National Conference in 2014 Pune: Registration Open till August 5

UPDATES: REGISTER BEFORE 5th AUGUST!  Please hurry for the registration as there are only 80 seats booked with hotel with below mentioned rates. Please click on this Registration Form

Hotel Charges: There is no fee for registration in the NC at Pune 2014. There are just the hotel charges of Rs. 2750/- per participant which covers 2 nights and 3 days of stay in Zara Resort at Khandala, Pune. These charges are including of accommodation and food from Oct 3 (11am) till Oct 5 (2pm) including all taxes.

Khandala is the same place which this famous song was recorded.... Aati Kya Khandala... 

 Note: Please do not try to book hotel on your own. All the rooms are blocked by NC team.

Thank you to for booking your seats:-

Full Name	City
Virendra Shirse	Pune
Sachin Srivastava	Dehradun
Nishant Athavwale	Amrawati
Amitsingh Kushwah	Satna
Dhruv Gupta	Mumbai
Pranav	Bokaro steel city
Avi Mane	Nagpur
Rahil Ranka	Pune
Raghvendra Rao	Pune
Sanjeet Khanuja	Pune
Vishal Yeole	Pune
Viren Gandhi	Mumbai
Amol Karale	Pune
Mitul Panchal	Pune
Vishal Gupta	Ghaziabad
Harish Usgaonker	Madgaon
Manish M. Upadhyay	Wardha
Umesh Rawat	Palwal
Jasbir Singh	Chandigarh
Vikas Ranga	Goa
Sachin Kamble	Pune
Rajesh Kenkre	Goa
Aditya Yadav	Mumbai
Nishil Shetty	Bangalore
Avnish Gupta	Bangalore

Do you still have any question or concern? If so feel free to get back to me or my colleagues - . Amol, Rahil and Gorav (nc2014.pune@gmail.com) .

Why should you meet other pws?

Some people have asked: will NC be like Communication workshop? Not necessary. It depends on what the participants want. Some participants who have never attended a communication workshop, may want to get a glimpse of that. For them, as a group, we will conduct some of the activities which we do in Communication workshop. What are these activities? To give you an idea we are sharing a testimony from a young participants- Atul.

Moments From My Diary..

Clarity! think !why are you on TISA Blog?is it because its your routine or because a good no of stammerers do?or is it because-
1.it makes you informed about new developments,
2.improves your reading skills,writing skills
3.motivates you to do practices of techniques like pausing,voluntary stuttering,breathing exercise,as others often post about their experience,
4.a constructive hangout place unlike Facebook chat.

How do we define clarity in our own words decides how far we would be successful in our lives.To me clarity means 'to have specific,understandable answer to why,what,when and time of the work i am going to do or want to do'.
I think the major problem with us is not that we are incapable of doing study,meditation,daily workouts,improving communication,but certainly we are not clear and specific about what we exactly want to do.
For ex. after watching a movie of salman khan on Sunday,at once i decide to have a good physique like him....For a day or two,i am visualizing myself fighting  goons on the street kala amb.as i don't want others to know my intention,i buy dumbbells and benches,so as to gym at home.i start doing workout 2 hour everyday..on Thursday,our SOM teacher gives us a lengthy assignment that is to be submitted by Saturday.


Oops! i have not done the chapter well and assgt has to be submitted otherwise he might not allow me to enter classes,resulting in low assessment,poor result,resentment of parents,ruining of carrier..SO many thoughts hits me like a tornado.now salman khan like body consciousness is lost,and som assgt is what the mind think about..as i had not prepare the chapter well,somehow i manages to submit assignment on Monday.Teacher made me feel embarrassed,scolded before the class and now images of teacher scolding me,guys laughing as he scold me' flashes my mind every moment.Next morning on Tuesday,i wakes up late,but idea of doing workout don't fascinates me that much and i put off the plan for next Sunday..On Sunday my close friends has planned to go shimla and asks me to join as we have not been out the city for long...images of salman khan good physique no longer motivates to do workout as feeling of being unsuccessful in carrying out workout plan runs the mind.And i fail to muster courage to do other necessary thing of my life as well and time passes by.Days becomes Months,months become Years..I begin to loss my interest in living joyful life.....thank god,it was a dream.AAAH,what a nightmare it was,i wash off my faces and check calender and make sure it is 31st july,2014.i take my notebook and start writing about things that i have been procrastinating and decide to make a fresh start with clarity of purpose and being as specific in targets as i can.


