without the outstanding personality and on-stage experience of our director and coach.