Dilli se aaya mera dost..

Here are details of Bangalore SHG meet up – March 18th 2012. I will try to
summarize the events happened in short as long articles are boring to read.
But I think PWS learn a lot from other stammerers’ experiences so I will
try to write all the events even if the article gets long 🙂

*Theme of meet up – ‘To speak about weired things we have done in past’ *

*Attendees – *Dinesh, Sai Ram, Karthik, Jittu, Prasad, Manoj, Chandhan,
Alok, Arvind, Myself(Abhinav) and special guest Mr. JK Nimbeker.

Meet up started with speaking on today’s theme. I am going to describe
some of the weired things done by participants , I will not be writing name
of person as they may feel awkward 🙂

1.

Our first participant used to talk a lot with out stammering when he was
drunk. One day he had conference call with his client in office. So in
order to speak fluently he mixed Old Monk (Famous rum available in
Bangalore , I do not know if you guys get in NCR and other parts of India)
with Pepsi and went to his office. Before conference call with his client
he drank that and the weired thing was that was his worst call ever with
client as he stammered badly :).

   2.

One participant along with his friend went for movie ‘Murder’ in
multiplex, By mistake they entered in wrong screen which was running movie
‘Muskaan’ . When ‘Muskaan’ movie started playing they thought it was just
trailer but after that they realized their mistake that they have entered
in wrong screen and in the end both of these guys ended up watching Muskaan
. They bought ticket for Murder and watched Muskaan, its really weired.

   3.

One participant was not aware with time feature in Samsung TV when he
used to stay with his friends. So by mistake he setup timer in TV ( which
will automatically start the TV at setup time) instead of system time. All
of his friends were sleeping in night and suddenly TV automatically turned
on and they were wondering who turned on TV late night.

    4.

One participant was watching TV with his friend at his friend place.
Friend’s remote was not working properly. They were watching movie and they
decided when the intimate scene will come they will change the channel . As
soon as intimate scene started friend’s mother entered in room, they tried
to change channel with their faulty remote and it failed 🙂 .. Friend’s
mother said to friend that do some thing good instead of watching these
scenes . It was really awkward moment for them.

   5.

Next participant was traveling in Bangalore bus. Conductor asked him for
ticket and he asked for last stop ticket as he was not comfortable in
speaking name of the place where he wanted to get down (I think this
happens with all PWS when conductor ask for ticket). The weired thing was
that bus route was from railway station to railway station . So why the
person who started his journey from railway station will ask for railway
station ticket again 🙂 . At last he ended up speaking the exact place
where he wanted to get down.

   5.

Next participant used to have trouble in school while giving
introduction to teacher. One day new teacher asked him to introduce himself
and he stammered like any thing. At last teacher advised him to use abusive
words while speaking to reduce stammering. This is really weired guys
because we can never expect such advice from our teacher.

   6.

So how does a father find Mr Prince for his daughter? Our next
participant went to girl’s house for his marriage. Girl’s father asked him
to introduce himself. He stammered like any thing, girl’s father was
shocked . He asked him if he had any other problems apart from stammering
and marriage proposal was rejected.

So that was the weired things done by participants or happened in their
life. Its always awesome experience to listen to PWS. I and all PWS really
enjoy sharing their feelings. I am sorry if I missed the other weired
things told by participants.

 Mr JK Nimbeker is from Delhi. He told us that how breathing plays
important role while speaking and PWS should focus on breathing. Most of
the time stammering occurs due to wrong breathing. Breathing is fundamental
and strongest habit of all human beings. If PWS can correct their breathing
they will be able to speak fluently. He did not use to follow any technique
or style of speaking because he felt that if one day you are able to speak
fluently in style A, you may or may not be able to speak fluently in same
style next day. So build your confidence in day to day life and train your
mind and breath, these things will really help us in overcoming our
problems. He shared that stammerers mind assumes speaking as a threat and triggers body defence to counteract the threat – during this procedure body is more prepared to take quick physical actions to subdue the threat and is not at all prepared to give a speech or formulate his thoughts at this moment.

So we concluded that anxiety related to stammering should be decreased by various methods, breathing, attending SHG, regular pracice so that mind and body will be relaxed during speaking procedure will not consider it as a threat and no advert body body reaction will result due to this.

Now there was turn of prepared speech of the week. Alok (aeronautical
engineer) shared his knowledge about how airplane works. Chandan (pursuing
mechanical engineering) and Mr JK Nimbeker also shared their knowledge on
this topic. I really forgot how airplane works after my schooling. It was
great to revise our physics concepts again.

After that Karthik presented Fish-bone theory ( Cause and Effect analysis)
. We tried to find out what are the root causes of stammering. We had very
good discussion on this. Some key points of our discussions are as follows

*Our environment is one of the root cause -* One of the key factors for
stammering is our environment. If parents talks too fast, children also try
to follow their style and this may result in stammering. In schools
teachers should take care of students who stammers. What happens now if a
student stammers in class while speaking in classroom, teacher asked
him/her to sit down. It really affects the confidence of student like any
thing. So teacher should talk to the parents of students who stammers and
arrange extra classes after school to deal with his problem. What PWS needs
is support from outside environment.

*Its not genetics problem –* We had a strong discussion whether it is
genetics problem or not. If it is problem in genes so all the children of
same parents should have stammering problem but generally it is not the
case. According to theory of evolution only best genes are passed from
parents to their children so by that theory weak genes (which causes
stammering) if exists at all ( we do not know if there are such genes which
causes stammering) should not be passed to children. So its not genetics
problem at all. I also feel that its not genetics problem because when we
are alone we can speak the same word without any difficulty, while when we
are tensed or in state of fear we stammer badly on that world.

*Are % of males suffering from this problems more* – So we had discussion
if male has more tendency to suffer from this problem or female. One of the
points stated is females have habit of speaking more than males
from start of human existence. They are more socializing than males so they
have less chances of suffering from this problem.

So in the end we concluded that we should have strong confidence that we
have to speak fluently. With proper maintenance of our system (breathing +
mind + practices) we can over come our problems. We have examples of many
people in front of us who were stammerer and they worked on their speech
and became one of the best orators in world. We ended our meet up with this
saying

Tabiyat se  ek pathar ucchalo to yaaro, aasman me bhi surag hota hai..
Dil se koshish karne wala hamesha kamyaab hota hai..

So this was end of our meet up. It was awesome like always. Coming week
end some of the participants are going to Chennai for 2 days TISA workshop.
See you guys there 🙂
Write-up, Abhinav and Chandan