We’ve all heard or, more realistically, said the words, “I’m just gonna wing it.” This phrase is usually attributed to laziness: a last ditch, half-ass effort to produce something meaningful and creative. But people base careers, even their own lives, on just winging it. And it’s anything but half-ass. Improv, as it is more formally called, is a calculated art form, achieved through practice and spontaneity alike. It teaches you to think in unconventional ways in that, when doing any form of improv, ideally, you completely abandon any fear of failure or judgment. You live outside your head for those moments and just do.
Katie Goodman, experienced improver and writer of Improvisation for the Spirit: Live a More Creative, Spontaneous, and Courageous Life Using the Tools of Improv Comedy (try saying that five times fast), says, “In improv we have two tasks at all times: actively listening to our scene partner’s ideas and then adding our own to complicate the story. The exchange and adaption of information and ideas is the main goal for us.” The purpose of improv can be woven into the wider scope of life. Being present and communicating effectively are traits nearly all facets of life necessitate. In addition, you learn how to actively listen and contribute. In improv, you and your scene partner are interdependent—if she is saying something, you must listen in order to further the scene. If you don’t pay attention to the words, you both fail.
Improv is based on the mantra, “Yes, and...” Virtually, anything a player says in the scene goes. It becomes a reality unless your character opposes said statement to create a game or any pattern that manifests to further develop character relationships and situations within the scene. “Yes, and…” encourages adding to the significance of conversations, as opposed to detracting meaning with superfluous argument. In life, we can use this in any disagreements to work toward more productive results. Instead of combating another’s beliefs, which typically ends in both parties fastening more furiously onto their original viewpoints, you learn to compromise and find a better alternative for the good of everyone. You are presenting viable, tangible solutions without engaging in unproductive verbal sparring.
To learn to trust in your own decisions, and whether by choice or inevitability, trust in those around you, is an invaluable skill applicable to career fields, personal relationships, and live comedy shows.
The confidence gained through improvisation is mainly derived from one principal ideology: You have no choice. It’s just you, and a couple of other people, navigating through a game or a scene. There are no revisions or rewrites, no writers or directors, no teachers or bosses; just you and your team, in a beautiful representation of reality, and what it means to be human. Sure, we all have guides, advising and helping, but in the end, it’s all up to us. No one can decide what an individual says, or does, but herself.
While I am still a student in improv, it has already given me the best perspective on comedy and on life. It gives me permission to clear my head and play, without any reserve or self-censorship. And living so dangerously, each night not knowing what comes next, is the greatest gift of all.
