> practice out loud Oddly enough, the exact opposite works for me: don't practice at all (I suspect this won't work for most people). The clearest example I ca

> practice out loud Oddly enough, the exact opposite works for me: don't practice at all (I suspect this won't work for most people). The clearest example I can recall is when I was at university - I had to deliver a short speech to the group (10 or so people) on a topic I knew fairly well, and prepared and basically memorised the whole thing (including practising out loud). On the day, I was a nervous, stumbling mess, and completely missed half the points I wanted to raise despite having the speech in front of me. The following week, we had a debate on a related topic, with no advance warning (format was two teams of three, each person delivering a speech similar in length to the one mention above but to expect interruptions from the other side). Despite the lack of planning and preparation, I delivered my speech near flawlessly, handled interruptions without issue, and was the most outspoken person in critiquing the oppositions' arguments (my professor took me to one side at the end of the seminar and mentioned that I performed much better off the cuff). It was really weird to see that difference, as I thought it would go just as poorly as the last time.