From my experience i feel clarity in thought and purpose is what we should strive at.Like any other skills,this too will require practice,practice,practice,practice and practice.I am doing it now,because i have felt its power.I have felt the need.Our motivation goes up and down due to lack of clarity.No need of motivation if you are clear about anything.

CLARITY ITSELF BECOMES THE MOTIVATION

                      (this is what i wrote down in my diary this morning while sitting alone,looking at my past college days,leaping into projected future.)

An Opportunity..

Those who were part of previous NCs can bet that those were the best days of their life - breaking away from the illusionary shackles of stammering and living a life of freedom.

TISA, this year too, brings one such opportunity - NC2014 - Opportunity to take a Leap, to learn from the veterans and to feel the "independence" like never before.

This is one such investment which will fetch return beyond your imagination. Make the most of it. 

Warm Regards

Dinesh

Banglore

My Stammering Journey......

Hello  Everyone,firstly let me introduce myself.My Name is Kavish and im from Mumbai.I would like to share with you all about my journey with my beloved friend-Stammer.

Imagine an easy question everyone knows how to answer it but what if you can’t.Not because you don’t know the answer but because you simply can’t get the word out.This is what a stammerer experiences in his everyday life not being able to say what he or she wants to even the though the answer is easy.A stammer is where your speech is filled with involuntary pauses and repetition of words and blocks.I think of it like having a huge glass wall stuck in your head.You know exactly what you want to say but when you try to say something the words hit the wall and  refuse to come out .The repetition of words ,blocks,weird sounds  and facial expressions is  what happens when we try to force the word out.

I have been stammering all my life,the first instance I can recall about my stammering was around the age of 6 or 7,it was at its worst stage where I used to stammer badly and was hesitant to even give my roll call like any other stammerer.A  stammerer can be roughly compared to an iceberg.The 20% above the water what you see is tension,struggle and embarrassment associated with stammering.The 80 % you don’t see is the avoidance of words ,avoidance of situations ,feeling guilty accompanied by shame where you can’t even say your name.One of the worst part of being a stammerer is the way people react when we are asked to say something and we are not able to get the word out because of our stammer..As an instance it made my peers very amusing that why does it take so long to tell my name and questions arise among the peers that why do u speak that way?.And then people start making judgements  about you based on how you speak,just because you stammer doesn’t mean that you are not intelligent.When it  was time for the oral exams,I  would  pretend  that  I am sick  and my illness would be an excuse of not giving the oral exams and as such it wouldn’t affect my grades.Attending or making calls was again a misery.If  there would be a part of the conversation  where I find a word to be difficult to say,I would replace it with a word that is easy for me to tell or at times I would pretend that there is some disturbance ….im not able to hear you and im excused from the conversation.This taught me how to be a pro at avoidance of phone calls. Gradually I started to be more and more conscious of my speech.Every decision that I took which involved speaking was now influenced by the fact that I stammer.By the time I completed high school,it was time to choose a career of my choice.As for choosing my career I was a very confused person,I could relate to stories from my brother who was very fascinated about science but decided to do commerce,just to avoid the stammering situations like giving presentationsSo I also decided to play it safe by enrolling for commerce..Public speaking  in front of large groups is one of the scariest things to do for me ,more so than others.I have to do a lot of preparation.I know exactly what I want to say  and I would have practiced it many times,but when the time comes to talk in front of large groups it would be the most  nervise situations,as we normally don’t stammer when talking to ourselves .So if I do block on a particular word I would replace the word or might use fillers like ,and,hmm,etc.Very often in my stammering journey I feel as if im completely lost as there seems to be no improvement in my speech.My speech gets worse during tensed situations……it keeps fluctuating day in and day out….sometimes I can get that word fluent,sometimes I can’t.Sometimes you feel like you are stuck in an ocean….surrounded by water all alone.You keep on walking with some hope that you can come out of the water,though you don’t know how to swim.You start to loose hope.You feel like giving up.You will have self-defeating thoughts.You will still be confronted by situations that will pull you down.You will still have moments where you loose hope.Do the best that you can do now,don’t underestimate yourself.The expectation that you will reach your destination is beyond your control.

