Billy’s notes on Improv for people who improvise, or have thought about improvising.

Improv: The Beginning

Ever taken an improv class? Yeah, but have you really ever taken an improv class? I’ve seen students and improvisers with the attitude that they “got through” the first couple levels of an improv curriculum to get to the good stuff. The good stuff being long form improv or advanced techniques/narrative/environment or blah blah blah. This is a bit of a shame, because the first couple levels are packed with good stuff; stuff that challenges your comfort zones and teaches you subliminally how to be a good improviser. Teaching early level improv classes is a great learning experience for the teacher, too! This is because there are layers of insight in the exercises and absurd warm-up games taught in beginner level improv classes. Learning improv is like reading a book. You can finish the book and if you like it then you can read it again and again and get more out of it every time. Of course, this is up to the individual as much as the environment they find themselves in. What kind of individual are you? Do you re-read every word, or just skim through to the good parts? In improv class, there are people who are sponges for every word, who find the content so interesting they can bypass their inherent discomfort at playing silly games to be present in the moment, and there are the people that, regardless of interest in the content, are only partially present (due to one or several of millions of possible mental distractions – Does my hair look good? What does this guy think of what I just did? Does that girl have a boyfriend? Is this instructor judging me? My cats don’t make me do this. Do I smell like alcohol?), which of course means they are generally not present. DING DING DING. This is important.
Being present leads to attentive listening and empathic communication (sidenote: this brings improv groups to a state they call “group mind”). You have to consciously work on being present, easier for some than others, but everyone can work on it.
 

TANGENT. I must mention my improv toolbelt. You see, I have this improv toolbelt that I use when I’m improvising, and on it I’ve got all these different tools that I’ve picked up from instructors around the world during my time studying the craft. I use these tools for creating characters, dynamic relationships, interesting choices, character backstory, relationship backstory and etcetera, etcetera. Without the belt, I could use one or two tools at a time during a scene, but my play would be limited and my scenes would not be as good as they could be. I bring it up here because I’m talking about being present, and that is one of the core states of being that comprise my toolbelt.

Billy’s Improv Toolbelt is comprised of 3 states of being.  -Be Present-  :  -Be Playful-  :  -Be Confident-
These are the foundation of my improv. Being present is me being conscious of being in the moment and aware of what’s going on around me. I think everyone should try to make their own toolbelt out of these same three core states of being. -Be Present- is a skill to work on and the end goal is similar for every person, either you get conscious of being present and can control it at will or you are in varying degrees of being able to or unable to get present. The other two, the playful and confident aspects, will be different for every individual and will allow them to find their own particular individual improv ‘style’. Your playful will be not exactly my playful; your confidence will be not exactly my confidence. BUT I DIGRESS. BACK TO THE BEGINNING.

Among the first things introduced to a new student, typically, is the concept of ‘Yes, and…’ – the golden rule of improv, a mantra to survive the improv stage by, words to ignite positive creation and scene momentum. This is a crucial concept, and I believe that most people familiar with it have not harnessed its FULL POTENTIAL. That’s right, lots of improvisers drive their “Yes, and…” car around without taking it out of second gear; these are improvisers who subscribe to the concept quite literally and have trained themselves to say the words, “Yes,” when an offer is given to them and then they follow it up with the word, “…and…” and then they add their own idea to the scene. A scene with a player who is trained in that way may look like this:  

P1 walks out on stage and sits on a block and begins whimpering while holding their hand. P2 walks out and stage and they strike up a conversation. P1 tells P2 that they’ve slammed their hand in the door and it hurts real bad.
P2: That sounds horrible, here, let me cut it off for you.
P1: Yes, and after you’re done I’d like my stub wrapped up real nice with Toy Story bandages.
 

Well what was P1 supposed to say to that offer if not ‘yes’? I mean, he couldn’t have said NO. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A BLOCK. Incorrect, actually. A block negates the reality of the scene, as offered by an improviser. Saying NO doesn’t mean blocking. If P1 had said: “No thank you, I’d prefer to keep my hand.” would that have been a ‘Yes’ or a block? More on that in another blog post.
To unlock the FULL POTENTIAL of “Yes, and…” it is essential to understand that the concept really has two parts, the ‘Yes’ and the ‘and…’. The ‘Yes’ is an agreement; it means ‘I agree with the reality we’re creating’ and the ‘and…’ is your own personal addition to the reality, your contribution to the scene. The more an improviser buys into the reality of the scene, as it’s being created moment by moment, the easier it is for them to provide a productive and awesome ‘and…’ to the scene. Understand that ‘Yes’ is a mindset rather than a word, a mindset made up of allowance and acceptance of an ever-changing reality. Getting into that mindset 100% means that it doesn’t matter who you are improvising with or what offers they are giving you or not giving you. The reality is bigger than the improvisers. It’s half Zen and half Creationism, you know? What is, is. And we can make it whatever we want.
This is a PARADOX. Paradox is everywhere in improvisation, there is no Democrat and Republican there is only Depublicrat. You can’t change the established reality, and yet you establish the reality. OK OK OK, so BACK TO THE BEGINNING.
 

Everyone know the clap game? The basic, stand in a circle, one person has the focus and they clap at someone in the circle and then that person has the focus, game? The most basic improv warm up game? It teaches the most basic sense of these concepts, about making offers (looking at someone and clapping at them), ‘Yes’ing (being aware that you were clapped at and now have the focus) and ‘and…’ing (continuing the game and clapping at someone else in the circle). Even though the game is simple it takes time to become masterful while playing it. Some believe that the goal of the game is to go as quickly as possible, but that’s just a byproduct of being present in the game and playing it to the best of your ability. This is a key concept, because even when the game has no end goal, it can be played to the best of your ability. You won’t win, you won’t lose, but the game teaches you to play.

An unmentioned aspect connected to everything I’ve written in this post is TRUST. I mean trust in yourself and trust in your scene partner and trust in the scene itself and in the show and in the audience and in the tech and in the offers within the scenes and so on and so forth, onward and upward into the great improvised unknown. An improvisers trust must be unflappable! Because it will be dropped time and time again, but it doesn’t have physical properties so it really truly really is OKAY for it to be dropped. And it doesn’t have true, sincere roots into your personal life. It has fake, sincere roots into the personal lives of your characters. In your real life, at home with your family or at work with your coworkers or hanging with your friends, when trust is dropped its really hard to pick it back up and dust it off like nothing’s happened, I mean, it’s basically impossible, right? When someone in your real life breaks the trust, that shit needs to get sorted out or things just won’t be the same. That doesn’t need to be the case in improv! The impermanence of the craft should allow us to accept that our trust will be raised up and honored or dropped and shattered and either way we should be able to continue on with trust in our hearts. I could do a whole blog post on Trust, though, so I’ll save that for later.
 

Actually, I plan on bringing many more of my improv thoughts/notes to the blog, starting with the couple things I said I'd talk about in future blogs, namely Blocking and Trust.
 

If you’ve read this and it’s inspired a question or comment or debate topic in you, please post it!