The reason I'm telling you this is not to brag about my feats of strength, but rather to make an analogy between the gym and improv and life. See, I can keep going to the gym every day until I croak, and I might never gain one iota of strength or fitness, I might never add muscle mass or burn fat, I might never get any more coordinated (see the step thingy, above). I'd still laugh and have fun with Nate... but that's not really the goal of working out. The only way I can get stronger and leaner and more coordinated is to keep pushing myself and keep trying to do things I couldn't do last time.
The same principle applies in improv. You get out of improv class what you put into it. If you show up with the mindset of having fun, great. You will have fun, I can pretty much guarantee that. But if that's your only goal, that's the only result you will achieve. In order to get better, you have to put yourself out there every class and push further out of your comfort zone and keep trying to do things you couldn't do last time. Just showing up gets you a huge round of applause the first time you show up. After that, just showing up is... uh... just showing up. Duh.
I guess I probably don't have to point out that this is how life works, too... Give a half-assed effort in your work, relationships, school, hobbies, shaving, you name it, and you will get a commensurate result. That explains all those scraggly hipster beards...
By Sonnjea Blackwell
