Episode 9
Masking and Improv – Being the voice of reason - Ep #9
Masking is a common behaviour for autistic and/or ADHD people. It’s a trait that can be subconscious or conscious, and one we take on to suppress natural reactions, responses, physicality or expressions. This, of course, can affect how we position ourselves in scenes if we are trying to be the voice of reason and respond naturally and honestly.
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Masking can help us in improv, but also adds a challenge sometimes. With careful consideration, pondering, and a whole lot of processing I believe it can inevitably make us stronger improvisers. And maybe win improv?
This episode covers, in a mere 40 minutes of detail, the intersection of masking and playing the voice of reason in your scenes.
A future episode will infodump about our neurodivergent brains and the unusual… like identifying the unusual thing.
Refer to episode 6 for more info about neurodivergent masking and improv but instead about peas in a pod or character matching scenes:
About this podcast & links
This podcast is hosted/written/produced/etc by me, Jen deHaan, of FlatImprov.com. You can blame me for the whole thing. You can submit your questions, heckles, comments, blame, more heckles, or even a voice note on the website. Find the contact form for this podcast at FlatImprov.com/substack.
You can also subscribe to this podcast where you get your other podcasts - Apple, Spotify, Overcast, Castro, etc.
PLUGS:
I have online improv classes starting in February at World’s Greatest Improv School (WGIS) (weegis) that involves character stuff and a new form and online show format.
* Character Point of View class
* Improvised Morning Show - learn the form, do a show series
I have an improv show too called World’s Nerdiest Improv Show (WNIS) (weenis). Find episodes here.
TALK AT YOU NEXT WEEK, IMPROV NERD FRIENDS!
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Transcript
Welcome to the Neurodiversity and Improv Podcast from Flat Improv.
::I'm Jen deHaan, and I do improv stuff, and I like thinking about improv things.
::These podcasts aren't for telling any of you what to do.
::They are explanations to help encourage more inclusivity amongst classes and teams.
::They are not intended as excuses, and they're not for diagnosis, so don't use these episodes to diagnose yourself or anyone else for that matter.
::Basically, we're here just being improv nerds talking about nerdy improv things.
::So welcome to episode 9.
::What is this episode all about?
::Well, I'm still here yammering about improv brain things, so we're going to talk about that.
::This one will be about neurodivergent masking again, but this time about being grounded or the voice of reason in scenes.
::Now, this is one of the first things I noticed as a kind of improv gotcha for my brain.
::When I first learned about what grounded meant in the improv context, I was side coached in a class to come into a scene as grounded, and I hadn't heard that term yet.
::And I thought, well, I'm sure that's a different thing than what it means in my dance fitness queuing.
::And probably that means normal or something.
::After the scene, I googled it, and yes, I guess it was kind of that.
::And I'd never really covered that whole grounded voice of reason thing in any of my improv classes or terminology before, like any of it.
::Even the legacy, crazy straight terminology, anything like that.
::But vague common sense luckily was enough from being a fan of comedy.
::And I guessed kind of right.
::But this concept from that point forward really messed with my head for a good while.
::And partly it was because I did my improv training in a very curious ordering of classes, but also because I'm just the way I am.
::I started to read stuff about what grounded and voice of reason meant.
::I was doing a lot of between class thinking or overthinking, depending on your school of thought.
::And then I started asking myself the questions like what is normal?
::Or how do I be normal?
::What do they want from this normal?
::Is what I'm seeing or doing deemed normal or unusual?
::And to who?
::Who is listening to this even?
::What is the unusual thing?
::What's weird?
::What is our reaction to weird?
::What if we're supposed to be normal?
::And what does my scene partner think even?
::Do they think the thing I'm doing is normal or weird?
::Are they nerd-a-version too?
::Are they thinking these things?
::It all seems pretty simple and it can be simple.
::But in practice and especially when starting out with this concept, this whole idea can be pretty loaded.
::And some of us have decades of masking our natural reactions and thoughts because a greater percentage of human beings on this planet might find them kind of weird because we think different.
::And if we don't do this masking, we can inject the unusual into a conversation, even if it's our honest and normal to us reaction.
::And if you are supposed to be grounded, your honest first reaction, the thing that we're kind of told to do, can end up tagging you as the weird one.
::And then you're not the grounded person anymore.
::You're not the voice of reason.
