Exercise: Pattern Clapping

Here's an exercise I like to do:

It's based on the simple pass-the-clap game: Everyone in a circle, passing the focus by making eye contact and trying to clap at the same time. The common variations of this are:

• Start just going in a circle, one-way
• Let people reverse the circle's direction by maintaining eye contact on the pass and giving it back
• Opening it up to passing anywhere in the circle

I like to extend this exercise by

• making people move around while passing the clap. Try to avoid walking in a circle or a repeating pattern. Encourage people to move faster and faster as the rhythm increases
• Once this is old hat, get back in the circle and pass the clap in a repeating order. So you are always getting the clap from the same person and giving it to the same person.
• Take this pattern and then move around with it
• Bonus round is to try a pattern that goes through the group twice before repeating

I like that this is more energetic than regular pass-the-clap and that it works on body position awareness, group listening and placement on stage. I like to use it for people that have tendencies to either be static on stage or tend to get themselves into positions where they can't pay attention to their other players on stage. 

Jam It Up

Everyone should go to improv jams and play.

If you're a beginner you need stage time, and you need to watch improv. You have to get comfortable out there, and that comes from flight time. Take every opportunity to play. Watch the more experienced actors, see how they react to tough situations. Note how they play and when they follow "the rules" or break "the rules" and how they do it. Be a sponge! Also meet people, get familiar with the scene. The best way into joining or forming a troupe is to play with people. 

If you're a journeyman you need stage time, and you need to watch improv. Jams are perfect for stretching yourself and trying new techniques. You'll hopefully get equal measures of playing with more and less experienced people. When with newbies, you'll exercise support in difficult situations, dealing with denial (god bless them) and making your scene partner look great. With more experienced players you'll hopefully get the support to play more adventurously than you would normally, or get pushed into doing something you've never had the opportunity to before. 

If you're an established player you need stage time, and you need to watch improv. It's really easy to get into bubbles when you're more established, playing with the same people or the same types of forms over and over again. Jams will shake you the hell up, force you off balance and out of your comfort zone. Playing with a bunch of people you'd never normally share the stage with can help break you out of your go-to rhythms.  Plus, watching new people play is fascinating, and often inspiring. Nothing is better at cracking up your calcified notions of improv than seeing a new person rock a scene doing things you never would have considered. Nothing energizes like seeing developing talent. 

And, for everyone, go to jams because they are fun and support the community. 

JUST GO.

Why I Love Improv and Hate This Blog

Overheard in conversation:

"Yeah Greg's blog, there are like seven posts from 4 months ago"
"Sounds about right"

Hey fuck you, I have like thirteen posts. Double digits.

I'm terrible at this blog for the same reason that I am so drawn to improv: I cannot stand 95% my work. It makes me cringe. Not just improv, everything.

I was in bands with good friends in and out of college and it took me years to grow the balls to present my songs.

For The Death Show, I run through dozens of poster ideas before I stop on the one I tolerate.

I have never been able to write more than a page and half before throwing it out.

 Am I unhappy with the quality of my work even though I'm just an amateur trying to get better. Oh most definitely.

I was and am totally a coward.

Except when I do improv now. This might be a function of having been doing for a while now, I certainly trust myself more than I did six years ago (or, hell, one year ago). But it is also because that when you're on stage there's no room for editing yourself.

I can stare at a notebook or a blogger post text-area for days erasing and rewriting the same stuff.  That luxury does not exist in scene. Everything is moving at once, no going back, just you and your partners building a car that's rolling downhill. And it feels amazing.

Improving At Something is predicated on letting go of things that aren't perfect or even good and moving on. I did this in improv because you can't not do it. Every scene is disposable,. There are not masterpiece scenes that you hone and dote on, everything is a draft and final product. It's perpetual practice, can't avoid it, baked into the system. Which is fantastic for a wuss like me.

I need develop the discipline to do work through being creative in other spaces fearlessly, but goddamn it I hate it right now. I know it gets better though