I'm Planning to Give Up Planning

Turns out, the people at Krav Maga classes don't look like Raider fans after all. Just normal people with no knives or chains or biceps the size of my waist. So I lived. My apologies to those of you who were planning your spacework for my funeral. See what happens when you pre-plan?

Which brings me to my topic of the day: pre-planning. Do you love my segues? I like to say segue. It looks like it should be see'goo, not seg'way. Weird.

Right. Pre-planning. You would think having a little plan of your own would help out in improv scenes. I mean, it seems like that would help you avoid being caught with nothing to do or say in a scene.

But much like segue isn't pronounced how it looks (ha! to everyone who just thought I was drunk when I brought up the segue thing), pre-planning doesn't work the way you imagine. Having even the smallest idea, plan or agenda is the surest way to eff up a scene. For one thing, once you have that little idea, it's hard to let go of it, so you feel compelled to work it into the scene whether it really fits or not. B) Having your own agenda makes it difficult or impossible to truly listen to the other person, because you are busy trying to steer the scene towards your planned outcome. And VI: When you have an idea in your head, you've closed off the circuits to the free flow of ideas and information that should come in an improv scene. Like, if I'm already thinking about unicorns, I will tend to think of more things related to unicorns like sparkles or rainbows or pretty ribbons for decorating horns. Ideas about tacos or the stock market probably won't float into my brain, because they don't relate to what's already happening in there.

In improv, it's better to be blank. Then you don't steer the scene - or your own thoughts - in any particular direction. You can listen well, respond appropriately, and be open to all of those little details that pop into your head when you aren't trying to direct it.

Anybody want to try to guess this next see'goo? Yep. Real life. Don't pre-plan so much, peeps! It stifles all that amazing creativity and spontaneity that your brain would love to do if you weren't busy forcing it to plan, well, everything.

Take a chance! Come to a Held2gether 1/2-day Intro to Improv Workshop. If it makes you feel better, you can plan what you're going to wear to it. I'll be the one dressed like a Raider fan.

By Sonnjea Blackwell

Trust Me

By Sonnjea Blackwell

It's good to have goals. Setting goals is sort of like creating a roadmap of where you want to go in life, and I don't know about you, but I can pretty much get lost on my way to the bathroom if I don't have a map.

So I applaud having a goal in mind. But here's the thing. Sometimes on the way to attaining one goal, something even better presents itself. And you don't want to be that person who is so damn determined to get the brass ring that he fails to notice there are gold and silver rings all around him. Although I personally find it difficult to understand how anyone could overlook anything that shiny.

In any event, the same principles apply in improv. You might have some general improv goals like:

1. Connect with scene partner
2. Remember to agree!
3. Let them talk too
4. Don't forget to do spacework
5. Have an emotional reaction

What you don't want to do in improv is have a goal of where you want the scene to go. If you are driving the scene in a particular direction, you can't be in the moment and you will not be reacting to your partner's information. You'll just be constantly steering the conversation and action back to that goal of yours, determined to reach the brass ring and ignoring all the wonderful gold and silver rings of information your scene partner throws you.

This is bad for a couple reasons. One, when someone forces a scene, the scene feels, um, forced. The audience can sense it and it simply isn't as funny as a scene that unfolds organically. And b) it irritates the hell out of your scene partner because nobody enjoys feeling ignored and/or railroaded into something.

Improv is called improv because it's improvised. If it was meant to be pre-planned we would just call it acting. If you want to be a good improvisor, you have to let go of your goals and trust. The only reasons people force an agenda in improv are because they don't trust their scene partner or they don't trust themselves.

We understand that politicians have made it nearly impossible for people to trust anyone these days. So Held2gether offers fun and safe ways to learn to trust others and yourself. Once you learn that, you'll have way funnier scenes, and way more fun doing them.

It works. Trust me.