Hello Andrew,

I watched your video you posted on your website. I commend you for
actions in speaking at toastmasters. And doing very well at it. My
wife thinks your speech is perfect by the way.

I want to share with you some of my own experiences, items that
might be relevant to a person like yourself who has reached a very
strong level of fluency.

I used a technique like yourself, I ingrained it to such a level
that it was deep within my sub-conscious mind. every word I spoke
automatically was spoken with the technique.

However what I found was my technique was suppressing any forms of
feelings I had about the situation. It also limited my word output
rate and energy to a level I was emotionally comfortable with.

My fluency remained at 100% because that was the pace of my
technique. And the level of comfort I could place myself in. Then
one day I decided to test my breaking point, find out where it was.
So I went all out to break my technique to test how really strong it
was.

And yes I broke it in a spectacular way, and from there I learned
what it really was.

I don't use a technique any more, I continuously place myself in
situation until I stutter, then work on reinforcing where I crack.
So now I stutter more by ratio than I ever did before. But I don't
see stuttering in the same way as most people do now.

We stutter for a valid reason, if you suppress your stutter with a
technique you are not addressing the causes of why you stutter in
the first place. Its telling you something very important and you
have chosen to silence it because you don't want to know.

Anyway, enough said. I just want to share my experience with you,
seeing as you have got so far. And at the end of the day, like its
been said on this group, its making the effort physically that
matters.


Regards,

Max Stringer.