"You're teaching improv?" the e-mail read.
I read the question from a past colleague and could hear the incredulousness within the "YOU'RE?" coming through despite no bold intent declared on paper.
And I could not blame her.
She'd heard me lament my struggle with the improv class I had taken several years earlier. Not since the instructor wasn't great. Or because the students weren't fun to experience alongside.
But instead my companion "fear and self-consciousness" decided to include me to class like a clinging Helena engulfing Demetrious inside a Midsummer's Night Dream.
So how did Time passes from a 60 pound improv weakling to a hulking 100-something pound improv cheerleader?
The journey began with paralysis visiting me in my first Improv class.
We were carrying out a game where I am to pretend there's a box of goodies before me and i am to dip my hand into the pretend box and pull out the said imaginary item, view it, name it after which throw it over my head after which pull more goodies out. All the while my two colleagues sitting next to me would discuss the item presented - a la:
Me: "Here's a ball"
Colleague #1: "Oh it is so shiny"
Colleague #2: "I love how they bounce"
And so forth.
My reaction?
I investigated the box and panicked using the thought
"Crap, there's nothing during my box."
And i am not joking.
In that moment, I could not imagine something that was in there.
"How is that possible?" I recall thinking within the moment.
Seriously, there needs to be SOMETHING in the box!!!!
Days later I came to realize, oh yeah, there is something within the box alright.
FEAR!!
Fear which i wouldn't do it right - pull the product fast enough, have sufficient variety, what-evvvvvver, take your pick.
In teaching Artist's Way classes based on the book by Julia Cameron called "The Artist's Way", I often remind our students that Julia discusses how "the have to be an excellent artist makes it tough to be an artist". In that moment of "box nothingness," the conscious and not so conscious voices during my head were requiring greatness when all I really required to do was appear and listen.
Without judgment.
Often easier in theory.
I had things i prefer to call my "reparative improv experience" after going for a Mindful Improvisation class with Zoe Wright Bell. I had shared my "improv box moment" together with her and she laughed knowingly (super comforting) and said "that's where mindfulness is available in so beautifully".
She went onto say how in that moment a way to free ourselves from the pressure is to allow ourselves to become conscious of what is happening in the moment and name it without judgment. הובלות תל ×ביב, הובלות תל ×ביב, הובלה

