Thinking on my feet gives me anxiety.
I have always been the type of person who needs certainty. Generally, if I have questions or doubts about certain things, I need to know the answers right away. I cloak myself too much in the comfort and stability of certainty.
It's a fatal flaw of type A control freaks. We have several outcomes and placeholders in mind even before actions to those outcomes have begun. Since we want things to happen in a certain way, we attempt to control the means to actually make it happen. Not getting the result we want, not having the power to control what it takes to achieve our desired results, and not having certainty about the outcomes or the actions result to frustration and thus, anxiety.
It's madness, I tell you.
Imagine this type of person delving into a performance art that wherein everything is made up on the spot. Your characters, scenes, plot, literally everything can change as you perform and play along in impov scenes.
Again, madness.
A couple of months ago, after much deliberation on my finances and personal situation, I enrolled in Third World Improv, one of Manila's premiere improv schools set up by the founder of Silly People's Improv Theatre, Gabe Mercado.
Aside from wanting to hone my acting chops (if any - HA!) and helping quelll my social anxiety, I wanted to learn how to think and act quickly, find comfort in contingency, and embrace constant, fluctuating change.
So far, it's been great. I love the learnings and philosophy of improvised acting. And the thing is, I'm not naturally a funny person. But I've learned that being a relatable character, showing your vulnerability on stage, and splashing, at times, exaggerated depictions of certain situations and personalities, all bring out the comedic flavors of improv theatre.
As someone who still struggles with scene work in class, I do not pretend to know the ins and outs of improv theatre and philosophy. However, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the techniques and tenets of improv can be applied in real life and that these lessons have certainly helped me:
My favorite part about improv is that it's all about building each other up and always saying YES, AND to your partners' contributions to the scene. Receiving and building on each others' scene offerings is how you can take your scene's current reality and bring it from point A to point anywhere.
Do I still hold on to my neurotic need for finding out all the answers my ever inquisitive brain (and heart, lol) comes up with? Yes. But at least I'm slowly learning to roll with the punches and embrace new changes and stimuli that crop up. I think about how I deal with my realities and realize how tiring it can be to have to know the answers to my questions all the time and try to control everything to get what I want.
"Learn to love the questions. Eventually, you will live your way to the answer." Thank you, Maria Rainier Rilke.
Anytime I'm faced with the anxiety-triggering situation of the new, unknown, and uncharted, I ground myself back on the improv tenets I've learned and place my full trust in my scene partners (friends, family, colleagues, myself etc.).
I still hold on to one of the very first things I learned from my teacher Dingdong in Third World Improv: We're not here to be funny or to put ourselves up on a pedestal. We're up on stage to create something beautiful.
Want to experience the beauty, madness, and fun of improv theatre? Enroll now with Third World Improv where most of the time, you won't know what you're doing but hell, you'll have a great time learning.
