So the next lesson in rehearsing is going to be pausing. pausing is something you're going to do on stage, but you need to build it into your routine because understanding how you deliver jokes is going to be very important. So pausing works like this. I have a joke. I've said it already once in this in this in this series, but the joke is this. I just turned 30.
Recently, like 39 months ago just turned it, there's a slight pause between I just turned 30 recently pause 39 months ago just turned it. So the the joke would not work. If I said I just turned 30 recently, like 39 months ago, that would go right past the audience. So when you're speaking on stage, you have to allow time for the audience to absorb what you're saying. So especially if you have a lot of heavy words, words that are multisyllabic words that are three, four syllables long. You really want the audience to be able to catch up with what you're saying.
And the way that you do that is by pausing, pausing, also builds tension. It's hard for you the comedian to do that. But if you rehearse It actually can provide a lot more punch to your material. Because let's remember, punch lines are about audiences releasing or having an emotional reaction. And building tension is a great way to do that comedy comes from the relief of tension. Remember me talking about the peekaboo with the baby and the mother.
So that tension is comes from pauses. So every time you come to a point, like a setup and you're about to go into a punch line, you should pause, rehearse those pauses, do it, get in front of your mirror, take out your memo, read through your material, and make sure you're pausing before you go into a punch line. Anytime you have a big word, pause for half a moment before moving forward. Now, the first time you do comedy, you're going to be excited. So if you don't rehearse these pauses, you probably won't end up hitting them. It's a lot going on.
Your body doesn't know what to keep track of the first time you're on stage. So it's difficult but if you rehearse them, you'll be able to do it. So look through your material. I used to put a small asterisk like a little star next to any point that I Wanted to pause or learn how to pause, and then when rehearsing it, I would pause there so not only are you going to go through it slowly, you're also going to pause every time you hit one of those points. So go ahead and do that mark up your actual material, whether it's on a computer or in your notebook or on a printout, and then read through slowly and pause where you notice it