Dave Morris is a storyteller, improviser, and speaker. Here is the full transcript of Dave Morris’ TEDx Talk: The Way of Improvisation at TEDxVictoria conference. This event occurred on November 21, 2015.
Hello, hi, wow! Very attractive audience. So, if you can’t tell by the way I’m dressed, I’m an improviser. Improvisation is what I do and what I teach.
Now I’m sure we all know what improvisation is, right? I’m assuming. Give me some nods here. I like this interaction. Yeah, give me some nods. So improvisation, we’re making things with what is at hand. We’re creating something out of nothing, we’re making it up. But still, when we hear the word improvisation, we all think of something. Who here thinks of improv comedy? When they hear ‘improv’? Raise your hand. Who here thinks of Jazz music? Anybody? Yeah, there you are, sexy. Who here thinks of freestyle rapping or hip-hop? Anyone? There you go. We got some hands. Who thinks of MacGyver? There it is, right? Mac would improvise the most amazing things.
And all of you are right. Improvisation is all of those things. But what I love about it, is that it’s not just one of those things. Improvisation isn’t actually even a thing, when you think about it. Improvisation is a process. It’s a way of making a thing. It’s not a product that I can give you or show you, what I do is I improvise theater, or hip-hop, or explosive devices. And that’s what I’m going to talk to you about today,
I’m going to talk to you about what I call: ‘The Way of Improvisation’. The Way. When I teach improv the majority of students I have, whether they’re high school students or adults, none of them are actually wanting to be professional improvisers.
None of them. They all just want to improve their lives. And what I’ve found is that the skills that I use and teach in improvisation are the skills I use when I live my life. Because life, believe it or not, is improvised.
So I’m going to take you through 7 skills and 7 steps of improvising that I teach to people and we’re going to sort of translate those into our real lives, sound fun? Sound cool? You with me? Give me some nods, I like the nods, I like the nods. Yeah, good, awesome.
Play
The first of these skills — the first thing I have to teach especially with adults, is ‘PLAY.’ Very simple, we all knew how to do this when we were children. But as we grow up we slowly start losing our sense of Play. Right, and what Play is, is that idea of engaging in something just because you like it. Right, like oh this is fun. And we lose that as we get older. And Play happens here in this moment, in my body and what Play becomes as we get older we start taking it more seriously and it becomes the opposite of Play which is Work, which everybody hates.
Because Work is serious and we start thinking about it and we get worried about it and we’re stuck in our heads and we aren’t just playing and being present in the moment and this right here, is where life happens. It’s where everything happens is in the moment so let’s get there instead of here.
The second step: ‘Let yourself fail.’ Now we already heard a very handsome doctor talk a lot about failure, so I’m going to try and not spend too much time on it here. Such a handsome doctor! But notice that it says ‘Let yourself fail.’ It’s not just “FAIL”. Because failing is easy, we can all do it. The hard part is to be OK with that and to ‘let yourself fail’, and accept that failure is a natural way of things, the doctor said it so much more intelligently. But I’m an improviser, we’re pretty much the same.
And it’s the fear, the fear of failure is what does it right? Because as soon as you start fearing failure, you start getting worried about it, it gets you right back up here in your head again and you’re worried and you’re thinking about all the failings you’re going to do and then, you probably will fail. Improvisers understand that if you fail, failing does not make you a failure. And that’s a big difference there. Just because you failed, doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it means “Oh I failed, I screwed up. All right, well I’m an improviser so, I’ll just start again.” And that’s it. That’s the worst thing that happens.
Listening
The next step is Listening. You’ve all probably heard that phrase or something similar about how we have 2 ears , and 2 eyes and 1 mouth, so we should listen and watch twice as much as we speak, right? You know that? Not true. Most people listen just enough to be able to respond. But we don’t listen with every part of our being to what they’re saying. A very wise man once told me that listening is the willingness to change. If I’m not willing to change based on what you’re telling me, I’m not really listening. I’ve already made up my mind, I’ve decided how I feel, I’ve decided what I think, and I’m just going to let you talk at me and then I’m going to respond.
But improvisers listen with every part of their being because we’re present in that moment. I’m there with you as you’re speaking to me. I’m willing, I don’t have to change, but I’m willing to change. Improv is a collaborative art form and collaboration means taking yourself out of the equation. Getting that ego about what you believe and what you think out of the way so that instead of it being your idea and my idea, it becomes the first idea and the second idea and the third idea, we’re just going to listen and react and change.