To conclude,I would like to say one thing do not loose hope and give up just because you stammer.Don’t be ashamed of your stammer and hide it.Nobody is perfect in this world except god.

Thank You!!!
(P.S:-This was a prepared speech that i gave in one of the SHG Meets....any suggestions and comments are welcome)

How to deal with speech blocks

Block!!  A speech block,precisely.

Why we stammerers fear so much of this word comprises of 5 alphabets?

Out of the numerous reasons, the most prevalent ones are :

1. Facial distortion which can make the listener laugh/irritate
2. Block can be long enough to make the listener abstain from communicating


In my case, it was the 2nd one that was scary.I used to think that once I got entrapped into a forever block, people will ignore me and it will be an embarrasing incident for me.

To check the validity of this belief, I did a small experiment. I took a stop watch and started to note down the time taken by me to get out of a block.I took a few feared words and repeatedly note down the time taken to speak those words with enough block everytime.

The average time taken to get out of a block was 2.5 seconds and minimum and maximum figures were 0.5 seconds and 3.2 seconds respectively.

So, I realized that it is not bad as I perceived. 2.5 seconds is not too much. A wait of 2.5 seconds is not unbearable. The stammerer and the listener, both can wait and let the words comes out. And, if, in some cases, the listener is in too hurry and can't wait, then let him/her go and seek another person to complete your communication.

Now, most of stammerers may come up with a question that in outside world, a deadly block lasts much more longer than this 2.5 sec time limit.But if it is valid in your case, then, it happens only when you HOLD BACK.

Yes, I repeat...HOLDING BACK only makes your block  a long one.It never ever help you in communicating in any way.So, if we don't hold back, even the most deadliest block can't persist for more than 3 seconds and 3 seconds out of 86400 available seconds in a day can't be so long. Isn't it?

Delhi SHG Meeting Invitation for Royal Brothers !!!!! on 27th July at Central Park, Rajiv Chowk

Come and join us ! This Week We shall do again "Toofani"

Like last week what we had please watch it :) Its really Toofani

theme of Meeting : Aaj kuch toofani karte hai

• Host : Himanshu Kapoor (New Delhi)
• Profession : Sales and Marketing
• Speciality : Serious, talkable, Funny 
• Interest : Making friends (specially Female lol ;))

=> Please set you alarm and schedule for 27 July, 10:30(Sharp) Morning 

=> Central Park, Rajiv chowk (infront of Gate No. 6 Rajiv chowk metro station)

Agenda : Meditation, introduction, breathing exercise, motivational speeches, table topics, impromptu speech, listening based games,Cultural Activities, TOOFANI (hidden)

Center of Attraction : Video recording, Quick Survey in the gali's of CP and near places. 

Contact us @ :

Himanshu : 8586864993

Vishal : 8447490753

mail us at vishal.gupta67@gmail.com

NOTE DOWN : This is just a humble request, Please prepare any one speech on any topic at-least for 3-5 minutes.

Thanks,

TISA Delhi SHG

A change is as good as a rest - Bangalore SHG meet

Hi all,

The wind guzzled across the green acres of the Cubbon Park and there scrambled the silent soldiers to complete another 180 precious minutes, in the mid-morning on a Sunday.

