在演讲、戏剧和表达的训练中，我们经常听到一句话——“熟能生巧”（Practice makes perfect）。但你有没有想过，如果练习的方法错了，练得越多反而可能伤害越大？

很多同学习惯把演讲和表演当成一场“期末考试”，临到头来才开始疯狂背台词；还有人练习时总是小声念叨、快速过一遍……这些习惯不仅无法提升你的表现，还会给你的后续训练制造巨大的障碍。

今天，Nate教练就来和大家深度聊聊：我们究竟该如何高效、正确地练习？

01

The Trap of Incorrect Practice

It would seem obvious that every drama, interp and public speaking teacher wants their student to practice their speech or lines to get better and to get memorized. However, practicing is not always helpful. Exercise is good for you but if you do it wrong you can hurt your body. A lack of knowledge could hurt your knees elbows, back bones, joints, muscles and more. The same can be said of your practice of presentations. Knowing the right way to practice your public speaking, interp or play are equally important.

显而易见，每位戏剧、表演性演讲和演讲的教练都希望学生能练习演讲稿或台词，以便做得更好并牢记于心。然而，练习并不总是有效的。体育锻炼固然对身体有益，但如果方式不对，反而会伤害身体。缺乏专业知识可能会伤到你的膝盖、肘部、脊柱、关节和肌肉等，公共演讲的练习也是同理。掌握正确的演讲、表演性演讲或戏剧练习方法同样至关重要。

02

 A Presentation is Not a Written Test

So, what is the problem. Well, it starts at your school with your homework and tests. A few years ago, I sat down with a student who was in high school. She was doing a play with me for a drama class, and I needed her to record some lines to be played over the sound system while her character was off stage. We began talking about how many students were not memorized for the play yet and how this was something that happens to my class every year but right before the play everyone is always memorized. She said, “Mr. Nate, that’s how students do homework in China. We wait until the last minute and study intensely.” After so many years an honest moment with a student helped me understand my students so much more. It was wonderful. It was also wrong. Not about studying for test… I was known to write many papers and cram for tests the night before they were due. I did it a lot in college and it worked well for me. The problem is we are looking at a performance or presentation the same way we look at a test. You can't cram (intensely study) for a performance or presentation in the same way.

那么，问题出在哪里呢？这要从你们在学校写作业和考试说起。几年前，我和一位高中生坐下来沟通。她当时正在和我一起准备戏剧课的剧目，我需要她录制一些台词，以便在她饰演的角色处于幕后时通过音响播放。我们聊到了当时还有很多学生没有背熟台词，而这种现象每年都会在我的课堂上发生，但在演出前夕，所有人却又都能背下来。她对我说：“Nate老师，这就是中国学生做作业的方式。我们总是拖到最后一刻，然后进行高强度突击学习。”这么多年后，与学生的一次坦诚交流让我更加理解了我的学生们。这感觉棒极了，但这种做法其实是错误的。我并不是说备考的方式不对……我以前也是出了名地喜欢在截止日期前一天晚上赶写论文、突击复习备考。我在大学里屡试不爽，效果很好。问题在于，我们把“舞台表演”或“公开演讲”当成了考试，你根本无法以同样的方式为表演或演讲进行临时抱佛脚（高强度突击）。

Why? Think about what you are doing. When you intensively study at the last minute your are trying to make yourself remember the most things at one time so you can remember the most things the next day. However, while it is important to have a presentation or performance memorized there is so much more to it.

为什么呢？想想你正在做什么吧。当你临到最后一刻突击学习时，你是试图让自己一次性记住尽可能多的东西，以便第二天能复述出来。然而，虽然背熟演讲或表演的内容很重要，但它的内涵远不止于此。

03

Memorize Early to Skill Up

As your coach, we can only meet you where you are and show you how to improve from there. So, imagine you are never memorized until we have our last class, when I see you right before the performance or presentation. At that point, if we tell you to try things especially new things, it is only going to distract you. Presenting and performing is like juggling. You have many ideas that we can refer to as balls in the air at the same time. The words you must remember to say. The gestures and movements you do with your hand, and body. Where should you be looking. We amount of emotion and passion should you be using at each part of the speech or play. When you learn to juggle, you start with only one. You practice until you can always throw that ball and know where it is going and instinctively know how to move your arms and hands to catch it. This is called muscle memory. Remember this as we will come back to it later. After you get good with one you add another and another and learn to do complicated tricks and use different sized objects. Yes, it's true that the more effort and practice you put in the better you can juggle, but it all starts with that first ball. In this case the first ball is the words you need to learn to say. I can't juggle anything if I can't catch that first ball and in the case of presenting, you can't get fancy and skilled with your words until you remember all of them. If you do this at the last minute, I can only help you with the basics as all your brain power and focus is on one ball and not dropping it (forgetting the words you are supposed to say). So, learn the words early so we as coaches can help you get better and show you different ways to improve.

