If you learn skills while learning improv say.... how to just react to whatever "gift" is given to you, or how to spout out the first thing that pops into your head....and if skills learned for dancers that are like that, how high to raise a leg for a certain dance move or how to spin around without vomiting all over the first row....are all of these skills grouped into the category of MUSCLE MEMORY? Because we're then applying those skills to other structures or forms in the improv world, and for dancers it would be to different dances. We should be able to do those things without thinking about them but to do so we really had to work at it at first...well, for most of us. IF THIS IS TRUE I ask you this.....is that a good thing? Aren't we, in improv, constantly trying to stretch ourselves to break out of habits and patterns to be ready for whatever is thrown at us? Don't we do messed up extra hard excersizes to warm up to scramble our minds to accept the impossible every time we step out onstage?
I hope I didn't confuse you too much today. For my small mind, this question is like wondering about the size of the universe.
I hope you have a pleasant Monday evening! Mine will be filled with grilled cheese and tomato soup!
L. Burton
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8 comments:
Improv muscle memory: The first time you try a new edit it's uncomfortable, but the second time it's good. Can you learn more and more moves over time and end up with an arsenal of everything ever plus more that isn't?
You also create a muscle memory of not pulling back and being afraid, but instead leaning forward and embracing something unknown.
I love that book and I was honestly just recommending it to Shaun Landry yesterday! I had a library copy, I had to give it back, but sometime I will get my own so I can spend a lot of time with it.
Jill, I had the most interesting conversation tonight with Tyler and my other friend Jeremy about this that I would love to discuss with you over beer sometime in February....I miss you.
I think muscle memory is what allows you to put forward your ideas. Muscle memory helps you showcase your ideas. For example, a dancer who is flexible enough to lift her foot above her head has more moves available to her when she is improvising or choreographing.
Same thing with improv, I think. The improvisor with the ability automatically to connect and agree with her scene partner has infinitely more creative opportunities than the improvisor who closes up in a scene and relies only on her own jokey one-liners.
Another way of putting it: my muscle memory helps me respond to different improv situations, but it doesn't dictate what my response will be. I try to differentiate between my learned muscle memories and my specific bad habits.
Whaa, long post. Wanna meet tomorrow evening for improv 'n' writing talk?
When I think of muscle memory I think of it more as a physical action learned through repetition: i.e. how to throw a fake punch at you immediately after the scientology line ala Hell Show. Having practiced it multiple times, I not only knew what hight I needed to hit with my arm and when to do the nap but because we had done that so often I didn't even need to think about it.
This is the same thing that helps baseball players consistently hit home runs, or dancers perform the same routine multiple times.
Not saying a fake punch is equivalent to a home run or anything, but you get my point.
I think what we learn in improv are more like strategies. We develop these strategies that allow us to cope in an artform that theoretically has no rules or restrictions but still needs to be presentable to an audience. Once you understand these strategies and conventions, you have more freedom to break them (like 'don't ask questions' or 'yes and') but you have to learn how to make good improv first before you're able to walk that tightrope.
Anyway, enough of my borassing. See you tonight for rehearsal.
Thanks everyone for the great responses!!!
Hey kid,
I am glad you are enjoying the book. Strangely enough seeing you reading it has hit me.... and well, you can check out my blog because I wrote about Twyla too.
I have often likened that muscle memory to when I lived on the farm and something my mother and I would always discuss about students who would work so hard to fix their riding position for months and get rid of bad habits. In horseback riding there are a lot of bad habits that work for you for a time, but they are not correct--- and they can be dangerous. It takes a lot of work to get rid of bad habits in riding... but you can achieve it. Often we would see those that had overcome their bad habits go back to those same bad habits at competitions.... WHY? Why do they do that?
Why do we do the same thing on stage? We work so hard for so long to get over bad habits or to develop new tools, but so often we revert to what has worked before…. Why?
That muscle memory spells safety, or familiarity at least. It is the tried and true, and our fear often causes us to go with the known as opposed to the unknown.
At least that is what I have seen…. Over and over again, Pressure=fear=the old ways.
zhe old vays.....sounds like you're talking from your home country of Millwaukee, Jennings. I like it. :)
http://www.43folders.com/2009/01/13/twylas-box
!
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