Coaching inspiration, part 2

In coaching inspiration, part 1, I discussed my motivation to change my coaching style from giving notes that I felt in my own work were not motivating me to improve in the long term. Here's part 2:

2: The only one who can teach you is you

In my experience, my real breakthroughs have come when I am on stage feeling for the first time what it is to improvise a certain way. I have had some really great discussions with experienced players, I've had some great and inspirational teachers, and I've read some amazing books. But for me, I really learn when I have digested that, actually changed my work in some way or another (started walking the walk), and start feeling the impact on my scenes. Sometimes (often?) I will feel like I really get something logically from reading it or discussing it, and it's only years later when I make a move on stage that the gears click into place and I realize that I am just now truly understanding it.

So that mindset raises the question: how can we as coaches encourage others to grow? 

Well, it shifts the focus from my opinion of a team's work being important to their opinion of their own work being important. Opinions are like assholes (everyone has one), especially about something like how an improv set went. Whereas traditional scene-by-scene notes might give a team an impression of the former, I will now lean toward asking a team about their opinions of a set. The hope is that over time they will develop a sense of what inspires them and how to create the necessary environment for their own fun more consistently. The show felt great? Why? What felt great? What were you doing that led you to that feeling? What could you do again to more consistently replicate that great feeling? Another show felt shitty? Why was that? What choices do you make that lead you to feeling one way or another?

A few caveats here: I do still note technical misunderstandings (e.g. when to use a tag versus a sweep), form issues (e.g. how is the opening intended to go), and individual find blindspots. In these cases I follow the advice in Directing Improv as much as possible (too much good stuff to reproduce here). Most of my notes I keep for myself. These help me build a rehearsal (or many) with the goal of training the instincts of the performers over time.

Does this work? TBD. I find that I have been much more successful at getting teams to make lasting changes. I also get feedback that some (many) players struggle to grow when their only feedback is self-reflection. 

Coaching inspiration, part 1

When I was actively performing and directing theater, I found that every ~4 years I'd learn that everything I knew about theater was wrong.

Improv revelations have been more evolutionary than revolutionary, but if anything at a faster pace. This post is attempting to describe my latest thoughts about coaching improv based on some recent reflections.**

Coaching IMO comprises three main activities:

• Helping a team define or refine their style and goals
• Designing and compiling exercises (possibly forms) to push the team closer to those goals
• Giving notes and challenges

The trouble with notes

The challenge of notes is the limitation one coach's power. Yes I can give a team notes. But how many improvisers write them down, review them before rehearsal or a show, let them sink in and change the way they play? And if they change that improvisor's behavior for one rehearsal or one show, will the next change build on the last? Or get thrown out the window when she changes something else?

I was the improviser who wrote a lot down. And it just got me in my head. I was playing from a place of obligation. I was trying to dance around a litany of notes rather than playing from a place of inspiration. I was owned by my head and not my gut. I still play that way some times, in some situations. But I have tasted and seek the freedom of playing from inspiration. And it has encouraged me to think differently about coaching others. 

So what would replace notes?

If notes put me into a place of obligation, then what is a reasonable alternative?

1: Train your instincts

First, I had to shift my point of view. Let's think of practice as a place to train instinct and performance as a place where performers trust and run on instinct. Rehearsal is swinging two bats, and the show is all muscle memory. I don't believe there is any value to thinking about anything a teacher or coach has said while you are on stage. On stage, shorten the distance from head to mouth (or foot or jumping hug). On stage, every move is the correct move. That is not lip service. That is truth.

This is a hard concept for me to explain to new groups (or old groups!). Because you may still make a move that we (you and I, us as a team) will talk about afterwards. Or that you will think about and wish you had done differently. That does not imply you should have done it differently in the moment. You followed your gut and that is always correct. In the long run, those conversations and reflections ideally help to re-calibrate your instinct. 

The one thing we can't recalibrate is moves you don't make. Sometimes I will have players who will say something like, "Yeah I really wanted to... (edit there/make this move/enter as your grandma)." Those are moments where they either didn't trust their instinct or thought of a better idea later. Hard to do much about either. If you can make it through a 20 minute set trusting all of your instincts, you will not only be a better improvisor, but I think you will feel you have already reaped dividends from your time and monetary investment in improv.

More on this next week. This post is already long.

**Two caveats: 1) Coaching takes many forms. If I am coaching a practice team of new students or subbing someone else's team, this may look different. 2) I am not prescribing this as the way anyone else should coach or saying I'm the best coach. I've gotten both positive feedback and constructive criticism on this style of coaching. This is just offered as my thoughts on my coaching.

How to teach improv?

In the past few years I have found myself stumbling into a fair amount of teaching -- at the Steel City Improv Theater and more recently at Carnegie Mellon -- and I've never been taught how to teach. I've never read literature or student-taught or studied different learning styles (which grinds the gears of the real teachers in my family).

With both software (how to write good software) and improv (how to do fun meaningful scenes more often), I find a similar problem: the masters just have a lot of experience. There are different schools of thought and most of it has nothing to do with learning rules and following them. It's a lot of context-sensitive applications of that experience. 

So how do you teach something that comes down to experience? There have been many discussions at the theater about this. While there are definite subtleties, I believe the philosophies break into two fundamental camps:

• Start with the basics: yes and, physical/object work, who/what/where, pattern/game. These are the lingua franca of improvisation that allow you to talk about early scenes. The theory is that learning the basics allow you to understand what you are doing when you transcend the rules. But: is it possible to lose the forest for the trees?
  
  
• Start the way you want to play. If you believe in true emotional connections, comfort and honesty, start there. If you believe in pattern and game, start there. The theory is that by doing good work students will discern the "rules" for themselves -- or their own rules -- and learn to follow their fun. Mick Napier was an early pioneer of this idea, and it has been wholly embraced by folks like Chris Trew of The New Movement (where they don't teach suggestions!). But: is it possible to feel overwhelmed and lost when you start at the end?

I don't believe there is one correct answer. I have been shifting more toward the latter approach but I find a lot of value in the former when coaching and with some groups of students.  

If anyone knows more than I do about teaching, or just has experiences to share -- I'd love to hear your thoughts.