Tip & Exercise: Yes, let’s (adapt)

I believe that we can have more different types of people as improv teachers. To encourage you to start, or to improve your teaching, every month I will share with you a tip and an exercise.

Tip: Adapting to a new situation.

In some areas in the world live improv classes have started again. Maybe you too have to deal with some new conditions, like keeping distance between players, not touching each other and/or no singing or screaming.

All of this may seem like a limitation, but what if it is not?

Teaching improv under new circumstances -be it Corona related or not- challenges us as teachers to… Improvise.

This is a good thing. Nothing is certain. Just like in improv.

It takes a shift in mindset to go from “But this is not how I am used to teach” to “I can deliver an awesome class also when the situation has changed”.

Any of the changes you are facing under Corona requires a deeper level of ‘yes and’. Students may look at you for answers how to do improv classes now. Answers you may not have.

What really helped me is to realise: I don’t have to know it all.

For that reason I tell my students that we are in this together. That together we figure out how to do this safely while having the most fun possible.

Here is an exercise you can use to do exactly that.

Exercise: Yes, let’s (adapt)

The base of the exercise is the classic ‘Yes, let’s!’

All players are spread out over the room. Anyone can suggest an idea of what to do, starting with “Let’s…”. For instance: “Let’s be birds” or “Let’s dig a hole”.

The entire group responds with an enthusiastic “Yes, let’s!” and then starts doing the activity. At any moment another player can suggest another idea.

After doing a few rounds of this, here is a second phase you can add. Invite the players to suggest ideas that are not Corona-proof at all. For instance: “Let’s hold hands”, “Let’s play dentist” or “Let’s scream in each other’s faces”.

Everyone still responds with an enthusiastic “Yes, let’s” but now finds safe solutions to do it anyway. Like: holding hands with distance between the hands, or scream without sounds and using our hands as a pretend mouth.

Afterwards I let students reflect on what solutions they found. I then remind them that throughout the rest of the class they will have to find Corona-proof solutions for ‘what can’t be done’ but that this exercise proofs that they can.

I use this exercise for practicing to accept offers, to warm up body and mind and to flex our problem solving muscle.