::And we, the neurodivergent humans, are the weird ones in life.
::But if we want to be the not weird one in this particular scene we're in, we're supposed to react as ourselves to be grounded.
::So now what?
::Good question.
::I will do my best to answer some of it in this episode.
::For quite a while, after being introduced to this concept, through that side coach of Jen come into the scene as grounded, I was pretty in my head about how to be grounded once I learned what it was, and the voice of reason because it can be a little challenging when you're mixing in characters and masking and your own neurodivergent brain wiring and all the other improv techniques we learn when we are learning.
::And in this early learning phase, which you're doing in addition to trying to position yourself in a scene when you want or need to at least.
::Let's back up a bit and review what neurodivergent masking is.
::So what is masking?
::In episode 6, I talked about what masking is.
::You can refer back to the beginning or close to the beginning of that episode for an explanation or deal with the following nutshell of one.
::Masking is a common behavior amongst people who are ADHD and or autistic.
::You can be both like me.
::People also refer to masking as camouflaging, being a social chameleon or mimicking.
::It's a conscious or unconscious reaction for many of us.
::For me, it's almost entirely unconscious, but sometimes I'll notice it after the fact when I'm rehashing those social interactions like we love to do, but it's essentially suppressing your natural reactions, responses, physicality, or expressions in order to hide some of your natural behaviors.
::Essentially, masking is whatever it takes to make us more, and I'm doing those air quotes again that you cannot see, socially acceptable.
::So we fit in and avoid trouble such as misunderstandings, being misunderstood, it's awful.
::And a lot of us were raised, trained, or conditioned to mask.
::How intensively can depend on your parents' region or gender.
::The amount of effort you take to mask is relevant in this discussion, too.
::How long you've been doing it, how hard it is to do, or do you even notice it at all?
::How much energy you're expending and so on.
::We might only notice being tired after social interactions, but we might not notice actually doing these masking adjustments at all.
::Since we've been doing them our entire lives.
::So masking is not acting.
::For example, I don't think about masking and I don't try to mask.
::It just happens automatically.
::But masking can help you with acting or characters in ways that you might not be consciously aware of.
::So like the peas in a pod, like I discussed in episode 6, it might come quite naturally because you've done this sort of thing before, even if you haven't noticed it.
::But masking can make other parts of improv more difficult.
::And that's why we're here today.
::Masking in general, though, is something to consider outside of improv, because for some people it can be harmful.
::And those people might choose to try and not do masking.
::They may go through an unmasking process.
::For other people, there may be a benefit that outweighs any of the negative aspects of masking.
::They might find that they are less misunderstood or fit in better, or is good for their work environment.
::And they might choose to keep masking, because they're still kind of themselves.
::I put myself in that category.
::But for most, it's something to just think about, at least, and consider about your real life, in addition to your improv scenes.
::And I am going to note that I might contradict myself on this subject sometimes.
::I reckon that is because a lot of this topic is very nebulous.
::It's hard to understand.
::It's going to differ between all of us a lot.
::And it takes a long time to sort out what is me and what is the mask, especially if you've been doing it for nearly 46 years like myself.
::So suppressing or changing reactions and not being accepted as you are just doesn't feel great.
::It's certainly something to analyze for your real life outside of scenes.
::And doing work to be more yourself is always good.
::You can choose to apply it to the space, answering honestly as yourself when it's part of the improv assignment.
::In whatever way you choose to do so, whatever is honest for you is what's being asked for, essentially.
::So if you hear, just be yourself, answer as yourself and then get it, air quotes, wrong.
::I know that this can be not great to hear if you really did answer as yourself and it wasn't considered to be the right thing, whatever that is.
::But it's also not technically, in my opinion anyways, a note for you in this case.
::It's maybe a note for a neurotypical neurotype.
::So this is one of those cases where you can decide to go ahead and apply the note differently to your improv.
::You know what's honest for you.
::So you can decide what to do with that note.
::And our answers as Neurodivergent people here might be different.
::Some of the next part of this episode will be occasionally mentioning choosing characters and thinking in a neurotypical way.
::As a character, not you.
::Using that past experience when you may have masked and responded in more of a neurotypical way.
::You don't have to do this if this isn't right for where you are in masking, if you're doing so.
::And if you simply don't want to play that kind of character, you don't have to.
::Again, we can make our own creative choices.
