Brad isn't clever. 30 minutes. Unfiltered. Every day. Rinse. Repeat.

Again and again, I hear improvisers give one key piece of advice to other improvisers before shows: have fun. In my very first improv class, my teacher instructed all of us to have fun. I find this request crucial to good improvisation, but the concept of “having fun” confused me for years. Here’s why.

Newer, inexperienced improvisers get pushed in several directions. Often, improv teachers try to deconstruct their students’ internal filters while simultaneously explaining the basic tenets of improvisation and establishing a creative environment that nurtures risk-taking. I spent most of my first class worrying about everything I was about to say. Would it be funny? Would people think poorly of me if it wasn’t? While these ideas trampled the rest of my thoughts, another instruction came from my teacher: don’t think too much. I spent most of my life carefully planning everything. How could I possibly drop that comfortable habit? All these thoughts and directions occurred WHILE I was supposed to have fun.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect novice improvisers will have much fun. When I was in elementary school, I attended a few summer camps. In one of those camps, I chose to enroll in a juggling workshop. I spent a few days learning how to juggle scarves, which float in the air and forgive you for clumsy inexperience. The instructor made me focus hard on the basic movements and other mechanics that form the foundation of juggling. While she did this, she encouraged me to have fun. I found it impossible to reflect and judge how much fun I was having at the time. I couldn’t even hold a basic conversation with someone standing next to me. If I didn’t focus 100% of my effort on keeping the scarves in motion, one would fall out of reach and shatter my fluid motion. When that fluid motion worked and I found myself successfully juggling those scarves, I knew I was having fun. When the motion wasn’t working, I knew I was not. Those feelings always came as a result of my actions and never the other way around. In order to experience the basic feeling of juggling, I had to reject the urge to monitor my “fun” level. In order to have fun, I paid fun no attention.

Once I mastered the basic juggling motions, I could perform them without actively thinking about them. I could make the motions subconscious, which enabled me to hold a conversation or even monitor how much fun I was having. Similarly, learning the fundamentals of improvisation takes a great deal of skill, mental focus, and patience. Veteran improvisers don’t stand on stage worrying about blocking their scene partners or finding the right words to say. Instead, the well-formed skill sets subconsciously filter all of that out. This enables veteran improvisers to be more “in the moment” and aware of their presence both as the characters they portray on stage and as the improvisers behind those characters. I can now comfortable participate in a scene while thinking to myself, “Am I having fun?”

I find that the vast majority of scenes go well for me when I’m having fun. Scenes can still go well when I’m not having fun, but they are far more likely to succeed or succeed to a greater extent when I am having fun. I think many improvisers realize this and try to pass that advice onto less-experienced improvisers in hope of saving them some time and effort. Unfortunately, as I explained, those less-experienced improvisers are often incapable of following or understanding that advice.

Once I was able to successfully detect how much fun I was having in a scene without wrecking the scene simultaneously, I didn’t need to be told to have fun. It was understood. It was common sense. Why wouldn’t I want to have fun on stage?

I transitioned from an improviser incapable of understanding how to “have fun” to an improviser incapable of understanding why people insist on stating the obvious. It’s a very strange feeling. I understand why people want to share this knowledge (I’ve grown tremendously because of it), but I think it’s a request that often eludes those who need it most.

Perhaps there’s some good that remains to be seen for me. Pushing someone to make sure they are having fun above most else requires him/her to use up some mental focus reserves. Depleting those reserves often depletes any remnants an improviser has of filtering himself/herself. Perhaps it’s all a roundabout way to encourage us to act more spontaneously by diverting focus to something abstract.