2025-01-15

Happy new year :)

Started improv classes last week. I’ve been thinking a lot about ways that I can summarize what I am learning. I’ve also been doing a lot of reading and otherwise absorbing educational material around the topic.

I am certainly hyperfocused a bit, and I want to make sure that I’m not getting ahead of myself or putting myself in a place where I am “in my head” about it more than actually enjoying it. To that end I am trying to summarize what I’ve absorbed into the most condensed form that I can.

It should be interesting to see if I feel the same at various points in the future.

Here’s where I am at:

Jump in

• You can’t be good if you don’t play
• Don’t wait for the perfect moment
• Commit fully
• Start in the middle of the scene

Pay attention (“yes”)

This is the most important one!

• Listen to what is happening
• Don’t get distracted by planning
• Remember details for later

Trust and respect (“yes”)

• Take everyone’s ideas seriously
• Don’t deny/override offerings
• Trust that other players mean well
• Support others and their ideas
• Accept feedback/editing graciously

Add detail (“and”)

• Answer who, what, where
• Embrace and incorporate mistakes
• Stay in the scene
  • Don’t break the world
  • Avoid past/future
  • Avoid external references/people
• Avoid simple questions/commands

Be real (“and”)

• Stay grounded, not wacky/silly
• React honestly to what’s happening
• Use what you know
• Justify the reality of the scene
• Act, don’t narrate

Make connections (“if”)

• Recall facts of the scene
• Identify patterns and unusual things
• Tie details together
• Look for callbacks

Build gradually (“then”)

• Let unusual emerge from normal
• Don’t make huge logical jumps
• Say what you’re thinking
• Explore/heighten established scene
  • Find what logically comes next
  • Reframe patterns in new ways