Bodytalk or how to talk to cats!

Icarus here.

            This blog is all aimed at body language and the importance of being able to consciously read and adapt it for situations pertaining to everyday life from the view of someone who uses it everyday.

            So what is Body language? In the very simplest of terms it is the way all animals communicate. Humans can communicate with animals with it and more often than you realise they communicate with you using it on a daily basis. Try this; Grab a cat (preferably your own) sit him/her in front of you and try to make eye contact. When you have this eye contact slowly blink your eyes once and wait for the cats response. If said cat returns your look feel very overwhelmed that is the cat body language for trust and companionship! If the cat does not copy the look try again later. Cats tend to be very much “when I'm ready” kind of creature.

            Looking at it more deeply and applying it directly to the human race it is the way two subconscious beings communicate.

            Body language has evolved with us since we first started making our way out of the ocean (we evolved from aquatic ape like creatures, not apes, chimpanzees or bonobo's). At first it was our only means of communication. At that time our brains and vocal chords had not yet evolved to produce language apart from grunts and probably hisses which were more used as punctuation rather than actual words. Being our first form of communication the Gesture language itself would have been received just like hearing someone speak, with the knowledge of what someone was gesturing about being passed straight into our understanding.

            Over time the prevalence of a spoken word has overtaken the versatility and immediacy of gesturing, the human brain in response re-allocated more runtime toward understanding speech,tonality and dialect leaving the areas that understand and transmit gesturing to the concious mind to run in the background. This is why you will feel uncomfortable in situations were you are face to face with negative body language but will not understand why.

            Regardless of the development of the spoken language, the human subconscious still to this day deals with gesturing to get its point across. This is evident in “Shock” gestures (gasp,leaning back eyes wide and hand covering mouth) or “Attraction gestures” (Ill get to these in another blog ;) Usually body language is very obvious to spot when dealing with our primal urges, anger, attraction, surprise and pain. This is a very good area to begin any kind of study as they are more pure in a way.An angry man will always have an angry posture no matter how hard he tries to conceal it. In fact trying to control an angry posture sometimes makes it even more obvious.

            The point of all this of course is to train yourself to recognize body language and to control your own subconscious gesturing, what you use it for is at your discretion but I shall bullet point for you some areas I have used my understanding of body language to help me move forward in my own life.

•                    Become better in interview situations

•                    Realise a lie or truth

•                    To recognise attraction or lack thereof toward yourself

•                    To subtly portray attraction or lack thereof

•                    To encourage people to notice you

            You can ask Mr Rudman through social confidence for recommended reading or possibly approach him for private tuition which would be the ideal situation.

            If this is an area you are interested in but doubt it's efficacy then this would be my advise to start you off and amaze yourself at your own mind.

Go into any old coffee shop, for instance the one that rhymes with “friar tucks” take a book or newspaper, something you have to hold with both hands.Put your headphones in and listen to some music, anything will do as long as you can still concentrate while its playing in the background. Now, watch people. Wait for a group to sit at a table and see how they all talk to each other with their body's. When you have a picture in your head of how every one is related to each other, who secretly doesn't like who and who's dating who.Take your headphones out and listen to the conversation, subtly of course. I bet you any money you were pretty much spot on.

Your probably wondering, “why do I need to learn this if it is that easy?”Here's where our evolution steps in to kick us in the teeth. Go up to a random group of people and start a conversation with them (I shall blog about techniques for this another time, but for now any old conversation will do).While you are talking to them try to watch their body language, with out training you will not have a clue what is going on. Sure you may catch the odd sign and some alpha male dominance stance from the men but you will not be able to narrow anything down because the brain is “Consciously” running the speech part of the brain. With training you can essential alt-tab between gesture recognition and speech recognition.

Once you know what the gestures mean and how to interpret them in context you will get a lot of enjoyment out of practising this as well as advance your self to a higher operating mode able to puzzle out any social situation you find yourself in. I still to this day enjoy people watching especially the reserved brunette who keeps playing with the stem of the glass of wine while looking at me and touching her neck while I chat to her boyfriend......

I never said I was a good boy

Icarus