Andrew Greenstein\' technique for overcoming stuttering

Our teacher taught us... The the day you learn to play chopsticks on the piano, you cannot expect to perform Beethoven's 5th in concert at Madison Square Garden...or, put another way, as you begin learning basic golf strokes, you may not yet be ready to go pro or to play with Tiger Woods!
Now, he didn't mean this in a bad way.. or negative.. hehe.. please don't read into it : ) ... What it meant for us "in training" was that technique is like a sport... The greater the level of stress, anxiety, distraction--- the more likely you are to forget it OR to make an error. In the beginning, EVERYTHING is a distraction..Some things you aren't even consciously aware of distract you-- These include but are hardly limited to: what YOU think about, getting wrapped up in the CONTENT of what you are saying, feared words and sounds seen coming up, reading the other person's  resumed facial reactions/responses to you, etc.---
So--when we learn technique.. we commit to many months of disciplined practice.. It is tempting at first to try to use it
everywhere..and I would not discourage you---but-- avoid discouraging yourself [and, thus, elevating your base level tension] if you experience difficulty. See, you've done your old behavior--your stuttering behavior-- MILLIONS of times over decades, right? It takes 60-70,000 repetitions of good technique for it to BEGIN to sink in as a new behavior..and more for it to beging to become AUTOMATIC.. So, we committ to wanting to eventually use it FULL-TIME.. need it or not... even when you speak to children, pets, etc-- You'll want to get to a point where if you talk in your sleep, you're using the technique..and you're PROUD of it and ENJOYING it...[eventually, hardly aware of it though!]...You want to get to where it is YOUR way of speaking--requiring no thought-- Until you are able to use it
WITHOUT effort...and -- where you'd have to exert effort if you wanted to STOP using it.. You are, essentially, using a technique that renders stuttering a physical impossibility when done CORRECTLY [****barring a few minor early adjustments you might need to make w/some help as you go along***]---but you need to make it STRONG and
automatic...before you can really take it out in the real world and not get knocked down by the ocean waves of life's every day demands... I did it, others have done it, and you CAN Do it..
To do this, we begin by practicing sticking to it in the EASIEST situation imageinable.. Usually, reading out loud to someone close to you for 20-25 minutes -- 2 X each day using PERFECT technique. The goal is not fluency--I know you might be pretty fluent in that situation anyway.. It is just to use perfect technique [avoiding fast starts, co-articulation, or "hard" starts/they must be gentle/soft]... Remember, every time you take in a new breath [naturally, when you run out of air]-- the NEXT word must be a slow start... [to the brain a new sentence begins whenever you BREATHE-- not when there is merely punctuation/grammatical closing]... Remember, it's not about SLOWING the first word  onsciously.. It's about saying the first word as though it were the ONLY word you were going to say--- avoiding co-articulation...[starting the 2nd word before you've completed the first].. After you--- do this for 1-2 weeks SUCCESSFULLY reading out loud--then you would do 1-2 weeks.. of giving descriptions-- i..e describing the room you are in... next comes telling stories... then telling jokes... then dialogues w/ your practice partner, then real conversations practiced w/ other technique users.. THEN-- at that point of some 1-2 months of
practice... you begin to GRADUALLY Transfer it into "real life"-- starting w/ the easiest situations first... [Oh, side note-- IF the first word of a sentence is MULTISYLLAbLE, hyphenate it-- like in a dictionary].. i.e.

Un-for-tun-ate-ly, I can't go to the store today.. [if you are scanning a lot..and under stress, just pretend the first
word in the above example is "un"-- and use the regular monosyllable technique of pretending you are ONLY going to say "un"--softly, gently..and then --as an afterthought, remember the rest of the sentence..]

If you watch any of my speech videos at www.andrewgreenstein.com [there are 3 linked to from the home page including 1 on overcoming stuttering near the bottom of the pg]-- You'll hear this technique used w/ every breath very naturally.. When you know what to look for, you'll hear it-- Otherwise, it's very difficult to detect.. because--
at the point those videos were made, I'd been using it full time for 16-24 months [depending on the video]-- I am now up to 39 months--- and it has-- become "me"-- I couldn't speak WITHOUT it-- unless I concentrated.. [yes, in the first few months it required committment, discipline, etc-- Steve Mulder remembers my tales of woe when I used
to struggle!]