::I choose to play neurotypical characters sometimes.
::You don't have to.
::Improv is supposed to be fun and creative and inclusive to all of us.
::Even if it's a style where you might not be supported in doing certain things, there's probably a style or a team somewhere that is a great fit.
::Or you make one that is.
::Characters aren't supposed to be ourselves either.
::We don't have to answer honestly to us personally, to our real life selves.
::We just have to do something that's right for the audience.
::So I don't take notes like you're doing honest wrong personally.
::I know it's hard because of that whole, the world isn't built for us and the real triggering.
::Just be yourself in that world that doesn't support us doing so.
::So while we might be directed to respond as ourselves, it's also okay to take some space with that and play a neurotypical point of view instead and do acting.
::It's improv.
::So if you want and it's fun and it's fun for me, even when I get it wrong.
::Or you can always commit to answering as yourself in whatever way that is right for you and just do it.
::Commit to that and justify because none of this is real anyways.
::Now all of this is technically overthinking.
::I think but I like it.
::Now masking has a pretty big impact on the voice of reason and being grounded, which is the topic of today's podcast.
::So one example of what I'm talking about and how masking can affect Park Bench of Truth, even when you are attempting to be the voice of reason and be completely grounded and being yourself.
::I was in a practice group in which we were doing the Park Bench of Truth, which is a improv exercise where you are your honest, real, true self, just having a conversation.
::Like you would be sitting on a Park Bench with a friend chatting.
::And that's basically the scene.
::And our directive was just to be ourselves.
::Now, this was a practice group.
::I knew everyone in the practice group very well.
::We'd been working together for a while.
::All of us are neurodivergent in this group.
::Self-proclaimed neurodivergent people, no assumptions.
::And I was comfortable with everybody.
::So I went in to each one of these scenes back to back with the intention of just being myself, being open, being honest.
::I had no reason to mask.
::I wasn't trying to mask.
::I just went in.
::This is Jen.
::I'm just having a conversation with this person.
::I really do know well.
::So it was very easy to be myself because I knew all of these scene partners very well already.
::And afterwards or between the scenes a little bit, but certainly afterwards, when I thought about these scenes again, I knew that I was doing my best and not being masked as far as I can tell.
::But because it's so wired in to who I am, I could notice how with each person, my energy shifted.
::It just felt a bit different, even though all of it was as far as I can tell me being me.
::But it was even noted in how one of the scenes I started acting was the note.
::And I know for myself that I wasn't.
::I know that I wasn't.
::I know I wasn't trying to act or I wasn't shifting into something fake.
::The energy with my scene partner shifted and that's just something I naturally do.
::And I'm not questioning the note.
::The note wasn't wrong because that was the perception on the outside.
::That is what the audience would think.
::So that note meant a lot to me because I was like, wow, I have to watch that.
::And that is the kind of thing that we're dealing with here when we involve masking or have masking and improv together is it can do things like that.
::And that is the sort of thing that we want to watch and see if it matters to us because it is the perception of others, whether we like it or not.
::And that's why making these considerations and thinking about this and its effect on our scene work, and especially when we're trying to be the voice of reason and grounded characters, which I think is what masking affects the most in improv is an important thing to do.
::So in episode six of this podcast series, I talked about how masking affects peas in a pod or character matching scenes.
::And it can help quite a bit in scenes like this.
::However, when it comes to what we're talking about in this episode, which is grounded characters or the voice of reason in a scene, we might want to consider these two specific parts of masking.
::And I did mention these in episode six as well.
::One of them is understanding your own identity.
::Like who the hell are you really?
::And also you might think about items around your self-esteem or like, am I not good enough?
::Is that why I have to mask?
::And this is where we really start to get into the improv side of things when it comes to grounded and voice of reason because these two items are really related to playing these types of roles and saying things that are considered unusual or the unusual thing of the scene.
::And because this is a technique that we're learning, at least in the style of improv that I practice, coaching ends up hitting on these two things because you want to say be the voice of reason in a scene or you need to figure out what's the unusual thing or your character might be the unusual thing.
::So this sort of aspect comes up in the notes that you get.
::For example, you might be noted that your reaction was writing into the scene when it was actually just honest and in the moment and true for you.
::Or your reaction might be noted that you were injecting some unusual on purpose, that kind of the same thing as writing, but it was truly your first reaction.
