Learning improv skills

Summary:

• We went over some guidelines, including "don't TRY to be funny" and how to ask for a "time out" when you're feeling psychologically unsafe and want to redo a choice
• We played "zip zap zop" to learn each others names
• We played a word association game to get brain juices flowing and respond directly to each other (not to what's in our heads)
• We jumped right into 3-line scenes without any practice to get a feel for how scary and uncomfortable it is (lol)
• We played a couple games to demonstrate what a real "yes, and" feels like (this means agreeing with your partner's REALITY by PARTICIPATING in it -- that doesn't require you to actually say "yes", it just requires listening to them)
• We played a couple games to feel and heighten an assigned emotion
• We played "freeze" and "new choice" now that we had practice with "yes, and" and speaking with an emotional motivation -- this was a huge, noticeable improvement over the first round!
• We discussed how these concepts apply to real-life conversations and politics. "Yes, and" in political disagreements is about finding the bedrock that you can both agree on.