Scared, judgemental, everyone is weird but me. These are my thoughts as I am looking out at a group of nice, young people I have just met. We are standing in a circle about to play improv games and I am thinking about how I could escape. I would add that this is my reaction to every meeting with a new group of humans. When I meet new people I judge. I find reasons why I wouldn’t want to be friends with them so that if they don’t want to be my friend, it doesn’t matter as I have already found reasons to reject them. This sounds like the reaction of a 5-year-old child. And it probably is a reaction I learned aged 5. It's just a pattern that I have not let go of yet. Thankfully, I can notice this now. It goes away with a kind and gentle ‘thanks for looking out for us 5-year-old Richard but don’t worry, adult Richard is here and we know how to socialise a bit better now.’ Given that improv is very much about getting in touch with our playful, imaginative, creative and judgement-free inner-child I knew I didn’t want to scare little Richard away.
Let fear be your guide
So the story is that I signed up for an 8-week improvised comedy class that ended with a live performance in front of an actual audience of people. Each week we met for 2 and a half hours to play games and create improv scenes. If you don’t know what improv is, think “Whose Line Is It Anyway”.
I’m doing this because it scares the hell out of me. The thought of being on stage without any lines to rely on, while being stared at by strangers who expect you to make them laugh is the stuff of nightmares for many. But I am trying to let fear be my guide in life now. If there is something that really scares me, I know that it’s a sign-post towards growth. I have to confront it, or it will hold me back. Thankfully, I am very funny so improv is going to be a cinch for me (lied Richard).
Let’s play make-believe!
Once I get past the hurdle of meeting new people, I am confronted with the next obstacle. I have to create scenes that make sense and are enjoyable to watch. While there is no overt pressure in improv to be funny or great, internally this is what I want to be. In an improv course, you spend a lot of time just playing games with the purpose of getting you out of your head and into the moment. This isn’t acting, it's just fun. The kind of fun you have when you are a child and you play cowboys and Indians or doctors and nurses.
Freedom from self
I have spent a lifetime creating an identity for myself. I am a coach and nutritionist and I wear these clothes and have these opinions. I think I know who I am. But then for one evening a week I am an astronaut, then a superhero, then a witch, then an estranged step-daughter amongst other things. As we grow up, we are put into boxes so that we can fit neatly into our families, our social groups and our society. As I watch others in the group performing I notice that the people who struggle are the ones who are most attached to their boxes (aka their ego structures). They are too tied to their own identity to play the milkman or the astronaut and it is awkward to watch.
When you are doing improv you realise how constricted you are and how easy it is to be someone else. We are all playing characters in our lives, we are wearing masks of personalities, and doing improv showed me how easy it is to make a change. Maybe you are playing a character you don’t like but feel too tied to it to drop. This is an important reminder to me, to see how I can coach people into being someone they are actually choosing to be instead of someone they were told to be.
Mindfulness meditation helps precisely with this. You practice noticing when you are playing your character. When you are on autopilot, reacting to the emotions your character wants you to play. By sitting in meditation for 20 minutes or so, you are stepping out of that character and watching your mind run. The goal of meditation is to be able to take that practice into the real world so you can be aware of when your reactivity takes control.
How do I make people like me?
Many self development and dating courses actually take people to an improv class. Taking a course like this teaches you how to interact creatively, have ‘banter’ and fun conversations. You get this by being at ease with yourself. Have you noticed that the people who are easiest to talk to are simply very comfortable with themselves? They don’t need anything from you, like approval or validation. They already have these things so the pressure for you to give it to them is relieved and you can just have a pleasant conversation. This is how improv helped me. By making me more present in the conversation and less needy for approval.
Listening: you really have to listen to be funny. If you don’t listen during a scene, you will take the plot way off course and the audience won’t follow. The funniest jokes are ones that are relevant to what the other person has said. And if you want other people to like you, you need to listen to them.
As Dale Carnegie says in How to Win Friends and Influence People, “be more interested, than interesting.”
Performing on stage
The final performance took place above a pub in South Bank in front of about 100 people. This was the hardest part. Halfway through my first class I was thinking, there is absolutely no way I am getting up on stage and embarrassing myself. The days leading up to the performance were filled with nerves and stomach butterflies. The live performance is not actually compulsory so I had many intrusive thoughts about how I was going to duck out of it. But again, I used my superhero powers of mindfulness, noticed my discomfort and just allowed it. I allowed myself to feel the fear. You are supposed to feel fear at these times and I told myself that this was okay. Inevitably the fear went away. You can’t be chased by something you turn around and face.
Thankfully, my performance was exhilaratingly fun and not that scary thanks to the support of my classmates. One line went down particularly well and to have 100 people roar at you with their laughter is something I will never forget. The deep sound vibrations of approval hit me and almost knocked me backwards. It was a high like nothing else I have experienced and it came from putting myself in a terrifyingly uncomfortable experience. You don’t get experiences like that from Netflix & chill.