::And maybe your second reaction would have been the normal one, if you flipped into sort of more of a neurotypical mode or kind of masked your character.
::So let's talk about the unusual thing for a second.
::And this might be different than being a grounded or voice of reason in the scene, but I want to get this unusual thing out of the way before we talk about being the voice of reason or unusual character of the scene, because I'll do a separate episode about noticing the unusual thing.
::But for now, I just want to mention that it is very common to have difficulty with noticing the unusual, even with no neurotype anything involved.
::This technique can be challenging on its own for everyone, and it can be more challenging, however, if you're neurodivergent.
::But for now, if you're looking for something to just take away about this particular topic, take this, watch for your scene partner's reaction, and watch or listen for the framing from your scene partner.
::We can be very, very good at these things, but they take some analysis and some practice, especially when it comes to improv.
::Now, if that makes no sense, just wait and I'll do a separate episode on it in much more detail with perhaps a controversial take on the first unusual thing in the scene, foreshadowing.
::So smash that subscribe button.
::Let's talk about being grounded or the voice of reason character in this episode.
::So first, we're going to talk about masking and grounded, not knowing who you are and playing yourself.
::Now, it might be hard to play a really grounded, and react-as-you type of stance, when one, you might not totally understand who you really are in real life, and two, if your reactions are not totally accepted as honest or natural in the scene.
::So let's start with number one.
::We're often coached to be ourselves to play the voice of reason, but then we're coached to not be ourselves when we're playing ourselves.
::So when we do that, and then it turns out, bam, you're the unusual.
::It sort of implies that we aren't normal, or we can't be ourselves when we're supposed to be ourselves.
::So I hit this thing pretty hard, and still do sometimes when playing kid characters, even to the point that I heard one time, Jen, that was way too wild, even for an unusual kid.
::When I was flash-memoring, verbatim what my mom said that I said.
::I was a weird kid.
::But hey, you know, we all know that non-seen life can be really weird too, especially if we watch the news.
::It's hard for all of us.
::But if and when this happens, try not to let it get in your head.
::I'm proud of my weird kidness.
::And that's really where we get a bunch of unusual ideas too, which is very useful.
::But because improv is not therapy, let's move on.
::We mask our characters to be the normal kid, or we can, or we be the weird kid that we really were, commit hard to it, own it, justify it, and just see what happens.
::Take the note, think about it later, and try new things or just really own what you're doing and justify it.
::But getting too stressed out about this one isn't going to help anyone.
::I think honesty, some level of vulnerability, keeping an open mind to the feedback, being very self-aware and playing to whatever your strengths are based on.
::All of that will probably win in the end.
::Number two.
::So this is the one about your reactions are not totally accepted as honest or natural in a scene.
::This is one where you might want to think about whether or not you want to respond neurotypical.
::So you can respond or you can create sort of a neurotypical character to play honest.
::This is because sometimes my first reaction is not necessarily what's considered a normal one.
::My first reaction might just be unusual.
::My second thought might be the more neurotypical or normal one.
::I might just need to take a bit of a beat before I respond.
::And sometimes I need to really kind of hold on to that while I'm in the scene.
::So it just takes a little bit more work, but it's possible.
::So for example, I might handle Voice of Reason by taking on this neurotypical character instead of just being my honest self.
::So as real as I could play it, I don't do that.
::I'm taking on this neurotypical character instead.
::So technically, I'm kind of in the scene masking as a neurotypical.
::You're still feeling that you're a character.
::You don't feel like you're yourself.
::But I had to learn to do this.
::And I most likely still am learning because it's a really weird and twisty and not very natural way to do improv.
::And it's not something I do all that often either.
::So I have way fewer reps doing it.
::So all you're really doing is masking into neurotypical like you do in life.
::And we often do this quite a bit.
::And like I said, it feels quite natural to me.
::You're doing a normal character instead of being yourself and trying to just respond as that neurotypical person would, which we can do quite automated.
::But in this case, it's quite a bit harder because you might be playing against someone who's playing the weird or unusual character.
::You're not mimicking like you would in real life.
::You aren't in those social situations like you would be in real life where it does feel natural.
::You're also not having to think about all the other improv stuff as well.
::But with some practice, it kind of seems generally doable.
::And this is not something I've ever heard explained anywhere.
::So I feel very on my own in this regard.
