Rehearsing Blocking to Fluency
Blocking that looks natural in competition is the result of repeated, deliberate rehearsal, not last-minute improvisation. This lesson covers how to drill blocking until it becomes automatic.
Isolated Blocking Drills
Rather than always rehearsing the full speech, practice isolated blocking transitions repeatedly — just the movement from area one's position to area two's position, for example — until the physical path feels automatic and doesn't require conscious thought during full run-throughs.
Full Run-Throughs With Feedback
Periodically run the entire speech in front of a coach or peer specifically to evaluate blocking, asking them to note any moment where the aid was blocked from view, a movement felt aimless, or a transition looked awkward. Video recording full run-throughs is also valuable, since a speaker often cannot see their own blocking issues from the inside.
The Blindfolded Blocking Check
As an advanced diagnostic, some speakers rehearse their blocking with eyes closed, relying purely on muscle memory and mental spatial mapping to walk through each transition, which quickly reveals whether the blocking pattern has truly become automatic or is still dependent on visually checking positions.
A speaker records herself on video for the first time.
Watching the playback, she notices she unconsciously drifts toward the aid during area two even though her blocking plan calls for staying at center stage, and that this drift causes her to briefly block the board during area three's reveal. She isolates just that transition and drills it ten times focusing only on staying at center stage until the drift disappears.
1. What is the benefit of drilling an isolated blocking transition repeatedly, rather than always rehearsing the full speech?
2. True or False?
"Video recording a full run-through can reveal blocking issues a speaker cannot notice from the inside."
Answer all 2 to check.
Drill blocking transitions in isolation and review full run-throughs (ideally on video) to catch issues invisible from the inside.