The Three Best Ways to Learn (or Improve) at Improv

WEBVTT

:: 00:00

So someone posted a question in an improv group

:: 00:03

not too long ago, and it got me thinking enough

:: 00:06

that I wanted to do a whole episode of my answer.

:: 00:12

Welcome back to your improv brain.

:: 00:14

I'm booting up the podcast to answer a question

:: 00:17

I saw in an improv forum.

:: 00:18

Yeah, that's right.

:: 00:19

You heard that right.

:: 00:21

The question roughly was how much weight

:: 00:23

do you put on the different ways people learn improv,

:: 00:27

whether that's actually like doing scenes themselves,

:: 00:34

watching other people perform,

:: 00:37

or kind of the more conceptual side of improv theory,

:: 00:41

like discussion and reading books.

:: 00:45

And how do you balance those things when you teach improv?

:: 00:51

I mean, you probably, I mean,

:: 00:53

if you've been listening to any of the show,

:: 00:55

you're probably like, yeah, that makes sense.

:: 00:56

Jen would reboot a whole podcast just to answer this.

:: 01:00

Detail in a monologue.

:: 01:02

And if you're new here,

:: 01:03

that's who you're dealing with right now.

:: 01:04

Now, you can apply this,

:: 01:07

my answer to learning improv at any phase.

:: 01:10

If you're a beginner, you're early on, or you're later on,

:: 01:13

you've done a whole lot of improv

:: 01:15

and you're listening to this.

:: 01:16

But you could also apply it to learning

:: 01:19

how to do all sorts of things.

:: 01:21

So if you wanna listen to this

:: 01:24

through the lens of learning in general,

:: 01:25

should probably work like if you're working on improving your voice or

:: 01:29

presence on a podcast for example if you're learning how to give

:: 01:34

presentations at work or how to become a teacher of improv or dance fitness or

:: 01:40

anything like that a whole lot more so you can apply this to a lot of things

:: 01:45

and my short answer by the way I'll link to this in the description that doing

:: 01:50

Improv actually doing the craft comes first by a lot

:: 01:56

I mean you probably could have guessed that it's probably your answer to

:: 02:01

Doing improv is a great way to learn improv

:: 02:05

Performing it in classes or jams or shows or creating your own stuff with it

:: 02:11

That's a great way to learn how to improvise stuff like that

:: 02:16

After that after the performance part doing improv after that I would say watching

:: 02:22

veteran

:: 02:23

Improvisers, this is improvisers who are just further along than you and their skills to some degree

:: 02:30

This is very useful really paying attention to what they do

:: 02:35

Like this is what moves they make

:: 02:39

Great new moves moves that you might want to try

:: 02:42

Watching that improv through the lens of figuring out what you like

:: 02:48

the style

:: 02:49

the those kind of moves those kinds of forms all of this can help inform your

:: 02:56

Taste and your own style along with growing your skill set through learning. Like what do you want to focus on learning?

:: 03:04

Right. What did you see in that show? That's really great that you want to focus your learning on

:: 03:10

super super useful

:: 03:12

So then in my answer on that post that I will link then I added the thing that I actually want to talk about today

:: 03:20

that I rebooted this podcast for because I

:: 03:23

Added only a very high level brief note about it because it wasn't one of the options in the question

:: 03:31

This is the kind of learning I think is maybe the most underused in improv

:: 03:37

Maybe because it's often misunderstood

:: 03:41

Because of some of our improv canon and teaching and it can be some of the most useful work you can do out there

:: 03:47

And this is specifically taking a careful look back at your own

:: 03:54

experience in those scenes on your own in

:: 03:58

The time between your classes and your sets and your rehearsals and your shows in a very intentional constructed way. That's the key and

:: 04:06

And then you use that experience that you had thinking about your improv to inform how

:: 04:14

you can operate in your own improv brain.

:: 04:17

And then you'll end up taking that into your scenes on autopilot without thinking in your

:: 04:21

scenes so you're still outside your head.

:: 04:23

Now the technical word for this thing is metacognition.

:: 04:27

Being metacognitive.

:: 04:29

And I've done a number of episodes on it because I'm interested in this thing and I went ahead

:: 04:33

with them even though I knew they would probably do very poorly on the show

:: 04:38

because why would anyone do an episode about that? Metacognition just means

:: 04:43

thinking about your own thinking. Paying attention to how your own mind actually

:: 04:50

works. So yeah it's a little bit recursive but please stay with me if

:: 04:56

you're still here. It's really the whole point of your improv brain as a show.