::I might be completely wrong.
::I might not even be all that astute about what I'm actually doing here.
::And I'm also very open to your notes on this idea.
::And I'm also quite tentative sharing this idea because I guess this could, on that note, come across as questioning the note.
::And on that note, this is also one I kind of recommend just trying on the DL.
::Anyways, I swear to God, I've taken all the notes on Jen.
::You failed, voice of reason.
::It's not the note, but it's the idea.
::And this is my best guess at how to take that note and also do the assignment whenever possible.
::Coaches and teachers can't know what's going on inside of our atypically wired brains.
::And they're also giving us the feedback of what the audience is seeing, which is hard for us to see.
::So we still need to take those notes.
::We might just need to do something different with them in order to do what they want us to do, or what is best for the scene, or what is best for the audience to see.
::So just listen and hear, hey, you were unusual here instead of Voice of Reason, because it was taken that way.
::So it's, you know, it's probably true to the majority of the audience and your potential scene partners.
::So I think that this idea of playing a neurotypical character instead of playing your honest, real self to be the Voice of Reason is a fairly important thing to process or think about.
::When you get these kind of notes, try to assess your pattern.
::What was it like?
::What did it feel like?
::How close to real were you?
::And see if you can kind of figure that out.
::Think about when you had a solid Voice of Reason or a grounded scene.
::And what did that feel like?
::What was that like?
::And what did you do to try to make it easy for you to meet the assignment for that kind of scene?
::The other option is to just be yourself, position yourself as you do and commit hard and justify wherever you need to.
::And if you get a note on this, just take it.
::Remember it.
::See how many you get on this particular type of scene.
::Maybe it's not much of a problem after all.
::But if you keep getting that note from different teachers or coaches, then try something like the above maybe, or process it all and try something else that works for you.
::Like you might just need to have some kind of emergency out for some scenes.
::Maybe you find a way to position flip or course correct, or try something completely different and write to me about it on my website, or come on this podcast and tell everyone what you did and what worked for you.
::Because we're all Neurodivergent and we're all wired differently in our brains.
::So test it out, talk with your teammates, your coaches, your teachers at a different time well after you've processed the note you received, compare it to other notes you've received in the past, and maybe have an idea of what you want to try out before you talk to everybody.
::Tell them that you're working on something and get their support.
::We as Neurodivergent people have to adjust to a normal, hair quotes, world most of the time.
::And doing your masked, neurotypical, sometimes an improv is maybe not too big of a deal, or maybe just be the weird one most of the time like I am.
::But remember in all of this, because it can be stressful, this is a hobby.
::This is make-em-ups.
::This is playtime.
::If you're not having fun, and this ends up being super stressful, work at sorting out if you think it's really worth it.
::This should be fun, and you should enjoy it.
::Or like, why?
::Why are you doing it if it's so stressful and awful?
::But on that note, and this is a bad pattern, I know, because I know I can hear how many times I've said that.
::I'm going to say something here that applies to this whole series.
::For me, thinking this much about niche improv stuff is fun.
::Because you might be saying this is hypocritical of you.
::How could this be fun to just think and analyze so much?
::But this thinking to me is fun.
::As a Neurodivergent human, it's why I spend my free time doing something like this podcast.
::I toss out into the darkness, into the void.
::Like imagine doing regular shows on a physical stage and you have earplugs in and you have a great big thick curtain between you and the audience that may or may not be there.
::You don't even know.
::You got to love it that much.
::So thinking this deeply about how scenes work and how my brain works and so on is fun.
::Even if I'm the only one who hears this thing.
::And I know that I've said this before, but I never think about this stuff while doing the scene.
::So if you find yourself doing that, try not to try to notice this outside of the scene after your practice, after your show and think about it at that time.
::And if all of this thinking just stresses you out, like listening to this podcast going, oh, this is what improv is.
::Oh, this is awful.
::Like just don't do this kind of thinking.
::But if you're like me, it might make things more fun for you in a really weird way.
::And for all the rest of you that think this is super, super weird, this is actually just like having these intense interests and like hyper focusing on them is really good for us mentally, our mental health.
::And it doesn't work like that for everyone.
::It doesn't even work like that for all neurodivergent.
::So for the rest of you, getting this this granular on something super niche is wild.
::Well, for us, it's normal.
::And this is how some of your scene partners are.
