Episode 8: Committing to YOUR weird brain in improv

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welcome to the Neurodiversity and Improv Podcast from flatimprov.com.

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First of all, these podcasts aren't for telling anyone what to do.

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We are doing explanations to help encourage improv as a practice to be more inclusive and have more understanding amongst people in classes and teams.

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Some of these podcasts might also help you process the notes that you get from teachers and coaches in new ways.

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They aren't excuses.

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This isn't questioning notes.

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We're going to do the work.

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We are doing the work.

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These episodes, of course, they're not for diagnosis.

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So don't use these episodes or anything that I say to diagnose yourself and especially not anyone else.

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These episodes are at their core about how we think and do things in improv in a cognitive sense.

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Basically, we're just big improv nerds doing big improv nerd things.

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Let's get going.

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I'm fairly sure that most of us have our own perceived weaknesses.

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We are imperfect, messy human beings.

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And as neurodivergent people, we are often acutely aware of these weaknesses.

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And we might be a little bit more sensitive to these perceived weaknesses as well.

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We might think that we'll never be good at some things in improv.

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And this might be because many of us have lived lives as the outcasts and the weirdos in a world that really wasn't built for us.

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And this can also include improv.

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But certainly also many forms of both learning and performance.

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So gaining the confidence to commit and to show up as we are as the messy, creative, fringe humans, that can be a really hard thing to do, especially when we're sometimes getting notes about it, you know, even when we're playing characters.

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So in this episode, I'm going to talk about how to work with some of these things and still commit and own it as our neurodivergent selves.

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Now, it's not going to apply to every perceived weakness or every difficulty that we need to overcome.

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This isn't universal, and learning and growth all still applies.

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But it might help with something that you're running into, or something even on a very high level.

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Or maybe it relates to a trait that you've just started to notice in your improv practice, or something outside of improv even.

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As you'll hear me do in this episode, as I will draw a giant parallel to an entirely different performance experience of mine.

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So, who knows?

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I'm just throwing out some more ideas into the flat pixel void out there where all of you are that I can't see.

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So, draw your own connections from many places is what I'm trying to say.

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In fact, neurodivergent people can be particularly good at drawing connections, so go do that thing, you.

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I'm going to talk about being clumsy.

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Now, how on earth does that relate to improv?

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Well, it's story time.

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So, I'm a clumsy human being.

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I trip over my feet.

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I dump food on my clothes.

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I bump into things a lot.

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I also broke my hand in a meditation scene during an online improv session last week, doing space work, revving up a chainsaw.

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Apparently, or so I was told because I kind of blacked it out.

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I reckon you might be thinking, I have so many questions right now.

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And really, me too, my friends, me too.

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And yet, despite that, I used to teach dance fitness for years.

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In 2007, I took my very first dance fitness class.

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And I did that because I wanted to start going to the gym and to get healthier.

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So I went ahead in pure, total neurodivergent form and I researched every gym fitness option there was.

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But I kept coming back to the thing that I feared the most and seemed so ridiculous for me to do.

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And it also made me laugh a lot.

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And that was dancing, the dance thing.

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Me, it's something I dreamed about in a way.

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And those dreams of being someone I was very much not, you know, like coordinated and cool and all that.

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So dancing seemed wild beyond measure due to my lack of all of those things, being cool and being coordinated and all that.

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I was an introvert.

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I was clumsy.

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I was mundane.

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And I was a nerd.

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Imagine that in all caps.

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But I never backed down from a challenge ever.

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So off I went to a dance fitness class and I quickly fell in love with the thing despite being pretty bad at it.

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But I kept doing it and I still do.

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So what does this have to do with improv?

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We'll get there.

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I promise.

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So eight years after I took that first class, I ended up in an instructor workshop and afterwards found myself teaching an urban hip hop format.

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Dumpy, clumsy, middle-aged white woman me was teaching urban hip hop dance fitness.

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One of my first jobs was teaching a class at a 24 hour fitness after passing a particularly difficult audition.

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I was brand new to performing anything or relatively brand new.

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I had done a little bit of teaching, but not much thus far.