:: 05:01

It's really my central thesis, which is why I answered that way.

:: 05:07

And it's why I came back to do this episode.

:: 05:10

So for us, it means looking at or thinking about how you specifically operate in improv

:: 05:16

in a very intentional and almost like constructed way.

:: 05:20

Right.

:: 05:20

So what you did in a scene, why you might have done that thing that you did, what was

:: 05:28

going on for you in that moment? What would you want to do differently next time? And what would

:: 05:36

you want to do exactly the same next time? How do you think in improv? How do you do your half

:: 05:47

of the scene? How do you add to a scene, for example? What kinds of things get you out of

:: 05:55

tight spots or problems. How does getting out of your head really work for you? How does it feel?

:: 06:04

Because all of our heads are very different and we can let go for a lot of this stuff,

:: 06:10

but I do believe it really helps to look at and consider this stuff between the scenes

:: 06:17

in a very intentional way to get really good in them when you're doing the scenes. So you aren't

:: 06:25

Thinking of this stuff in the scene ever never never but pre thinking about your scenes in this way means you don't

:: 06:33

have to

:: 06:35

It gets you out of your head and as such

:: 06:39

It will happen there. You're learning you're thinking about these things

:: 06:43

You're like I want to do more of this and then that more will just happen on its own without thinking in

:: 06:50

the scene and that's how

:: 06:53

cognition helps us in improv be in the moment and take advantage of all those

:: 07:01

reps. So the part that makes this intentional thinking work is specifically

:: 07:09

that you do it between your sets, between your scenes, after the set is over, on the

:: 07:14

drive home, the next morning, whenever you have a spare minute or a spare few hours

:: 07:19

To yourself depending on how much can you want to do depending on what kind of human being you are?

:: 07:26

Well, you're actually in a scene you are

:: 07:30

Present in the moment with your scene partner. There's no room for this kind of analysis there

:: 07:36

So all this looking happens later on

:: 07:40

so a lot of my show

:: 07:43

Your improv brain this podcast that you're listening to and hopefully still happy about is about getting out of your head

:: 07:50

And yes, I'm here telling you to think about improv on purpose with intention and this is because

:: 07:57

This time between scenes. This is when the thinking really helps you out because that's the only place you can kind of

:: 08:05

Just step back from yourself from these scenes and start seeing patterns

:: 08:11

Across a whole bunch of scenes at once

:: 08:15

Right and you can't do this from inside a single scene and it's harder for other people to do this for you

:: 08:23

Right, and they aren't inside your head. They don't know how it feels

:: 08:25

So the looking back that you do afterwards is part of what lets you stay out of your head

:: 08:32

When it's really important to stay out of your head your brain is gonna go on autopilot

:: 08:36

essentially with all that self-learning and analysis and thinking that's up there, right?

:: 08:43

Because it will kind of get like muscle memory in a way. It's why you don't need to think about

:: 08:48

the yes and you kind of just committing these things into muscle memory outside of the scene

:: 08:54

as well. So part of this thing is reps and part of this thing is thinking. Yes, but there are

:: 09:03

some important caveats here, some gotchas, and some things that you might not want to do. So this

:: 09:12

is around replaying the scene or the set in your head because you didn't like what happened and

:: 09:22

you're cringing about that thing and about whatever happened because that a lot of times if you're

:: 09:29

just really stuck in that emotional kind of place about a scene, it's not going to teach

:: 09:35

you much. And it could have some negative repercussions. And by could, I mean probably

:: 09:41

it's going to have some negative repercussions, right? So you might need a bit more distance

:: 09:48

from that scene before you can take an analytical and henceforth helpful look at that scene.

:: 09:56

If you need to at all, you might just forget about it, right?

:: 10:00

Like it might not be useful.

:: 10:01

But if you think it might be useful, you might want that distance to become unemotional about

:: 10:06

that scene.

:: 10:07

The other one, and this is probably the most important caveat here, do not compare yourself

:: 10:15

to others.

:: 10:17

Do not think about their moves.

:: 10:19

Like don't get into that thing where it's like, well, if they didn't mess that up, I

:: 10:25

would have done a great.

:: 10:26

Like don't, don't do any of that.