::Just so you know, cognitively, this is how we are.
::So now, you know.
::So can you ground scenes as the weirdo or as a character?
::You absolutely can.
::So say you're in a scene and you end up as the unusual character anyways, you can still ground the scene if you need to.
::You can have a wild or strong character that still makes the scene make sense.
::You can use justification to do this.
::You can explain why things are the way they are in this world or in this situation.
::Focus on barfing out that logic.
::Even if it seems a little bit weird or a little bit flawed, maybe it's true for this world, or it might make perfect logical sense.
::And you are a weird character who's very logical in a realistic way, a natural to us way.
::And this is certainly possible and it can be a lot of fun.
::And this is a little bit like the first time I did Voice of Reason and had it actually feel incredibly easy and natural for me.
::I initiated in a really strong character with the intent of being weird with whatever premise I had in my head.
::But my scene partner came in with a weirder and not peas in a pod energy.
::So I position flipped to a voice of reason, but I still committed to that very strong kind of wild and weird character anyways, and found that for the first time in my improv experience back then, it was finally easy to do what I needed to do for that scene, because I didn't have to think as hard, because I wasn't trying to think about, oh, I got to be voice of reason.
::I got to do this sort of thing.
::And it just worked.
::But do know that often if you do come in with that kind of energy and character, you will probably be positioned as the unusual one most of the time.
::So this example is a bit more of an edge case, but it is possible to have a scene work that way as well.
::So this is the other case is that you end up tagged as the unusual, even when you came in thinking you were going to be the grounded voice of reason type person.
::In this case, you might be the grounded weird, and it's still an unusual character, but it's played in a very grounded sense.
::This is my favorite way to play, actually.
::So you're just being you.
::And I mean, we're taught to verbal diarrhea, what we're actually thinking, but we don't say out loud in real life as ourselves, but this is encouraged in improv.
::So for me, this does happen.
::So if you're like me, get used to it, maybe.
::But you'll sometimes you might get noted as forcing weird or writing in a scene, despite it being your real natural, in my case, autistic response.
::But I gave up worrying about my balance in being the weird or skewing to it because I'm just being me.
::And if it skews the ratios, I guess so be it.
::I can't really help it too much.
::But I stopped worrying if I was tagged this way.
::And so I fall into the unusual a lot.
::But this ended up for me having sort of a discovery was made of I was noted to do that more often because it really it was like, this is you.
::This is the way that you should be playing improv more.
::And the description they gave was basically how my brain works.
::So it was like, you should be you more.
::But I was still the unusual one.
::So I think this way of playing is me and it is my natural voice of reason.
::But it is unusual.
::And that might be you too.
::And it can work.
::So don't think that even if you end up being tagged as the unusual, even though you're trying to be grounded, that it's bad for improv, it's not.
::It might still be unusual, but it might be the thing that makes you great.
::You know, I'm not saying it's making me great.
::It might not.
::It might not be.
::But it is something that I should be doing more, apparently, according to that note.
::And I think it's something to definitely explore and try and see if it's a scene that particularly works well for your style of improv.
::Because I think when we do come at this from honesty and vulnerability and ourselves, that is always going to be a good thing to do in improv.
::So give it a shot.
::You know, it might not work for voice of reason, but it might work for some other kind of character that you bring into a scene when appropriate.
::And the other thing that I will note here is that it is quite common for me, at least to drift to the unusual even when I start as a voice of reason.
::So this is the case where I might be taking on my neurotypical character to play a voice of reason.
::And because later in the scene, you might kind of let go a little bit more because you really get going in the scene and you are the voice of reason.
::It's quite easy at that point to drift more to yourself, which might be unusual because we are neurodivergent.
::So I just say that as something to watch out for.
::And what can you do to course correct?
::And that will be really what you do to come back to your character.
::For me, it's a visual thing.
::I think about what my character looks like in my head, and that can help me go back to that character, but it's going to be what works for you.
::It might be physical, it might be vocal, it might be something else entirely.
::And so the last thing that I will talk about here, because it kind of wraps up a few things that I've brought up earlier in the podcast, is these problem areas, working on something like voice of reason and grounded, if it's something that you have difficulty with.
::I'm going to talk about the first time that I brought this up as something that I wanted to work on with a teacher.
