Some presenters don’t want to move and will stand behind the lectern for their entire speech. That is fine unless they’re gripping the thing. Try to keep your body loose.   Some like to walk while speaking. That’s fine too, if they have a reason to move.

When you move, do it with a purpose. Lay out your thesis or main point when you’re front and center on the stage. After that, go ahead and move, but find a reason to do it.  Renowned vocal speech teacher, Barbara Housemen wrote in her book, Tackling the Text, (Nick Hern,2008), when you walk around the room tentatively, “the tentativeness de-energizes your work making it dull and predictable.” Plus ambling around the stage is distracting. You want your message to be the star, not using walking as a distraction.  

Here are some suggestions about when to move: 

• Move to someone in the front row and tell them your story. 
• Move when you want to make a point. 
• Move between thoughts.
• Move to act out words.
• Stepping forward reinforces that you have something to stay. 
• Stepping back looks like you don’t want to get too close to the audience.

If you have limited space, imagine a box around your feet.

Move to the areas right and left of the box.  

Whatever kind of movement you do, do it with purpose.