What is the best piece of improv advice anyone ever gave you?

What is the best piece of improv advice anyone ever gave you?

Ok, this is a pretty tough question. I've gotten tons of great improv advice over the years. I have no qualm with sharing it, because it is my belief that all good things should be shared. Someone had to share with me first.

I think the time in which advice comes to a person can be as crucial as the advice itself. Sometimes you just have to be in a certain mindset to properly absorb the advice to its fullest. Given this, it's possible I've heard great advice that wasn't so great for me at the time.

I will share with you three pieces of great advice from three different points in my career so far.

1) Early on, I got a lot of mileage out of this advice:
"You have the ability to be naturally funny, without even trying. So don't try."
That's sort of paraphrasing, but it's something along those lines.

by relaxing and reacting naturally and truthfully, a person can be wonderfully charming and funny. It's a piece of advice that is often given, I believe, but it came to me at a very important time. It came to me quite comfortably to react truthfully onstage. Trying to be clever was not a strong suite of mine. When put on the spot to be funny NOW, I couldn't always deliver. But I could always be trusted to take risks and be truthful. Plus, the audience can always sniff out a performer who is trying too hard, and it's off-putting and sad.
When I finally heard, "Don't try and be funny, in fact it's better if you don't." It was so freeing. Like, thank you god!

2) Later into the work, this was some advice I grooved on for awhile:
"Commitment is everything. Double down."

  Never bail on scenes.  You're onstage, things aren't going right or feel weird or whatever and you want to take two steps back away from what you were doing. You want to give up or drop back.
DON'T.
Commit more. In fact, commit times two, or, in other words, double down.
Why?
Because when you drop your commitment you kill momentum, you kill interest, you kill characters and ultimately the scene or show begins to die. You may feel as though you've saved yourself and your dignity, but honestly you've bailed on what you were creating to no good end. And who gets into this work to be dignified?
When you feel weird, instead of backing off you instead commit to what you're doing more. In this you find inspiration, you bring the audience in, you move things forward, you make discoveries.
Easier said, than done, of course. Our knee-jerk reactions in life are usually bad habits and momentum killers in improv scenes.

In life:
Weirdness? Back away. (I must save myself, I don't want to see what happens next.)

On stage:
Weirdness? Go towards. Go further. (I am intrigued...What will happen next? I want to know.)


3) Recently, I am loving this advice:
"Let go of fear/failure in the moment and laugh off mistakes."

It's kinda funny to me because on one hand it's like, "DUH. Let go of fear! Everyone knows that."
Okay but the thing is, fear is elusive and bends and twists into other things and never really goes away. And I wouldn't want it to go away completely, either. Fear lets me know I care. But dammit fear better not get in the way of me doing good work or feeling good on stage.
BUT IT DOES! What?

I have no trouble giving myself up to the moment, being present has become one of the more pleasurable elements of improv for me over the years. I love living in the present moment, I'd rather not be thinking ahead. My real trouble comes when I get a curve ball thrown at me that trips me up and puts me in my head. There is nothing I hate more onstage than feeling helpless. Any number of things can trip me up - tech flubs, miscommunication with fellow players, audience heckling, physical mishaps, the necessity to help correct dying scenes or faltering storylines, my own self doubt, etc, etc. Sometimes these things can be wonderful gifts that can be turned into improv gold, other times they just stall out the show and you have to turn around and start 'er up again - or try, at least.

I have quick gut-wrenching reactions at times to these surprises, usually from a place of fear or concern because - dammit - things were going so well a second ago! no one wants to watch people onstage who are obviously full of fear and uncomfortable. And it's so true. Even when people are smiling, if there is a desperation behind it to be the best and be funny and do well the associated content reads wrong. The audience probably couldn't even tell you most of the time why they didn't laugh or didn't enjoy the performance. But that tenseness is easily read and no fun. We can't laugh at someone's obvious pain (most of the time).

And then as the performer, you can't really loosen up and be spontaneous if you're filled with fear and desperation. All around, no good. No one likey.
But, this is not easily solved, either. I mean, we're only human. We have fear. Being raised one foot higher and having a spotlight put on you does something. Even if you do well once, you suddenly have an expectation to do the same or better next time.

 Don't expect the world of yourself. Don't compare this show to all the others. Live in the moment and if something weird pops up, laugh it off. Sincerely laugh it off. Like, literally try to find failure funny. Find your own failure funny. Umm. Sounds crazy, but it can work. Or at least, it's been working for me so far. Every improv show has weird moments of miscommunication. Lately I've been trying to just laugh it off and move on, instead of tensing up for a moment. I have a natural tendency to laugh at awkward moments anyway, I've just been taking it another step further by removing my gut reaction of fear of failure. Improv is an imperfect art-form, duh, it's okay for failures to happen, especially if you have fun achieving them. Enjoying them actually made me able to move past them more quickly. They were out of my head and I could focus on the moment again. The joy of failure.

You can have opinions. For god's sake you *should* have opinions, just don't let those opinions impede the moment.

And, what do you know, all these pieces of advice are great for real life too! Don't try so hard! Commit to what you're already doing more! Let go of the fear of failure!

Hot damn, improv is awesome.