:: 10:28

So this is really a personal look at where you are,

:: 10:33

what you are putting into the scene,

:: 10:37

how your brain is working,

:: 10:39

how you feel if you feel things about that scene,

:: 10:43

how you respond to things

:: 10:46

as opposed to whatever is handed to you in that scene.

:: 10:51

You're just thinking about the response to that.

:: 10:53

So we've got those caveats out of the way.

:: 10:56

So what do you get out of this activity?

:: 11:00

Why are we thinking about how we think in improv?

:: 11:05

So over time, this is how you can work out

:: 11:09

what improv actually is for you.

:: 11:12

You start to see which notes to take to heart

:: 11:18

and which notes to just kind of let go of, to set aside.

:: 11:23

because not every note is for you, right?

:: 11:27

You're gonna get those notes

:: 11:29

that just don't apply to your head.

:: 11:31

Like, "Hey, Jen, it might be helpful

:: 11:33

"to put an emotional label on that thing."

:: 11:35

I cannot use emotional labels.

:: 11:38

So that's a note I can toss away.

:: 11:40

I did not even understand that

:: 11:43

until I started doing this practice.

:: 11:46

In fact, I didn't even realize I was alexithymic

:: 11:49

as a human being until I started doing

:: 11:52

this kind of thing in improv.

:: 11:54

And then it helped me so much

:: 11:56

about all those emotional scenes that I was sweating over.

:: 12:00

All those learning, all those exercises,

:: 12:03

I never got anything out of and I had no idea why.

:: 12:07

I figured it all out doing this thing.

:: 12:10

That's why I'm a fan of it.

:: 12:11

So you watch your own style forming

:: 12:14

and you doing this sort of thing.

:: 12:17

And you can learn how you say, for example, tend to edit,

:: 12:21

how you work within a team, how you learn,

:: 12:25

like that whole alexithymia thing I just tangented on

:: 12:28

and didn't expect to in this episode,

:: 12:31

you learn how you learn.

:: 12:33

You learn the way that you respond

:: 12:36

when a scene gets really hard.

:: 12:38

You learn about your nervous system.

:: 12:40

You learn about how you best function,

:: 12:43

for example, in a certain type of scene,

:: 12:44

like a group scene.

:: 12:46

That was a tough one for me.

:: 12:47

You know when something just goes tits up

:: 12:52

on stage or off stage.

:: 12:54

You know how and what you best offer to improv in general.

:: 12:59

You know what you best offer as a human doing this thing.

:: 13:04

You build a real picture of yourself as an improviser

:: 13:08

from the inside.

:: 13:09

And that picture is worth a whole lot more

:: 13:13

than most of the general advice anyone else,

:: 13:16

like a coach or teacher can hand you

:: 13:18

because it's specifically about you.

:: 13:22

Basically, you can give yourself

:: 13:26

the best personal notes

:: 13:28

if you figure out how to give them

:: 13:32

in a very positive, fair, and constructive way.

:: 13:36

And that's by not comparing yourself to the other people.

:: 13:38

That's why I went on about that for so long

:: 13:40

and sounded so serious about it

:: 13:43

because that's how you're gonna get this thing

:: 13:45

going really good for you.

:: 13:46

Anyways, when I started thinking about my improv thinking,

:: 13:50

that's a sentence,

:: 13:51

I noticed it can like just cut down that comparison stuff

:: 13:55

and the self-criticism quite a bit.

:: 13:58

Like when your attention is on what you bring

:: 14:02

and how you can be a better teammate,

:: 14:06

there's a whole lot less room

:: 14:08

for that rumination spiral thing

:: 14:11

where you're like stack ranking yourself up

:: 14:14

against the other people in the scene or the room

:: 14:16

or your team or the class or whatever,

:: 14:19

and then you come out feeling really rotten

:: 14:22

or feeling rotten about the other people,

:: 14:25

that's not good either.

:: 14:27

When you're curious, like really genuinely curious

:: 14:31

about your own practice, what you're doing,

:: 14:35

when you're curious about how you can be the happiest,

:: 14:39

most healthiest improviser in the room,

:: 14:43

maybe that means the most for you in this thing.

:: 14:48

And it's going to keep you doing improv

:: 14:49

in a very healthy way.

:: 14:51

It's not selfish.

:: 14:52

This thing is not selfish.

:: 14:53

You are thinking all about you, but it's not selfish

:: 14:56

because doing so is going to help you

:: 14:59

have your scene partners back in the best way possible.