The scene must have started with Sergey the Great, demonstrating a few Yoga techniques and talks to Avnish, Naman and Anshuman.

I joined in a few minutes past the beginning and Sergey had already started with his Yoga teaching and we did it for about 20 minutes. Nishil and Sharath joned us soon and we all practised a few breathing exercises. Then we had a brief introduction. After this we shared about something new that we did the last week. I was quite excited about my first event hosting at my office. It was a very relieving experience and I was glad I could keep the audience in my humour!

Moving on we had the on-the-spot topics and each of us spoke for about two minutes. This was a decent round and I would like to proudly say that we are improving on our timings!

The next in plate were the prepared speeches. Naman took the first turn and presented about the pros and cons of packaged food. He has been attending toastmasters and has picked up quite a few tricks from there. It added a lot of weight to his speech. Also, he was observant enough to balance the content of the speech and its delivery.

Common sense, belief, evidence, research..

I came across a sutra in a data analysis course: Correlation is not causation!
Meaning: if X and Y variable change in the same way over a period of time, it does not prove that X causes Y (or Y causes X). It is quite possible that there is another hidden factor (Z) causing the changes in both X and Y.
For a long time, medical world believed that excessive alcohol consumption caused Lung cancer. That is what statistical studies showed. Alcoholics had a high number of Lung cancer. But a deeper study found a third factor: smoking. Most alcoholics were also heavy smokers!
But the statistical study itself can not prove that alcohol does not/ can not cause lung cancer. Who knows, it may have some role?  But it stands to reason, that third factor - smoking- should be given its due importance. Why? because alcohol goes to stomach and smoke goes to lungs. Smoking delivers carcinogens directly to the lungs. Therefore, now we believe that it is more important to reduce smoking, to prevent lung cancer. A little wine is supposed to be good for health. Wait, where are you off to?
This is a good use of our common sense: looking at evidence, interpreting it wisely- rather than simply believing our subjective experiences: I have been doing X for last six months and I am stammering much less now, so it must be because of X only. In last six months many other things have been happening to me. What about those? I have done many many more things earlier- may be, they are delivering their results after some years now?
Most of us pride ourselves for being intelligent. Let us use it to analyse and learn from our experiences in an intelligent way. Let us also share our experiences to warn others.
Let me conclude on a lighter note: A study found that area of Texas reduced (it is next to Atlantic ocean) between 1910 to 1970 at the same rate as its population increased. A student concluded: with the increasing weight, land tilted and went under sea..really?!!
So, let us realize, that two changes may happen at the same time but may have NO relationship whatsoever. A little scepticism is not a bad thing after all.. Read more on this..

What is our birth right?

JP has shared this quote from FB; worth a deep thought..(thanks JP!)

"As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel
that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve
resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we
deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which
is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox
and ambiguity. To the degree that we've been avoiding uncertainty,
we're naturally going to have withdrawal symptoms--withdrawal from
always thinking that there's a problem and that someone, somewhere, needs to fix it." ~ Pema Chodron, "When Things Fall Apart"

Aura photography of PWS

I was practicing breathing exercises since 1.5 years and meditation techniques  since 4-5 years and observed improvement in health and mind level. I started to consider myself a great saint or spiritual person. Then I came to know about Aura photography and took my aura (electro-magnetic field) photo ( http://drudayshah.com/Portal/OnlineRequest/OnlineAura.aspx ). After getting my aura report by ultra-modern krillion camera, my prejudice shattered. I got that I was not stuck in speaking, but i stucked at many levels.

Relation Between Human Body and Energy according to Modern science:

Modern medical science claims that Human body is made of Cells. “Mitochondria” are known as power-house of cells as energy stored in Mitochondria. Now highly sensitive camera can trace energy in mitochondria but colour of energy is Not same in all persons…

 Why Colour different from person to person, what these Colour indicating in cell, how to use this knowledge, till now science could not decode it.