作为教练，我们只能基于你现有的水平去指导你，并告诉你如何在此基础上进行提升。因此，想象一下，如果你直到最后一节课（也就是演讲或表演前夕）都还没背熟台词，到了那个阶段，如果我们让你尝试新东西，那只会分散你的注意力。演讲和表演就像玩杂耍抛接球。同时有许多可以被视为“空中飞球”的要素需要你兼顾：你必须记住的台词文本、你的手部和身体动作手势、你的眼神落点，以及你在演讲或剧目各个部分所应投入的情感与激情。当你学习杂耍抛接球时，你总是从一只球开始练起。你反复练习，直到每次抛出球都能准确预判它的落点，并且能本能地移动手臂和双手去接住它。这被称为“肌肉记忆”。记住这一点，我们稍后还会谈到它。当你熟练掌握了一只球后，你再增加第二只、第三只，进而学会各种复杂的技巧，并使用不同大小的道具。是的，你投入的努力和练习越多，你杂耍玩得就越好，但这一切都始于“第一只球”。在演讲和表演中，这“第一只球”就是你需要学会说的台词文本。如果我接不住第一只球，我就什么杂耍也玩不成；同样，在演讲中，除非你把台词全部记住，否则你根本无法在语言表达上展现出技巧和精彩之处。如果你把这件事拖到最后一刻，我就只能在最基础的层面帮助你，因为你所有的脑力和注意力都集中在那一只球上——确保它不掉下来（即不忘记你该说的词）。因此，尽早背熟台词，这样我们作为教练才能帮助你变得更优秀，并为你指明不同的提升路径。

04

Beware of Bad Muscle Memory

However, this is probably not the only mistake you are making when you are practicing. When I am at competitions usually the first thing I do is tell students to do is slow down and be louder. It is a universal problem when students are starting to work and the reason is the way you practice. You are probably feeling a little nervous and embarrassed about speaking and performing. We also don’t want to be annoying or disruptive when you are practicing. However, think about learning an instrument like the trumpet. It is loud and when you practice, it will be loud. It does disturb people and everyone hears every mistake you make loud and clear. You can practice only moving your fingers on the keys but that is only part of what you need to play the trumpet.

然而，这恐怕还不是你在练习时犯的唯一错误。当我参加比赛时，我通常做的第一件事就是告诉学生们“放慢速度，放开声音”。这是学生刚开始准备时的普遍问题，而原因就在于你们的练习方式。你在演讲和表演时可能会感到有些紧张和害羞。同时，我们在练习时也不想打扰或影响到别人。但是，想想学习小号这样的乐器吧。小号声音很大，当你练习时，声音必然很大。它确实会打扰到别人，每个人都能清清楚楚地听到你犯的每一个错误。你可以只练习在按键上移动手指，但这仅仅是吹奏小号所需技能的一部分。

Okay, I can hear you out there, ‘but Mr. Nate we are talking about speaking, performing and presenting, what are this have to do with musical instruments’. Remember when I said I would be going back and talking more about muscle memory? It's the ability to remember how to do something without concentrating on it too much. It's part of the way we learn to do things like play an instrument, solve a Rubics Cube or play a video game. We practice these things until we can do them without a lot of focus. This allows our minds to be freed up to focus on other aspects of what you are doing. Do you remember when you were really young and it was difficult to simply hold a pencil correctly. Then you were able to do that, and you moved on to writing letters and words and that was challenging. Then you mastered it and moved on to more and more and more.