:: 15:02

It's how you can make them shine the best

:: 15:07

by knowing how you fit in the scene the best

:: 15:10

with them to support them.

:: 15:12

You know how to support your scene partner

:: 15:14

the best this way.

:: 15:16

For a long time, I'll give you an example

:: 15:19

about the group scene thing.

:: 15:20

I beat myself up about those group scenes

:: 15:23

and in certain kind of sets as well.

:: 15:26

Like I'd beat myself up how I was participating

:: 15:28

in certain sets in certain ways

:: 15:31

because group conversations are really hard for me

:: 15:34

in real life, so they were hard for me in improv too.

:: 15:37

Go figure.

:: 15:39

So like I'd beat myself up and tell I'd done enough

:: 15:41

of this thing, the detailed looking back

:: 15:44

to actually see what I was the strongest at,

:: 15:47

what I was the most comfortable at in these scenes,

:: 15:50

what I best offered to these group scenes, for example,

:: 15:55

I used to really struggle in.

:: 15:57

So I stopped beating myself up about not being

:: 16:01

like the other people in those scenes.

:: 16:04

I was like, how are they doing that?

:: 16:05

How do I do that thing?

:: 16:06

Well, I don't do that thing, right?

:: 16:09

I can offer something else.

:: 16:12

And that's what I learned by doing this.

:: 16:14

And this wasn't a note I ever got from anyone else

:: 16:17

because no one was up in my head, in my noggin,

:: 16:22

knowing what I felt comfortable at

:: 16:24

and what I was struggling at.

:: 16:26

At least for those scenes, they can see other things,

:: 16:29

but they couldn't see that, right?

:: 16:30

So I gave that note to myself through this analysis.

:: 16:35

So this is where this idea of thinking

:: 16:39

about your own practice in a very intentional,

:: 16:43

constructed way ties into nearly everything I talk about

:: 16:48

on this hellenish show.

:: 16:50

Doing this thing well means learning your own improv brain,

:: 16:55

your preferences, the things that reliably trip you up

:: 16:59

because of the way that you are individually wired

:: 17:02

in your noggin, the way that your nervous system reacts under pressure, and maybe even

:: 17:10

more about your own neurotype.

:: 17:13

Because you have one, you might start understanding your neurotype a heck of a lot better if you

:: 17:18

do this activity.

:: 17:20

And if you're a neurodivergent like I am, the more likely it is that standard advice

:: 17:26

you get in classes and with coaches was not necessarily built with your wiring

:: 17:33

in mind. So the picture that you're gonna get building yourself up figuring

:: 17:40

yourself out this way is gonna help. Now this is tough because you do have to

:: 17:45

fill in those gaps that you might not be getting in the notes but this work it's

:: 17:50

tough but it also can be so rewarding and so fun not just for improv but all

:: 17:55

those other areas of life as well. So you might be forming a picture, you might be

:: 18:00

forming a list, a checklist, or whatever is the resource that tells you which one

:: 18:07

of the, which ones, which usual improv rules you can keep and which ones you

:: 18:13

need to adjust for how your brain is actually operating, which you're learning

:: 18:19

by doing this particular practice. So a couple more gotchas here that you might

:: 18:23

want to think about this might not click for everyone because this whole core

:: 18:28

concept of how our noggins work and operate differently,

:: 18:32

this means that you might not like to think this way and that's fair.

:: 18:37

You don't got to do it.

:: 18:38

And this also might not be where you start off.

:: 18:41

Like if you're fairly new to learning improv, like when you're brand new,

:: 18:45

you need all that time before there's enough stuff to look back on and

:: 18:49

understand it.

:: 18:50

This activity made a big difference for me

:: 18:52

in my improv learning when I was taking classes.

:: 18:55

As soon as I got to thinking about how I personally operated

:: 19:00

outside of those notes, I started noticing,

:: 19:02

ah, that note totally doesn't work for me, why?

:: 19:05

And when I started answering those questions,

:: 19:07

a lot more things started to make sense.

:: 19:09

Some people are gonna get a lot

:: 19:12

from a really brief, quick look back after a set.

:: 19:17

They might make one note for themselves

:: 19:19

or notice one thing and then just move on and stop thinking.

:: 19:23

Whereas some people, not naming any names,

:: 19:26

you have to figure out what your own brain wants,

:: 19:29

which is the whole theme of this show,

:: 19:31

if you haven't noticed.

