Improv Makes You a Better Speaker
I’ve done a lot of things to improve my public speaking skills: Toastmasters, professional coaching, singing lessons, acting lessons, directing classes, dance lessons, studied foreign languages and sign language, and much more. The single most important thing I’ve studied, the most challenging, the most exciting and the most fun…has been my study of improvisation skills.
You might think that improv skills would primarily give you the skill of being funny. But that’s not the number one thing it did for me. The most important gift from the study of improv has been the skill of being connected to the present moment and, more importantly, connected to the audience.
In my opinion, the most effective speaker is the one who is truly connected to the listeners. It’s the speaker who isn’t on auto pilot. It’s the speaker who isn’t locked into speaker-voice. It’s the speaker who moves and gestures with meaning and not in a rehearsed and robotic fashion.
For me, this gift of connection was the most unexpected benefit of studying improv. What is it about improv skills that help make you a very connected speaker or performer?
Improv Comedy or Improvisation for the Theater teaches you be in the present moment. It teaches you to accept the gifts of the present moment and to react to what is happening in the here-and-now. It teaches you to avoid pre-scripting your performance. The great actors aren’t acting. They are RE-ACTING to what is happening in the moment. That is what makes them appear real and natural.
In improv we learn to work with the other players. We always want to accept their offers. We learn to avoid premeditation. We learn to listen to our emotions. We learn to have a sense of what a scene needs, and not just add what we want to add.
On the improv stage we play an assortment of games which COULD detract from being in the present moment. In fact, that is what happens to the inexperienced improv player. The game focus is often so strong that it kills the scene. It prevents the player from being in the moment. The skill that improv players learn is to play the game and really remain connected to the present moment. That’s the same skill needed by speakers. A speech is never a monologue. It’s always a dialogue with the audience, even though the audience may have a non-speaking part. Improv skills teach us to deliver a speech naturally without being IN THE SPEECH. Rather than being a slave to the speech we are free to deliver the talk in a natural and connected way.
Improvisation principles helped me to raise my connection with the audience to a new level. I highly recommend joining an improv troupe if you’re serious about improving your speaking skills.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:52 pm
John,
Thank you for your humor essays. I want very much to get better at humor and to give my club members nudges to use humor also. Could you suggest how we could use improv experiences in our club meeting of 75 minutes? Can this be accomplished as Table Topics with only 1-2 minutes, what kind of topics work for this, how many people would best work together, would we need to devote a meeting to the topic?
Thank you for your response.
thanks for being you:)
Clare Strohman Club #83
June 4th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Hi Clare,
There are improv games that would work great for Table Topics (impromptu speech topics assigned during part of a Toastmasters meeting). Here are three examples:
1. The NO “S” game. The speaker is assigned to give a talk on an assigned subject. The challenge is that the speech can’t have any word with an S in it. The hard part is to speak in a smooth flowing manner. It takes great focus. But mostly it’s just a fun game. Topics could range from Winning the Lottery to Silver Spoons (adding the challenge of having S words in the topic of the speech.
2. Assign two topics to two different speakers. Both speakers then give their talks AT THE SAME TIME. Afterwards, talk about what made one speaker stand our over another. It’s a good learning exercise on what techniques work better than others.
3. Assign a first sentence (point A) and a last sentence (point B) to a speaker. The speaker will then give a speech starting with the first sentence and ending with the last sentence. The challenge is to fill in the middle part of the speech getting from point A to point B.
Buying a good improv book can be helpful in providing games for table topic sessions. Improv Comedy by Andy Goldberg is a good first book to buy.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
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