Last week, I was filmed for a news report on CTV Kitchener. They did a story about the Making-Box in Guelph, and how improv skills can help you solve problems. The Making-Box is where I take comedy improv classes, which help me with my comedy skills, and general life skills.
Improv Skills Can Help You Solve Problems
In the news segment, reporter Stu Gooden met with Hayley Kellett, the Improv Incubator Director at Making-Box. She explained they “help individuals and organizations become more open, happy and connected, by harnessing the tools of improv”.
Improv Concentration Game
To show Stu how improv works, Hayley called for some helpers – me, and two other Making-Box guys named Jason. You can never have too many Jasons!
We played a concentration game, to help Stu work on his connection and listening skills. Here’s a screen shot from the video, with me at the left.
Mirror My Movements
To start the game, I made hand and face motions, that Stu had to follow. I moved my hands slowly, and he mirrored my movements.
Occasionally, I would change my facial expression, and Stu copied that too. That seemed pretty easy!
Simple Arithmetic
Next, Hayley added a new challenge to the Concentration Game – arithmetic!
Jason #2, in the red shirt, started giving Stu simple arithmetic questions to solve – nothing with a solution of more than 10. For example, “1 plus 3”, “5 minus 2” and “6 minus 5”.
I kept moving my hands, and changing my expressions, and Stu continued to mirror me. He also did a good job of solving the arithmetic problems, but he had to think them!
Personal Questions
Finally, to make the Concentration Game even more challenging, Hayley told Jason #3 (at the right) to start asking personal questions. She told Stu not to worry though, they would only be questions that he would be “comfortable asking my grandmother.”
So, Jason #3 asked Stu, “Where’s your favourite place to go out for dinner?”, and I kept moving, and Jason #2 kept asking arithmetic questions.
Making Mistakes
With all three of us to follow, it didn’t take too long before Stu got confused – “What’s 2 plus 8?” “I don’t even know!”
Hayley assured Stu that “mistakes are part of this game” so don’t worry about making any, it’s part of improv. And that’s a good life lesson too!
At the end of the short game, Hayley explained that the goal is to create an open, happy feeling, and help people feel connected, and improve their listening skills.
And that’s why I enjoy my improv classes at Making-Box, and keep going to them!
Watch the Video
Unfortunately, the CTV video doesn’t have an “embed” feature, that would let me share the video here. If you’re interested, here’s how you can try to find the video:
- Go to the CTV Kitchener video page
- On the video page, in the list at the left, click “In Your Backyard”
- In the list of videos, look for the segment is called “Improv Being Used to Solved Problems”
- Click on the video thumbnail, to watch it.
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