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The Best Cure for Shyness
Step into the spotlight!
Out of curiosity, I recently went to a comedy improv session, held at a community centre near me. It was led by Liv Long, who runs Improv-on-Sea (in coastal Hastings, where she lives), as well as occasional London events.
I was quite nervous about what we might be expected to do and how embarrassing it would be – ‘improv’ being short for improvisation, which means acting spontaneously without any preparation whatsoever. It is something that slick, sharp comedians do, taking a subject or a word thrown out by the audience and on the spot creating some really clever scenario around it.
I need not have worried. In fact, I came away convinced that improv could be just the thing for people who overthink or suffer from social anxiety.
As Liv Long said, in an interview with the Hastings Independent, “Comedy improvisation forces you to stop judging yourself. It’s about leaning into making mistakes.”
In good improv, nothing is wrong. In one warm-up exercise, where we took it in turns to stand in the middle and shout out eight items in a particular category (eg clothes, trees, film genres), the rest of us shouted approvingly ‘One more thing!’ after each, even if the person had ‘dried’ and called out something completely random.
This article was first published on Psychology Today, and was written by Denise Winn.
