Capturing hand gestures as drawings – an easy way to bring art into coaching
In this third post in my series on easy ways to bring art into your coaching, I look at capturing hand gestures as drawings.
Hand gestures
I am sure we have all worked with clients that use hand gestures. This may just be a normal way for a client to express themselves. I use had gestures all the time as a normal part of what I do when I am talking.
However, have you noticed that when any client starts to find it hard to describe something and they are struggling to find the words, or perhaps can’t find the words at all, they will start to use hand gestures in an attempt to communicate. This can also be accompanied by body movements.
Hand gestures – a right brain way of communicating?
We know that our brain’s right hemisphere has to communicate vocally through our left hemisphere as this where vocalised speech resides. This can leave it open to being interfered with by the left hemisphere. However, our right hemisphere can communicate, without interference, through other means including using visual ways.
The use of hand gestures and body movement is a visual language. It also allows us to ‘see’ the whole of something within a spatial plane. This is also how our right hemisphere pays attention to the world around us. This is not the domain of the left hemisphere which breaks things down into parts.
So, when the left hemisphere is struggling to find the words and vocalise that which our client knows they need and want to communicate, the right hemisphere is opening up that communication through those hand gestures.
Describing a spiral staircase
To understand this better try this famous example of describing a spiral staircase. I use this a lot.
Begin by sitting on your hands and then start to describe a spiral staircase as though you were explaining it to someone who has never seen one before. Talk out loud to yourself but keeping sitting on your hands.
What are you noticing?
I suspect you are breaking it down into its individual parts, you may be finding things that are similar to it. You may even find yourself beginning to move your head and body in a circular way trying to explain how the staircase works. It may also be taking you a while as you try to think through what to say.
Now take your hands out from under you and describe a spiral staircase.
What do you notice now?
I suspect it took you a matter of seconds as you said something like “It is a staircase that does this…” and at the same time using your hand and arm to show a spiralling motion demonstrating how the staircase works.
Your hand gestures and body movement became a crucial part for explaining the spiral staircase. Your hand gestures enabled you to communicate clearly something where words were just not enough.
Drawing hand gestures
So, when my clients start to use hand gestures when they are struggling with words, I will invite them to draw them. By doing this they are creating something tangible which they will expand upon as they draw what it is the hand gestures are of.
Their image then sits between us, and I hold the space for my client to explore and connect to their art, finding a visual language that in turn helps them to connect with what they need to.
A client example
In this example I was working with a client who was stepping up into an interim director role within their organisation. As we were talking, they started to make hand gestures. Inviting them to draw what they were expressing they created the image below and called it an ‘artichoke’.
Having now captured their expressive hand gestures as a tangible and keepable image I was able to connect my client more deeply to it.
The artichoke was a protective spiky outer layer of themselves protecting the fragile flower that my client called their confidence. By spending time with the image, we had a deeper conversation about their confidence in their interim role and why it needed the protection, why it was so fragile and what my client needed to build and strengthen their confidence.
The ‘artichoke’ came up in subsequent sessions as a way for my client to monitor their confidence and how they were settling into their new role.
