<aside> 💡 Trying something new this week. I’m answering a question from a fellow improviser.

After reading #49 Beware the plot monster and #8 The good show & the bad show: a parable

Tom Mathias writes: Do improvisers have to go through a period of growth where a given aspect of improv is a cage before they can ascend it?

Tom elaborates further: Must we be bad before we're good? If so, is that a bad thing? Or is it just the valley of self-doubt as per Dunning-Kruger? Or just the Piratical criticality of Robotic behaviour?

</aside>

Hi, Tom. Thanks for writing.

So there’s always aspects of the craft that come more naturally than others. I’ve never had an ear for accents, for instance. But for some of my fellow players, changing their intonation is as easy as breathing. We all have different strengths. As I’ve said before it’s helpful to #46 Find your improv superpowers.

But to address your question in short order.

Yes. Mostly.

I’ll elaborate.

If you haven’t read it, this explanation by Vinny François is extremely relevant - #68 Vinny François’ hand metaphor.

In short, we have to keep going - striving, learning, interrogating, doing the reps - even when we know we’re not great yet. Especially when we know we’re not great yet. And I would add that we have to take solace in the things we already do well, whilst we attend slowly to our weaknesses.

It’s important to find joy in this - so many people stop before they get good precisely because of these frustrations. Notice what you do well. Own that. Use it as rocket fuel when another skill seems woefully out of reach.

In truth, Tom, you really answered your own question. Concerning the skill of creating characters in improv, you offered the following journey:

Unknown Unknowns (UU) I do not know about characters in improv, games are fun for everyone. Known Unknowns (KU) I have heard the word "ingénue" and there is a comedy del arty. Known Knowns (KK) I stand at the side and force a character via e.g. VAPAPO or I'm going to play Il Dottore. Unknown Knowns (UK) This scene/show can go in a good direction/tight/satisfying finish if a character does [thing].

With that "UK" stage, you don't (necessarily) make the conscious intellectual decision that you're coming on as The Anti-Hero for his ignominious end in the Falling Action, but in the moment, instinctually serving the show as best you feel you can. Feeding it more of what it needs or braiding the finish.

I’ve always known this sequence by the following names:

**Unconscious incompetence **I don’t know that I’m not good at that thing Conscious incompetence I now know just how bad I am at that thing (but I still can’t do it) Conscious competence If I really concentrate, I can now do that thing Unconscious competence I’m really good at the thing and I don’t even think about it anymore

But we’re definitely talking about the same thing here. You have to go through a stage of actively engaging the brain and stumbling through. Of consciously, and often awkwardly, sketching out an approximation of the skill you want to acquire before you can do it with any degree of elegance.

• If you want to be a more physical player, you’ll drag yourself around the stage self-consciously before you do it without thinking.
• If you want to get good at improvised poetry, you’ll make hundreds of appalling rhymes (orange … lozenge) before the words begin to come unbidden.
• If you want to be a more supportive player, you’ll have to come on stage with the mantra Make my scene partner look good echoing ceaselessly around your skull long before you find you’re doing it without thinking.

That’s all a long way of saying, at some point, it gets into your bones - deep in the marrow - but it only gets there with repetition and tenacity.

Because unfortunately for improvisers, we have to do all this in front of an audience for it to truly stick. Unlike photographers, we don’t have the option to take a thousand photos (none of which we’ll ever show to a solitary soul) in order to learn about proper exposure. Sure, rehearsals are great to a point, but then we have to step on stage.