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And I was intimidated as hell in this particular scenario.

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So I was taking over a regular class, a regular weekly class, which was a big deal that you weren't.

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I wasn't just subbing anymore.

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I was taking over a class that was mine and I was taking it over for a mentor, somebody who had mentored me, who was a very popular teacher.

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He was amazing, a stunning dancer.

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He was an all-around top-notch human being.

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He'd helped choreograph the very songs we did in the fitness format because he worked with the founders on it.

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So he had status and he was young and one of the nicest, most approachable human beings you could ever meet.

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And he also spoke Vietnamese, which was the only language that many people who took that class spoke.

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Meanwhile, I was a bad dancer.

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I was old, even back then.

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I was a very new and not confident teacher.

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I had quite a bit of social anxiety, shy.

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I was still getting over the end dregs of depression.

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And I did not speak Vietnamese.

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Also, the stage in that room was two feet off the ground and I'm really short.

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So for someone like me, all I could see was falling off that stage and maybe making myself dead at one point.

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And I think some of the students sense that too, because one of the regulars would actually run up and bat my butt when I got close to the edge of the stage of us backing up and yell at me.

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And she did that the whole time I taught there.

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And I very much appreciated it.

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Anyway, I was scared when I started and I barely had any fitness teaching experience at that point.

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And this was a huge gym chain, a busy location, a big room, a really good time slot that had a formerly top notch, very popular instructor that everyone was used to and loved.

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And I had the pressure of a gym who'd passed my audition.

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They were counting on me.

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I had a mentor who recommended me for that time slot.

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And I had a room full of eyeballs, all wanting a good workout.

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And really, when I went in there, I'm pretty sure everyone else, like all the students, felt my dread as well, because that level of fear that I likely displayed went way beyond any language barrier that was in that room.

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And the language barrier, that language barrier was on my mind as well, because in the format that I taught, we mostly used words to cue, verbally cue on a microphone.

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And I had to also learn at that point for that class how to visually cue a lot, way more than I normally did for all the people who didn't speak English.

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So I was new to that as well.

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So this entire situation, to put it mildly, was very intimidating.

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So on the very first day, I'm sure I walked into that room looking like a pale, nervous mess.

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But on that day, a front row, center, regular of the class, this woman, she ran over.

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She's in her late 60s.

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She had this huge personality.

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I'm painting the picture for you.

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She had big makeup and she was wise and this beautiful human being.

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She was the same one that batted my butt if I got too close to the edge of the stage.

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And she took me by my shoulders.

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She looked me dead in the eye and she said, hey, we know you're new.

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And that does not matter to us.

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We are here to dance for you.

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You, you are our teacher now.

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And I can remember that pep talk clear as day.

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I remember it when I'm doing other things.

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And she was right.

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I mean, technically, I was the only one there with the choreo in my head and the correct music on my phone and an access key to the sound system.

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So I had to do it anyways.

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But I think what her pep talk really did was it made me commit.

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It made me just be me in that room.

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And she was wise and she was correct.

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And she had the years and she knew about life.

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And she knew about people, obviously.

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She could read me.

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And that's where we can relate this to improv.

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So I was really busy comparing myself to the person who taught before me, the person who was that excellent teacher.

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I kept comparing myself to him.

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How could I match him?

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He was a better dancer.

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He was a more affable human being.

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He had tons of teaching experience.

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And he could even speak the same language as everyone in that room.

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I had a language barrier with half of the class.

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He didn't have that.

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And all I was doing was comparing myself to that guy.

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And in that light, I would always fail.

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I could not ever bring what he brought to that room.

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But her pep talk, it got me out of my head.

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And I realized that you had to start somewhere.

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And I didn't need to pretend that I was some experienced, good teacher dancer person.

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I would never be the person that I was replacing.

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So the only thing I could do in that moment was commit to myself and commit to the people in that room who were there.

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What could I bring as a clumsy person lacking most teaching and dancing skills?

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Well, I could bring something different.

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Now, starting those classes wasn't smooth sailing.

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Not at all.

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This isn't some big finale.

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Hey, it was all glorious and great after she told me that.

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Hell no.

