Shaking It Out: Giving Your Body Something to Do
Oh man, this one's my favorite kind of exercise because it looks completely ridiculous from the outside and works anyway.
Here's the problem it solves. You're nervous, so your body tenses up, so your brain has nothing to do except focus on how tense your body is, so you get more nervous. It's a loop. You can't think your way out of a loop like that. What actually breaks it is movement — something dumb and physical that gives your nervous system a different job.
So that's the warm-up today. We're going to shake it out, literally, and then I'm going to show you the trick I use on shaking, panicky teenagers backstage, because it works just as well on grown adults who signed up for a Tuesday night class.
The shake-out, step by step
Stand up. Feet about shoulder width apart. This works fine in a small space — you don't need a stage, you don't need a studio, your living room is enough.
- Shake your right hand for eight counts, like you're flicking water off it. Count out loud if that helps you actually get to eight instead of stopping at three.
- Same with the left hand, eight counts.
- Right foot, eight counts. You'll feel silly. That's correct.
- Left foot, eight counts.
- Now do all four at once — both hands, both feet, whatever that looks like — but only for four counts.
- Then two counts. Then one.
- Then just stand there for a second and notice how your body feels.
Most people notice their shoulders dropped without them trying to drop them. That's the whole point. You didn't relax on purpose. Your body relaxed because you gave it something else to do first.
I like doing the countdown version — eight, eight, eight, eight, then four, then two, then one — because it has a shape to it, like it's going somewhere. You don't have to do it that way. Some people prefer just shaking everything out for thirty straight seconds and calling it good. Either one works. I just like a little structure.
The trick with lines
Here's where I bring in something I've used for years now. I was backstage once with a fifteen-year-old who had maybe four lines in the whole show, and he was shaking so hard he couldn't hold his script steady enough to read it. Not nerves-in-a-cute-way. Actual physical shaking, the kind where you can see it.
I didn't try to calm him down. I had him do jumping jacks while saying his lines out loud.
It sounds backwards. You'd think adding more physical chaos to an already-shaking kid is a bad idea. But it worked, almost immediately, because his body had a job — count the jumping jacks, land them right, don't trip — and his mouth had a separate job, and the two jobs running at the same time meant neither one could spiral on its own. He got through his lines. Not perfectly. Fine. Good enough.
I've used that trick probably thirty times since. It's not a magic trick, it's just math: a nervous brain can really only fully panic about one thing at a time. Give it two things and the panic has to split its attention, and it turns out panic doesn't split well. It just sort of leaks out.
Try it at home
If you've got a line, a toast you have to give, anything you need to say out loud in front of people this week — try saying it while doing something physical. Jumping jacks, walking briskly around the room, tossing a ball hand to hand. Doesn't matter what. The point is your body needs a task that isn't "stand still and be watched."
One real caution here: if you're doing this in a small space, clear it first. I've seen someone clip a coffee table mid-jumping-jack and that's a much worse problem than stage fright. Give yourself room.
The opinion underneath all this
You've heard me say it before but I'll say it again here because it's exactly what this exercise is built on: nervousness isn't a problem to fix. It's not something wrong with you that needs correcting before you're allowed to perform. It's just energy, and energy has to go somewhere. The shake-out and the jumping-jacks trick aren't about getting rid of nerves. They're about giving the nerves a place to go that isn't your throat.
I'd honestly rather work with someone who's visibly nervous and has learned to move through it than someone who's totally chill and coasting. The nervous one is paying attention. That's most of the job already done.
Before next time: find one moment this week where you're a little keyed up — a phone call you're dreading, whatever — and try shaking it out for ten seconds right before. Just see what happens. No pressure to report back, but I'll ask 💛