Improv was originally a way of challenging what theatre was and how it could be created. However, people quickly realised that many of the skills that improv teaches are useful beyond performance and have benefits in their everyday personal and professional lives.

I have been teaching improvisation for over a decade now and I have seen this first hand in the classes we teach here at Impromafia. Over the years I have seen hundreds of people come through our Brisbane improv workshop and watched in awe as they have used their training to improve their everyday lives.

This has inspired me to pull together the Top 6 Reasons You Should Learn to Improvise.

1. It can improve your creativity

Many teachers think of children as immature adults. It might lead to better and
more ‘respectful’ teaching, if we thought of adults as atrophied children.
- Keith Johnstone

One of the main beliefs of improvisation is that everyone is inherently creative and that we learn to be less creative as we get older. Children are often effortlessly imaginative – I know that my own kids blow me away with the fantastic stories and games they come up with (thanks Bluey!). But as we age, we often stop using our imagination. We can become more wary of judgment and criticism from others and this can make us more cautious. If we stop exercising our creativity then we subsequently lose it.

Improv is one way of learning to be creative again. Improv classes are safe, generous places where you can experiment with ideas and fail happily. Creativity is a skill you can learn and improv is a great place to start.

2. You may become an better at collaboration & team work

Impro can teach you valuable skills for how to work effectively in a team. We teach the skill of accepting other people’s ideas or saying ‘yes, and’. And by this we don’t mean saying yes to every suggestion or request people put to you.
How often have you been involved in a brainstorming session at work and the process has been frustrating, unhelpful or downright negative? Or, in attempt to counter these attitudes, the session has veneer of positivity added (‘there are no bad ideas’). This type of negativity has the effect of immediately killing people’s creativity because no one wants to suggest a new idea when it is going to be immediately shot down.

Often our default response in life is to be critical or negative towards new ideas. As human beings, we are often cautious or defensive when it comes to change particularly when we aren’t sure what impact it will have on our lives. We also are very skilled and comfortable operating in analytic mode – evaluating, analysing and critiquing. These are valuable skills to have but they can be destructive when used in the wrong situation or if they are the only tools we have.

Instead, ‘accepting’ is about embracing your teammates ideas and building on them. Rather than trying to find the flaws straight away you try and actively use their ideas, build on them, make them work. The starting point for this process is the idea that your teammates ideas are genius and you act with the goal to making your scene - or collaboration - partner look good.

This skill is useful in a range of teamwork situations. It allows a team to respond flexibly and immediately to a situation without second guessing or getting bogged down in conflict. It also assists teams involved in a creative process as it encourages the free generation of ideas which can, subsequently, be evaluated and critiqued. But often you won’t know if an idea is truly good or bad until you have properly engaged with the idea and tried to make it work.

Although - what happens when someone says yes to everything for a year?

3. You will gain confidence in front of an audience

Impro teaches confidence by teaching you that it is ok to fail. This can seem almost counter-intuitive because failure is bad, right?

In improv, we learn that its ok to get things wrong and to fail happily. We do that by creating a safe environment in class where you can get things wrong and it doesn’t matter. Experiencing that in improv class often liberates us in other situations where we are expected to perform, like team meetings or presentations. Improvisation teaches us not to be afraid of the mistakes and errors which are inevitable in life.

I once taught an experienced corporate trainer who was an incredibly talented and experienced communicator. She had years of experience in teaching people management skills and was comfortable in front of a large group of people. And yet, she still found the idea that we shouldn’t be afraid of failure incredibly powerful for her work. Rather than being daunted by problems which occurred during training sessions she learnt to see these mistakes, errors or problems as an opportunity. She came to the realisation that what people respond to is not the mistake itself but how you respond to that mistake. Be embarrassed and they will be embarrassed for you. Make a joke out of it and they will laugh with you.

Failure is a part of life and it’s an inevitable part of any creative or performance process. Something will always go wrong and you need to be prepared for it. This is a invaluable lesson to learn which is applicable to all sorts of social and professional situations (its particularly relevant for public speaking).

Check out this wonderful article about how impro helps build confidence in a business setting:

The Remarkably Effective Confidence Booster Everyone Should Try

4. You may learn to be a better communicator

To be a good improviser, you need to be a skilled communicator. One of the key skills a good communicator needs is…listening.

Listening is vital skill in the business environment.

In life, we often don’t truly listen to the people around us. How often do you spend the time when someone is talking to you thinking about what you are going to say next? That funny line or witty story which so much more interesting what they are saying. I know this is something that I have been guilty of in the past.

Improvisation teaches you to get out of your head and to instead focus your attention on who you are working with. To truly focus on what they are saying and what the emotions and intentions are behind what they are saying. This brings you into the moment with the person and means that you start to pick up on the subtle signals they are sending you – about their emotions, their intentions, what is behind what they are saying. And that in turns helps you understand them better and respond more directly and meaningfully.

I once taught a class of students which featured quite a few pick-up artists (I didn’t realise this until a way into the class, being not really aware of what a pick-up artist was at the time). One of the lessons they took away from the class was the idea that they should really pay attention to the person they were talking to. I don’t know if it helped them find romance, but I do know it helped to reduce some of the anxiety and stress they experienced when meeting new people.

5. You will learn about status

Status refers to how powerful or in control we feel in a particular social situation.

If you feel powerful or in control, we call this being high status, whereas if you feel uncertain or not in control, we refer to this as being low status. Being high status is not necessarily better than being low status – it all depends on what you want to achieve in a situation.

Our approach to improvisation (influenced by the British improvisation teacher Keith Johnstone) teaches students about status, how to communicate status and how to influence the status of others. This is valuable both on stage and in life, because whenever we encounter another person we immediately start working out our status in relation to them. Being skilled in status helps us to understand and direct these interactions more effectively.

This skill has plenty of value for real life. I have had students who found that status helped them understand some of the odd behaviours or games which colleagues played at work. Another student, who was a doctor, discovered it gave them insight into their patient’s behaviours and helped them guide their clinical conversations more effectively.

6. You will have fun

Improvisation is fun!

While training in improvisation is an incredibly rewarding and enriching experience, it feels like play. Honing theatresports skills, developing your confidence in front of an audience and making creative choices is in turns challenging and rewarding - like playing a game where everyone can win.

Improv is an incredibly accessible art-form, and a well-designed beginner's class will feel friendly and be enjoyable for people from all backgrounds and level of experience.

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