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I didn't really even see myself as a real teacher yet.

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And that came a bit later.

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That came weeks later.

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Now, I committed.

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Sure.

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And that's a great first step.

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Step two is getting over the fear of failing due to your perceived weaknesses.

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I was still clumsy.

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Right.

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And now what about that?

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Can a good dance fitness instructor still be clumsy?

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Because just like many of our fundamental neurodivergent brain wirings, that part, it might stick around.

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So a big part of dance fitness instruction is learning to move around the fitness room.

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You want to be able to run to the back of the room, go to the back row, amp up the people there, and then move back to the front or go to the stage when you need to demo the next part.

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So you're thinking about how many counts you have before that next pre-queue happens.

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That's the words you say before the verse.

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And then being where you need to be when the verse actually starts, so everyone can see you demo it or start to dance it and follow you.

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That's how follow along dance fitness works.

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It's hard.

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It takes a ton of practice.

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It takes a lot of reps.

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It's words and it's physical and your brain and your body are involved.

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And sounds like improv, right?

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And this room I was in was big.

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And remember that that stage, it was two feet tall.

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So that's a big jump to get off and especially onto.

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So down the road a bit, I was starting to practice moving around the room.

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So getting on and off that stage, that kind of thing.

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And after a little while, I found myself running to the back row.

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And one day I messed up the timing.

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I knew I was late and I knew I was still at the very back of that large room.

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And I had four counts to get onto that stage, four beats of the music.

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So I bolted, I gunned it.

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And in that moment, as I was running towards that very tall stage, it's like everything slowed down.

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My whole memory of this is in slo-mo, actually.

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I pre-cued verbally as I was running up there.

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One, two, three.

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And then the jump.

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And being full of adrenaline and panic, I actually overshot the jump.

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I can remember the silence as I was in the air, like there's this kind of collective gasp and everyone in the room stopped dancing.

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And then I fell onto the stage.

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I'd made it, but because I was too high in the air, I just like, I'd overshot it and my brain wasn't working and I fell on the stage.

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I was down on the ground.

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I had my butt way up in the air in front of that entire big room that was full of people.

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And it was one of the least graceful moves I'm sure anyone has seen in a very long time.

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Of course, the music was still playing, but there was no movement in the room.

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There was no sound from the crowd.

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It was just silence and everybody stopped dancing at that moment.

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And I could feel that.

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I was facing away and I could feel that.

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So I leapt up, I turned around, I threw my arms in the air.

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I yelled into the mic, I'm fine, let's go.

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And then the whole room erupted into a cheer.

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I had them.

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And in that moment, I knew how to work with my clumsy shit.

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I knew that my role as a dance fitness teacher was not the expert dancing choreo.

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I'm, you know, a fantastic dancer.

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It was with humor and connection.

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I knew that in that moment.

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And that was my style of performance.

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That was my thing.

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That's what I could bring.

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I could be a dance fitness teacher who is not great at dancing and fell over her own feet.

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But I was pretty good at being real, at connecting with people in the room while I was on stage, at least.

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And making people laugh and smile.

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And the way I did that was committing hard to that piece of the equation.

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I committed hard to just being myself and remembering that the people in the room, for whatever reason, they were there.

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They were there for me to teach them.

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I mean, it was a cheap gym.

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It was a good time slot.

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So a lot of them were just there for the workout, I'm sure.

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But I was there teaching them.

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And I committed hard to what I could bring to that room.

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All right.

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So in all of this, I learned things that can apply to improv, which is why you're listening to this.

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I reckon failing is fun.

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Failing made a regular jump onto the stage into a thing.

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That brought connection between all of the people in the room in that moment.

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And this is just one example.

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I used failing all the time in my teaching.

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It was what I waited for in a class because I knew that if I failed and I pointed out my own failure and the success of the people in the room, it made everyone smile.

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So I forgot things.

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I split my pants.

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I had sweat that looked like pee.

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I used all of that.

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And it's rich.

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It's honest.

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It's real.

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It's relatable.

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People love it and they return for it.

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You can do all of that improv as well on the stage.

