Learning to Let Go and Lean in Through Improv Comedy

My first Improv class teacher recommended ‘Improv Wisdom’ by Patricia Ryan Madson. The author is a Professor so I resonated with the life challenges she was facing. But I took an indirect route to Improv Comedy, I started with Stand Up Comedy.

My first day at my Stand Up comedy class the teacher said: If you want it to ‘be about you’, do Stand Up. If you want it to be about working in a team, do Improv. Shit, I was in the wrong class! But I stuck with Stand Up since I also wanted to prove to myself that I could be funny. I could make people laugh. I like making people laugh. But I always felt second best to my brother who was really funny, or my male colleague who was really funny. Most importantly, I was so sad about leaving my job and being dissatisfied as a mom, that I just wanted a reason to laugh each week. I also needed to prove to my family that I had hobbies outside of work and that I trusted them to be fine without me. So the Stand Up went fine, I proved myself again, and once again I came away feeling dissatisfied. This proving was not getting me anywhere. So I tried Improv. Improv would not ‘be about me’.

Improv comedy has lots of forms, and the technical terms can be intimidating at first. But the main premise is you work in a group on stage, based on a random suggestion from the audience. Some forms are fast, punchy, one-liners. Others are longer, with character development and call backs to previous references. The common tenant is ‘YES AND’: whatever someone does you accept it (yes) and build upon it (and). There are lots of Improv comedy classes and seeing a show beforehand can indicate what style you might learn. I did not want the pressure of the fast and furious so chose a long form where the goal is to express emotions and from that funny might happen, but if not, you would have still given the audience an authentic experience. But to be honest I knew none of this when I started.

I found Improv incredibly freeing. It helped me let go of control. You cannot control the contributions of your Improv team mates. You can try to make them take a certain path by your prompt, but you soon realize what’s in their brain is not what’s in yours. You just have to see every word or action as a gift. You let it go as soon as you give it to them to unwrap. Realizing how different everyone else’s brain was helped me appreciate my son’s autism spectrum brain a lot more. It also made me realize that people around me could not possibly know what was in my brain unless I told them. (I did expect my poor husband to be a mind reader in those days). It also made me realize that my own mind was totally unique. No one else in the world has experienced my life and brings my gifts to any moment. My team mates were impressed one time that I belted out a song from the Little Mermaid. To me it was easy, I had been listening to it ALL day with my daughter for her theatre class! That was my unique day. Nothing big or special, just not what everyone else on stage had been doing. In Improv you just have to be yourself. Improv taught me that I can bring something unique to any situation. This has helped me to have confidence to add my voice to the universe through social media, but also to know that while people might relate to my experience, I cannot really know their unique experience.

Making mistakes is the basis of Improv. Everything happens in the moment, so what happens, happens. You can’t control it, and nor will it ever happen again. So there’s no point regretting it, or even learning much from it. It just is. This gets you to focus in the moment. And who’s to say it was even a mistake. The audience might think you meant to do it. How can they know what you were meant to do? You didn’t even know it yourself before you did it. Even if you freeze and saying nothing it can become a gift; the silence could be funny itself, or the silence allows someone else to shine, or if you embrace it totally you can decide your character won’t say anything and that will become part of the joke. Letting go is such an important thing to practice. You let go of control and you let go of the moment. No regrets, no rumination. Freedom to move on.

I also learned to start slowly. If you step on stage with a big character you have to keep that character the whole time, there’s no where to go. If you step on stage with a clear but moderate character you can make the character bigger as you go. There’s room to grow. I often rush into things headlong, this taught me to hold back a little and not over commit. It also gives others a chance to contribute. If you are so strong in your entrance it can be harder for someone else to add to it. I wish I had done Improv while I was still a boss/leader in academia, I think I would have been a lot more open to other people’s ideas. I would have used ‘yes and’ in meetings instead of ‘no’. Improv can definitely help businesses build strong teams.

As I mentioned, the Improv comedy school I went to was longer form, character development. You didn’t have to rapidly throw out funny lines. The main focus was on expressing emotions and letting the funny follow. We often practiced building the emotions to a crescendo and changing emotions. It was so good to practice expressing emotions in a safe space. I struggle to express my emotions, so Improv was a good exercise for me in ‘faking it till you make it’. While I learned more about my class mates in a Stand Up comedy class, because we all had to tell our story and most of our comedy came from our repressed emotions, I enjoyed the challenge of working with different people on stage, who all came from a unique perspective.

For me it was an experience in doing something a little scary each week. I remember getting ‘Glass menagerie’ as our prompt from the audience. I froze wishing I knew something about the play. Later in the scene I felt an impulse to play a cat on a hot tin roof. It got a laugh, but it wasn’t till I looked it up afterwards did I realize they were both plays by Tennyson. Somehow my mind had made the connection. I needed to learn to let go and trust my instincts. I think I learned more about myself from Improv than any other class I took! Hey, it was ‘about me’ in the end.

All these lessons are also shared in ‘Improv Wisdom’ by Patricia Ryan Madson which goes through 13 maxims for how Improv can help your life. Some of these include:

Say Yes to life: be open to all ideas and opportunities,

Don’t over prepare: let yourself be in the moment and respond to each situation,

Just show up: there is no expectation, just by being there you add to the experience, you start from wherever you are at

Silent gifts: recognize every day that you are the recipient of multiple gifts, there’s a lot that goes into everyday living, appreciate that other people help us eat and live, appreciate the mundane.

I also use Improv games to help my kids.

1) to distract them on hikes if they are complaining

2) to help them to practice listening

3) to encourage them to accept other people’s ideas.

They love playing ‘consequences’ where you say the first word that comes into your head when you hear the word someone else says. It’s a great way to get an insight into your child’s mind or get a sense of what they are focusing on in life. Or ‘build an idea’ where you imagine a party or a place, what would you bring there with no limits, making sure you ‘yes and’ everyone’s ideas. We have built luxury yachts in our minds with volcanos and shark pools and chocolate fountains. Or start a sentence with the end of someone else’s sentence. “I love carrots”, “Carrots are orange”, “Orange is a wonderful sunset” etc. This is a listening challenge for sure. My son, who is on the autism spectrum, took Improv classes. It is a great way to practice focusing on others, reading cues, and being open to unexpected changes in direction. It made communication a game which was fun and freeing for him. Plus he could be funny in a less conventional way.

So if you’re willing to let go of control, of expectations, of mistakes, and of reality, show up to an Improv class and bring the unique gift of you to others.