Improv and how it started.

The first term of improv has come to an end and in summary it was bloody brilliant.  After hearing briefly about improv while I was working in Canada, I first experienced what it was like at Thoughtworks.  One of my team members organised a 4 week training program which was held by Jenny from Improv Melbourne.  It's not something I would ordinarily do so it was going to be interesting to see how I would respond.  Well, respond I dd.  I loved it.  It was the first time that I had actually felt completely ok with doing something that didn't make any sense what so ever and feeling completely ok with that.  Not sure why I didn't take it up for real at that time.

My interest spiked again in 2009 when I went to a couple of improv shows at Theatre Works in St Kilda.  From memory, Patty and Tim from Improv Melbourne were paired up as a team and they brought the house down with some hilarious scenes.  In late 2009 one of my colleague's mentioned that she took improv classes with Improv Melbourne.  This sounded interesting but I still didn't quite have the appetite for it yet.

The beginning of 2010 was really quite a busy period.  I started dating someone and well didn't have that much spare time and the focus was on that.  Probably not the wisest thing to do but that's a whole another story in itself.  On my return from a trip to Africa in July I was a single man again and this would spark a whole new way of thinking about life.  Really wanted to start challenging myself in different areas and develop some new skills.  Not to mention just having some plain old FUN.

So, signed up for the last term of the year and wow what a blast.  More to come in my next post but the thing that surprised me the most was that I actually started noticing my improv skills being used outside of class.  Very cool.