:: 19:33

Now take a quick wild guess

:: 19:34

about which one of those two things I am.

:: 19:36

Anyways, just make sure you focus on your own brain only.

:: 19:41

No comparing yourself to other people.

:: 19:45

If you take one thing from that episode,

:: 19:47

Please take that one thing.

:: 19:49

So after your next class or set,

:: 19:51

give yourself at least 10,

:: 19:53

let's say 10 uninterrupted minutes.

:: 19:56

Later that day, next morning, whatever.

:: 19:58

Pick one scene that just kind of stuck out for you.

:: 20:02

Could be good, could be rough.

:: 20:04

Either of those things will work.

:: 20:06

Just consider it unemotional.

:: 20:09

Like when you're thinking about the scene,

:: 20:12

be quite unemotional about it.

:: 20:13

If you can't be, pick a different scene.

:: 20:15

and then just focus on your own brain.

:: 20:19

Also, I do have a post-session reflection sheet.

:: 20:24

It's attached as a link on every newsletter that I send out.

:: 20:28

You can download that and you can use that

:: 20:30

to just make some quick notes to remember those scenes

:: 20:33

so you can do this processing later on.

:: 20:36

Then, when you're doing this processing,

:: 20:38

just walk yourself through a few questions about that scene.

:: 20:43

The things like, what did I actually do in that scene?

:: 20:47

What was I going for?

:: 20:49

What was going on with me before I made that choice?

:: 20:53

What choices felt good?

:: 20:55

What things might you want to repeat and do again?

:: 20:58

What things might you change and avoid for the future?

:: 21:02

Would I maybe change something about a skill?

:: 21:06

What was I feeling in these moments?

:: 21:09

But the main thing that you do want to focus on here

:: 21:13

What do these things tell me about how I work and how I operate?

:: 21:20

What do they tell me about how my brain is functioning in these moments with these choices or these moves?

:: 21:28

just be curious more than anything and

:: 21:32

Don't be judgmental. So curious the most

:: 21:36

Judgmental the least and then write down anything if writing helps you think or say them out loud

:: 21:43

to yourself that helps it get in that noggin and marinate so that the things

:: 21:49

that you want to do come out in the scene. Just do this a handful of times

:: 21:55

across a few weeks and see what parts of this process work, parts of the process

:: 22:00

you want to keep, and what parts of this process you want to toss away. And then

:: 22:06

Notice those patterns. Notice the patterns that you wouldn't get from looking at a single scene or a single set.

:: 22:18

Now if doing this feels like a lot, oh this is a huge assignment. My god, why did I listen to this episode this far in?

:: 22:29

It's actually, this is how I'm gonna be running

:: 22:33

some off-script workshops.

:: 22:35

That's what I'm calling them, off-script.

:: 22:37

This is where we're gonna set an intention

:: 22:39

at the top of the workshop,

:: 22:40

and we're gonna look at the things

:: 22:42

that kind of shifted for your brain by the end.

:: 22:47

So this sort of reflection has a little bit of structure

:: 22:49

built around it, and you're not doing it

:: 22:52

all alone on your own.

:: 22:54

Now, the focus is almost entirely on your own brain

:: 22:57

for these growths, not like yes and and stuff like that.

:: 23:01

I'm not giving you notes on that.

:: 23:02

You're looking at your personal brain growth doing improv.

:: 23:06

If that sounds useful,

:: 23:08

there's information in the description.

:: 23:10

So that's about it.

:: 23:11

Hopefully this might help you in your improv learning.

:: 23:16

Maybe it's inferred, but I rarely see this mentioned

:: 23:19

as something to do with very careful intention

:: 23:23

and a little bit of structure around it.

:: 23:26

But there it is, I'm getting it out there.

:: 23:29

I'm Jen deHaan and this is your Improv Brain.

:: 23:31

Maybe that's obvious to everyone, all this stuff.

:: 23:34

Anyway, you can find more improv resources

:: 23:36

in my newsletter over at improvupdate.com,

:: 23:41

which is gonna be changing to yourimprovbrain.com.

:: 23:43

It'll just forward there so you don't need to worry.

:: 23:46

Type either of those things in

:: 23:47

and you should find the resources.

:: 23:51

I'll see you in another episode.

:: 23:52

I'll make another one.

:: 23:54

All right, bye for now.