Exercise: Understanding Quarter Turn

 10min
Foundation Course Physical Orientation Exercise: Understanding Quarter Turn
Quarter Turn is a natural Line Focus orientation that people shift in and out of during in-person interactions. While at a table sharing a meal with others, talking with a group of friends, telling a story, or during a casual one-on-one conversation, you may observe yourself or others in a Quarter Turn. Even if your preferred Line Focus practice is a Full Front, a Quarter Turn serves to soften interactions that have to do with group communication empathy or relationship-building. Observe what circumstances surround an interaction when you are comfortable or uncomfortable in this orientation. Quarter Turn cues a shared communicative experience. The softening of the focus request of Full Front allows for more exchange and listening. Though Full Front is full exposure, the softening of Line Focus into a Quarter Turn, for some people, can feel more intense because it is a relationship-building orientation which is asking for a different kind of focus.

Are you a person focused on the relationship-building aspect of communication? You may observe that Quarter Turn is your default orientation even as you listen. What changes in your Breath-Though Connection, your word choice, or in your gesture when you stand or sit in a Quarter Turn? You may find that you utilize more gestures in a Quarter Turn, listen differently, or employ more narrative. Now think about how you orient your torso during the delivery of a presentation or speech in front of an audience or at a lectern. You will most likely observe that you and others default to a Full Front position.

Practice your prepared presentation or discussion points positioned in Full Front and then again in Quarter Turn. Repeat a couple of times. Notice what changes in your delivery, word emphasis, and gesture. In particular, notice the softening of facial expressions and tone when you deliver the same material in a Quarter Turn. As you begin to pay attention to your own patterns of Line Focus, you will develop an awareness of how your orientation influences the degree of engagement you have with other people and that an audience has with you. For instance, you may want to draw focus with Full Front or connect with someone in a Quarter Turn.

Learner Milestones

 

  • Understand that Quarter Turn is a relationship-building orientation
  • Experience how Quarter Turn is supportive of narrative

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Foundation Course

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  1. Introduction
    11 Topics
  2. The Breath-Thought Connection
    8 Topics
  3. Physical Orientation
    16 Topics
  4. Frame and Stance
    12 Topics

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