Say Yes
The next step is probably the most agreed upon rule of all of improvisation, across all schools of thought, is to ‘Say yes.’ So, we’re going to do a fun little demonstration because that’s way more fun than me talking about it. What I need you all to do is to say ‘Yes’ for me on the count of 3, can you do that? 1…2…3
Good. So now I’m going to ask you some questions and I want you to just say ‘Yes’ to those questions, and we’ll see what happens, OK. Let’s just go with me here, trust me, trust me. Do you want to tell a story with me?
[Audience: Yes]
Is this story about a knight?
[Audience: Yes]
Is this knight wearing shining armour?
[Audience: Yes]
Is he going to save a damsel?
[Audience: Yes]
Is she being held by a dragon?
[Audience: Yes]
Is the dragon breathing fire?
[Audience: Yes]
Does he save her with courage and bravery?
[Audience: Yes]
And do they live happily ever after?
[Audience: Yes]
Oh, isn’t that great? Nice work, that was really good. We did that! We just did that.
All right, now let’s do it again and this time I want you to say ‘No’. Everybody, just say ‘No’ to what I’m about to say. You ready? Yeah? Good. Thank you. Thank you.
Do you want to tell a story with me?
[Audience: No]
I’ll just go, all right, OK. Now that incredibly elaborate demonstration we just did proves one very simple point about improvisation, is that a series of yeses will take us somewhere. A series of noes doesn’t even get started. Doesn’t go anywhere. We all just sit there going no, no, no, no. And the saddest part is that you can have 10,000 yeses in a row and it just takes one no to stop it all and ruin it. So say ‘Yes’.
Say And
Now the next step is sort of in conjunction with this one and that is to say ‘And’. Right, Yes Men are great. We’ve probably all met them and they make you feel really good about what you’re doing. All of you let me tell a story by saying ‘Yes’. Thank you for that. But ‘And Men’, are the people we really want to work with. The people that say ‘Yes’ to our idea ‘And’ give us something else. Right and then what happens is you bring a brick and I bring a brick and then someone else brings a brick and we just pile them on top of each other until we’ve built something that none of us could’ve built on our own. And that’s what saying ‘And’ is all about. ‘Yes, And’ not ‘Yes, But’ because ‘But’ is a contradiction whereas ‘And’ is some sort of connection right so say ‘Yes, And’ you’re on your way to working with people and creating something.
Play the Game
This is steps a little weird. Just read that for a second, think about it ‘Play the Game.’ Sounds strange, you’re like “Yeah Dave, maybe in improv you play games but not in life, OK. Get over it.” So let me define what I mean by ‘Game’ here. What I mean by ‘Game’ is anything that has rules to it. I consider a game, so Monopoly? That’s a game. Filling out a job application? To me, that’s a game. There are rules that I am following, right and what rules do, is they free us up to improvise. By giving ourselves these constrictions, you know what I’m saying, that guide our impulses, it funnels our creative process into some kind of product.
The process of improvisation and those rules help us create something. Like for instance, this presentation I’m doing right now. I’ve got these slides that I have to use so that’s one rule, I’ve got these slides in order. I have to do something that has something to do with ‘The Way of Improvisation’ because that’s what I told you I was going to do. You’ve read my description so I have to follow those rules and I have to speak to you. Those are the rules I’m following right now and within that, I’m free to improvise. And it’s great, let me tell you man, it feels good up here, you guys look so good. Just made that up. So, ‘Play the Game.’ That’s what lets us improvise.
Relax and have fun
And the last rule sounds kind of ridiculous that I actually have to make this a rule but I do, because otherwise people don’t do it and that is to ‘Relax and have fun.’ Because you’d be surprised how many times I tell someone “Yeah just get up there and play and fail and dude just screw it up.” and they go, and they tense up and “I got to do this right.”“I got to fail right, Dave’s watching me.” And I’m like, OK right, just relax man it’s cool, right, but relaxing and having fun, if we’re doing that if we wake up every morning and we just take a deep breath and just say, Life, man there’s these rules in life that I’m going to follow. I got to go to work, I got to tell my girlfriend that I love her in the morning. I’m going to follow these rules, but I’m going to be really relaxed about it. It’s a rule, trust me. I’m going to relax and I’m going to follow these rules. And I’m going to end up — If you’re doing that, you’re going to end up playing, and you’re going to end up letting yourself fail and you’ll end up listening to people better because you’re relaxed. You’re going to end up saying ‘Yes’, you’re going to end up saying ‘And’ to things. And you’re going to end up playing these fun games and having a much more enjoyable life just by relaxing into it and just playing and having fun.
So, thank you very much everyone. I’m Dave Morris and that is ‘The Way of Improvisation.’