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In fact, the most common comment I heard about my classes was, I see you and I think, hey, if she can do it, so can I.

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Now you have to have a little bit of a thick skin for that particular comment.

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But it also made me very happy because my goal was to connect with other people.

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And if being full of flaws on stage made me do that connection and made people happy, that's what I was there for.

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Ultimately, that was way better.

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And I accepted myself as a teacher for the first time when I fell on to that stage with my butt in the air.

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I saw that my perceived weakness, the clumsiness, the being mediocre at dancing was also a strength.

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That I didn't have to be the perfect dancer to be good at this.

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I could bring my humor and imperfection onto the stage and win people over with that.

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That was probably the moment my dance fitness teacher character was born.

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It just clicked.

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I became the teacher because I suddenly saw myself as like a teacher character.

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Some heightened version of myself without that social anxiety.

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Alright, so the Improv Improv Improv section.

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Remember, you will bring something different to any place you're going to.

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Teams, classes, shows.

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You will bring your own thing to that, whatever that is.

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Try not to compare yourself to other people.

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Try not to compare your neurodivergent self to neurotypicals.

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We are neurodivergent and we bring our own thing to the table.

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Your clumsy thing.

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If you're like me and you're clumsy, that can be funny.

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Just try not to get hurt for real.

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In your first reaction, it happens to be super literal.

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That can be so funny.

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It can get a big laugh.

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I've broken scene partners and I didn't even know why for a second.

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I'm like, why are people like, oh, that's right.

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It was I took that literally.

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So don't worry about doing the wrong thing that much, you know, own your things like your literal take.

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Unusual things, right?

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We bring that, don't we?

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Your monotropism on 15 different subjects that you've had over your lifespan.

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Bringing those specifics and bringing those details like no one else can.

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That is a strength.

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You might be deadpan in real life.

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Bring that to your scenes.

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This can be comedy gold.

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However, it's not universal advice.

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And here's where we get complicated.

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So, for example, one of my neurodivergent traits, I know this is going to be shocking to you right now, is monologuing.

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These podcasts are probably a very clear indication of this tendency of mine.

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And this is something I cannot really commit to in improv.

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I can't own this and be me in an improv scene.

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This part, other certain parts, is not just this, but other parts of me don't really work in improv.

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It's things that I have to be careful about.

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I would be a terrible scene partner all the time if I was like this.

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Heck, I've mostly abandoned characters that I've made that are kind of like this, because it's too hard for me to do this in a scene and reign it in.

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So, I do my best to reign it in outside of improv too, unless I'm in a scenario like this, where I'm doing a solo podcast by myself in my basement, staring at a wall.

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This monologuing works here, but in not many other places, unless maybe I'm doing a character monologue or something.

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So, what about when you have traits like Jen's monologuing?

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First of all, it's important to recognize that despite being noted on it, which I have been, be gentle on yourself.

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Try not to take it too personally.

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You do have to learn.

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We all have to learn.

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We're all learning.

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Hopefully, we're all lifelong learners and learning takes time.

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Mistakes happen and it's all a process.

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So, if you want to get out of your head, you have to expect natural traits like this will pop up.

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Yeah, I got my monologuing notes.

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I got worse at it the more I got out of my head and I wasn't thinking and I just went on and did my honest reaction.

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And sometimes it's a monologue and you'll get a note, Jen, that was a long walk.

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And I'm like, yup, I heard it too.

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So know that it will take time to get to the point where you can be relaxed enough to notice that your traits are the way they are and to work on them.

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It takes time to get to that point where you can switch up what you're doing in scenes, especially when it's things that are so wired in to our core.

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Know that you'll make those mistakes and you'll fail, but you are allowed to.

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You're allowed to laugh at them.

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You're allowed to use these things as a learning tool for next time.

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Making mistakes is a great way to learn.

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We are learning and we are not going to be perfect from day one.

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And a tip that I have on this particular area that might work for some of you, you can sometimes use a character to adjust some of these wired in traits.

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Like that teacher character, the one that I realized when I did that big jump onto the stage and threw my button to the air in front of a room full of strangers.

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That was a character that I took on to make myself a little bit different.