::I was in a class where we were supposed to bring something that was our problem area, the thing that we wanted to work on, and this voice of reason being grounded, of course, was the thing I brought, because it was for quite a while the number one thing that I had issues with.
::That first time that I brought it up was not long after I had that letting go epiphany and improv, and I was in the midst of my voice of reason, unusual position struggle at the time.
::The teacher running this workshop where we were working on our issues had me intentionally be the voice of reason before I started the scene.
::After about the third scene or so, the teacher asked me, hey, how's it going?
::How do you feel?
::Because they probably sensed that it wasn't going so well, and I basically just stammered uncomfortable.
::I think that was the only thing I said was uncomfortable.
::The teacher said, okay, just forget about it.
::Just do what you want.
::Don't think about it.
::I want to see the difference.
::And I just had that epiphany.
::Probably two weeks before this class was the first time, I was like, oh, I figured it out.
::I actually let go for the first time.
::So I'm like, oh, I think they mean let go.
::Like, okay, I think maybe I can do it.
::I don't know if I can do it.
::So it took a couple scenes, but then I guess I let go, and I started to position myself fine.
::So that was my takeaway at that point, that I could do voice of reason so much easier when I just didn't think about it before I started the scene, and I positioned myself just without the thought.
::It just kind of happened.
::So your brain might kick in with that kind of signal.
::If that is a problem for you, maybe.
::I don't know.
::It seemed to be that way for me.
::And that has been fairly consistent that that's a better way of doing it, because for a long time, I could not.
::If I would have figured out what I was going to do before, because I have to practice Voice of Reason, so I'm going to be the Voice of Reason for the scene.
::Or if it's assigned as part, as it very often is, as part of the exercise, you know, okay, the responder is going to be the Voice of Reason, or Jen, you're going to be the Voice of Reason for the scene.
::It would put me in my head and I just could barely do it.
::It would freak me out because of all of what I've been talking about in this episode.
::But I'm going to say it has changed as Improv development tends to do, which is also why these podcasts that I'm making here will have a varying effectiveness for all of you.
::You might be before this point in your Improv or at the stage in your Improv or past this stage, or everything I'm saying here is a load of crap.
::I don't know.
::Fun times.
::I'm sure also I've missed so much on this topic that I'll want to do some follow-up episode later, or my thoughts will change on it because my experience will change on it, and I'll analyze it and go, oh, I feel different now.
::I should do another whole episode on this topic.
::But for the most part, doing this gut thing and positioning for yourself as a voice of reason or unusual, whatever it seems to take, it tends to just be easier, I think.
::Because of that, I'll probably be the weird one, way more, because I tend to say something weird as my natural, honest, falling out of my face reaction, which is what we're trained to do in this style of improv.
::But usually when I need to do something, I'll kind of position myself correctly, I think.
::I still make mistakes, of course, as we all do.
::I made one yesterday for reasons, actually.
::But improv is always fun.
::And it's way more true for me to do it this way.
::And we get to keep learning, which is great.
::And I get to be my weird, neurodivergent self way more doing things this way.
::And I like that because I never got to do that much in all of my other decades here on Earth until I started doing improv.
::So this episode is so, so long already.
::So I'm going to keep the summary as short as I possibly can as a self-professed verbal diarrhea.
::Human being, figure out what's important to you, figure out new ways to play the position that you need to play.
::Talk to your team, your teachers, your coaches and keep an open mind about those notes and try not to take them to personally, even if they seem to hit you in your neurotype real hard and process whether something is really a problem or not.
::What do you need to do to meet the need of the scene?
::And then how important is that need at all?
::And mostly do what you need to do to keep having fun.
::And I'll leave it at that.
::And because of all of this and how long you've been listening, I will also keep the plug section pretty, pretty short.
::I will try.
::I have classes at World's Greatest Improv School, which is where I also work and have a lot of fun at wgimprovschool.com.
::There's online classes, in-person classes, teams, and a whole lot of fun.
::I also have a website called flatimprov.com, where I have a newsletter and list a whole bunch of online Improv stuff.
::You can add your stuff to that website and to the newsletter I put out as well.
::You can find information about this podcast on that website at flatimprov.com/substack.
::There's a contact form on there where you can send me what you want, and you can find all the other episodes and places to subscribe to this podcast, so please do that, and I hope to hear from you, and thanks for listening to so many words today.
::All right, talk at you soon.