好吧，我能听到你们在私下嘟囔：“但是Nate老师，我们谈论的是演讲、表演和表达，这和乐器有什么关系呢？”还记得我说过会回头再多聊聊“肌肉记忆”吗？肌肉记忆就是指无须过度集中精力就能记住如何做某事的能力。这是我们学习演奏乐器、解魔方或玩电子游戏的方式之一。我们练习这些事情，直到不需要高度集中注意力就能完成。这能让我们的精力和大脑解放出来，去关注你所做事情的其他方面。你还记得你很小的时候，光是正确握笔都很困难吗？后来你做到了，接着开始学习写字母和单词，那也曾是个挑战。随后你掌握了它，并逐步迈向越来越复杂的阶段。

If you practice super-fast, so that you can say all these words many times and eventually memorize them, you are creating muscle memory in how to say these words. Then when it comes time to say them, you can only say them fast… the way you have been practicing them. When your teacher or coach works with you, the first thing they will need to do is to slow you down. This breaks the muscle memory you have learned through all the practice, and you end up having to relearn it, to say them at a better speed. So, you now have to unlearn something while relearning something else. You tried to take a short cut, and it double the amount of work we must do. The same thing is true when it comes to practicing quietly. You know you need to be loud when performing or the audience will not be able to hear you. So why not practice out loud, the way you will when you present. When you practice always practice like you are on stage and presenting there. It's how you learn to do all the correct things through muscle memory so you can open yourself up to a wide world of more options than just the basics. It will also help you with future presentations and performances because your brain and body remember these things and will naturally want to do them the way they are used to. Lastly if you can master the basics on your own and early, then your coach can give you more thoughts and ideas to improve what you are doing. There are a million times when I work with a student when I think I would like to work on this thing today but they just aren't ready to add something more advanced.

如果你练习得超级快，只是为了能把这些台词快速念很多遍并最终记住它们，你实际上是在建立一种“如何快速念出这些词”的肌肉记忆。等到了真正需要表达的时候，你就只能说得飞快……也就是你一直以来练习的那个语速。当你的老师或教练指导你时，他们需要做的第一件事就是让你慢下来。这打破了你通过以往所有练习所建立起来的肌肉记忆，结果你不得不重新学习，以更好的语速去表达。因此，你现在必须先“卸载”旧习惯，同时“重新学习”新习惯。你本想走捷径，结果却让我们要付出的工作量翻了一倍。在默念练习这一点上也是同理。你知道在表演时声音需要足够大，否则观众听不见。那为什么不直接大声练习呢？就像你真正演讲时那样去练。练习时，永远要像站在舞台上演讲一样去练习。这就是你如何通过肌肉记忆学会做所有正确事情的方法，从而让自己面向除了基础之外更广阔的可能。这也有助于你未来的演讲和表演，因为你的大脑和身体会记住这些习惯，并自然而然地以它们习惯的方式去发挥。最后，如果你能独立且尽早地掌握基础，你的教练就能给你提供更多想法和创意来提升你的表现。在我和学生一起工作的无数个时刻里，我常常想“今天我想辅导这个进阶技巧”，但他们却还没准备好去添加更高级的内容。

05

Work Smarter, Not Harder

None of us start perfect but if you don't learn the basics early so you can polish the rest and you don't practice in a same way that you want to be on stage, you are setting yourself up for a lot of frustration and extra work you don't need. Yes, it takes a lot of work to get good at anything, but you also need to work smarter not harder and sometimes a shortcut is actually the longer, harder way of doing something. So, memorize early and practice like every rehearsal is the final performance. You'll see it does wonders. So, doesn't practice make perfect? It depends on how you are practicing. Cheers!

我们没有一个人是一开始就完美的，但如果你不尽早掌握基础以润色其余部分，如果你不按照自己想在舞台上展现的方式去练习，你就是在让自己陷入不必要的沮丧和额外的麻烦中。是的，要把任何事情做好都需要付出巨大的努力，但你也需要“聪明地努力”，而不是盲目蛮干。有时候，所谓的捷径实际上是更漫长、更艰难的弯路。所以，尽早背熟文本，并且像对待最终演出一样去对待每一次排练。你会发现它能创造奇迹。那么，“熟能生巧”真的成立吗？这取决于你是如何练习的。加油！

看完 Nate 教练的分享，相信大家对“练习”有了全新的认识！

总结下来，高效练习的黄金法则是： 

1、文本先过关

尽早把台词/讲稿背熟，把脑力释放出来给眼神、情感和肢体语言。 

2、警惕错误的“肌肉记忆”：

不要为了快速背诵而飞速念词，也不要害羞不敢发声。平时怎么练，台上就怎么演！