So western Science STOPPED here and spiritual science STARTS from here.

Stammerers are over decent!! Is it so??

Talking to a number of PWS, I've come to know that we, stammerers are used to be over decent.We would use respect giving words like SIR or JI many folds then any non stammerer.

Is this super decency is due to lack of self confidence arising of the belief that we are less than others due to stammering?

We need to immediately change this mindset.It makes us vulnerable when we represent ourselves as poor lads who needs favors from others as we can't speak properly so please have some pity on us and spend some extra time to listen to us.

Go to hell!!!  If you don't have time to listen to me,,,,,,go straight and jump into hell.....I don't care and I am not going to give you a even the smallest piece of extra respect than you deserve just because I stammer and I may take more time to express myself.

I remember, once during a communication workshop practice session, I asked a young stammerer to go to a person and ask for some location.I also accompanied him to boost his confidence.When that young lad attempted for the speaking task.....he used sir..sir...sir..so many times that the actual content of his question got hidden behind these courtesy words.

Was it decency?

Meditation-insights-recovery?

Friends, I received following note from Sergey, Banglore. In the confusion of many many techniques being thrown at us- with all good intentions, it is quite easy to forget- that most of our problem is inside us and therefore solutions could also exist within. While reading following account, please dont think that the author or TISA is saying that meditational practices could lead to cure. But there can be equally good, if not better outcomes, provided we are looking for them. I think, we should give place to some form of meditation (but longer than 5 minutes, please!) In our shg meetings.
.OK, here is the letter-
My name is Sergey, 59, I am from Ukraine and currently volunteer at a school in Bangalore.

I attend the meetings of local SHG and find this idea very helpful.

I have been stammering from my childhood and this might have been a
typical story but at some point in my life I began practicing Yoga,
then attended several Vipassana meditation courses (one of them in
India), stayed and studied in Buddhist monasteries in Sri Lanka and
Thailand.

After 5 years of regular practice of Yoga (asanas, pranayamas, kriyas)
and meditation I suddenly realized that my speech has become freer and
more fluent. I paid more attention to breathing (vocal) exercises and
now I speak almost clean in my native language but have some problems
with English because I never speak this language at home.

I have read your book and found it very helpful and practical. If only
I could have it 20 years ago!
I strongly believe in karma and fully agree with you that PWS must
cure not stammering but themselves as a whole. Actually stammering
should urge pws to develop spiritually.

May I offer an idea to discuss? What if to combine any existing reputable
meditation course (eg. Vipassana by Goenka) with a short workshop
designed specifically for pws? That is PWS to first attend a regular meditation
course and immediately after the course they undergo the intensive
training in Yoga, vocal technique, etc. I am willing to help in
conducting such a workshop.

Will you come to TISA conference in Pune?

..............
OK, so we are planning a module, which combines both- communication techniques and psychological insights derived from a FIRST hand deep meditative experience for pws. Please write to us how you can connect, help or expect out of it..

TISA Eklavya Awards 2014

TISA announces it's yearly awards - "TISA Eklavya Awards". This awards are to recognize good work in volunteering and self-help. The awards will be presented at the National Conference happening at Khadala in October this year.

The awards are called "Eklavya Awards", as Eklavya was a mythological character in Mahabharat, a prince of jungle tribe who was known for his self-training (self  help)

We are inviting nominations from the SHG chapters. Coordinators, members and volunteers, it's time to give some recognition to all the good work you have done... Identify good work in your chapters and nominate their work. Last date for submitting nominations is 20th August 2014.

News @ TISA Hyderabad Chapter - 13 July

We are 7 members for the meetup.
1) Purna 2) Sushant 3)Ramesh 4)Fahid 5)Teja 6)Ramu 7)Rajesh.
We welcomed new members Sushant and Teja to the group !
Activities happened @ meeting are:
1. Meditation
2) Introduction
3) Prepared speeches by all members.
4) Importance of Social mingling.
5) Feedback by everyone to everyone on their speech.