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I put on the fitness teacher hat to take off the social anxiety one.

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Well, you could do that in Improv as well.

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In Improv, I will sometimes put on a neurotypical character if I need to, say, play one, and I don't want to think as myself.

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I want to be more grounded.

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I want to be more normal.

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I want to filter my responses through that neurotypical lens, which is sometimes giving my second thought and not my first one.

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My first thought, neurodivergent, my second thought is neurotypical.

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So if I'm playing a neurotypical character, I kind of remember to take my second thought instead of my first one at times.

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I have a character reserved for the needs to monologue, maybe.

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So that's me trying to reign in those monologues a bit.

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And if I see that I start monologuing when I shouldn't, like most of the time, when I'm endowed as a teacher or professor or some kind of pedantic whatever, it's sometimes then possible to change the character a bit.

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Or sometimes I just won't take it on at all in the first place.

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In other words, I kind of find that I can sometimes think like the character that I'm taking on.

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So that might help remove certain traits if you choose to want to, if there's something that you need to, and adopt different traits.

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So give it a try for a while and tell me what you notice.

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So in summary, you'll change as you keep doing improv.

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You're going to learn new things about yourself and your practice will change as you grow.

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Some things will change a lot and other things might be a little bit more wired in to your neurodivergent brain, but know that you'll learn new ways of working with those particular traits.

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You might lean into them and commit hard on them.

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You might use them to your advantage or you might find some trick for working with them or around them.

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But what I want to say here is be you and don't compete.

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I would never be that fitness teacher that I took over from.

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So why try?

:: 24:19

People are there for what you bring to the stage or to the room or to the class.

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Like I'll never be a long time Hollywood person.

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I came into this whole world way too late and I live in Canada.

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But I have a unique teaching background.

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I've taught since the 90s.

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I have a really varied professional and performance background and my own perspective on things and a neurodivergent brain.

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So own what you have and own what you want to do and commit hard to that.

:: 24:52

Be clumsy, fall on to the stage in a weird way with your ass high in the air.

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Hear that gasp and own that thing and see what it brings to you and see what it brings to the people in the room.

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We all find different things funny, different things interesting, different things real.

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You will have your audience.

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And finally, even with the things that are wired in for good into our neurodiverse brains, know those things might stay wired in, but other things around them will change.

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Even in improv, I think I understand how my brain works.

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Oh, this is neurodiverse.

:: 25:30

This is how my brain is wired and this is how it's functioning and how it calculates.

:: 25:35

And then boom, I notice a big change again.

:: 25:39

It's elastic up here.

:: 25:41

I'm tapping my head and you can't see.

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So don't think everything is forever either.

:: 25:46

Just commit to where you are today.

:: 25:50

You'll develop and grow whether you like it or not.

:: 25:54

I'm pretty sure if there was a video of me when I started, say, dance fitness in 2007 and another one from 2020, it would all look a lot different, even though I'm still clumsy enough to break my hand in an online improv scene about meditation.

:: 26:13

So you made it to the end.

:: 26:15

welcome to the end bit.

:: 26:17

I have online classes at World's Greatest Improv School, wgimprovschool.com.

:: 26:26

It's also where I work.

:: 26:28

We have online jams.

:: 26:30

We have shows.

:: 26:31

We have a lot more.

:: 26:33

There's in-person stuff as well.

:: 26:34

So go check out the school at wgimprovschool.com.

:: 26:39

I also have a website.

:: 26:40

It's called flatimprov.com.

:: 26:43

And I put out a newsletter from that site twice a month.

:: 26:47

And you can put your stuff in it as well.

:: 26:49

If you have your podcasts or shows or other online improv activities, you can submit them to the site.

:: 26:56

There's a button called Submit and you can use that.

:: 26:58

And this podcast, it lives on Substack.

:: 27:01

You can find out more information about the podcast.

:: 27:04

You can also send me voice notes or questions or content or whatever you would like to share.

:: 27:11

You can send me your heckles if you would like to.

:: 27:14

You can do that at flatimprov.com/substack.

:: 27:18

Thanks for listening.

:: 27:20

I'll talk to you next week.