A few years ago, the idea of “power poses” — that is, physical stances that increase the dynamism of one’s personality — gained a great many adherents in a very short time, but not long thereafter emerged doubts as to its scientific soundness. Nevertheless, while standing with your hands on your hips may not change who you are, we can fairly claim that such a thing as body language does exist. And in that language, certain bodily arrangements communicate better messages than others: according to the presenters of the talk above, keeping your hands power-poseishly on your hips is actually a textbook bad public-speaking position, down there with shoving them in your pockets or clasping them before you in the dreaded “fig leaf.”