What if Yes And is the worst way to teach improv to beginners?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. What if our beloved Yes And is the reason people drop out of improv?
As a beginner, I was taught to Yes And everything. Saying Yes kept things moving forward, saying no did not. All the exercises proved this to be right so I trained to say Yes to every idea.
Yes good, no bad.
Fast forward to a few years later where I’m getting ready to suck off another performer on stage. I didn’t want to do it, but my training kicked in: Say yes, or else you’re letting your partner down and stopping the story from unfolding. So I moved into position and began bobbing my head up and down. Pantomime blowjob. Ugh.
No-one wants to see me pretend to give a guy a blowjob (even less my family who was in the audience that night), not to mention that I was pretty uncomfortable too. Everyone was. It felt like forever and I’m forever grateful to whoever edited that proud moment of family history that I pressured myself into, against my own will.
Beginners vs. non-beginners.
As a beginner, I’m desperately looking for rules because I need them to figure out how this magical, new world works! Because that’s what beginners do and that’s how most of us have been taught to approach learning. It’s binary: right or wrong, and we want to do it right. Yes And becomes a rule. The rule.
As a non-beginner, I’ve learned from experience that the rules of improv are mere guidelines to take care of us and get us started. Yes And is agreement, collaboration, trust, not blindly saying Yes to anything you’re given.
But, in the process, I’ve forgotten how it is to be a beginner.
Yes vs. No, No vs. Yes, Yes vs. Yes, No vs. No.
Yes, there’s a difference between the improviser saying no and character played by the improviser saying no.
Yes, there’s a difference between the no that keeps the story moving forward and the one that stops it.
No, I cannot expect beginners to understand these differences, little own being able to differentiate and navigate between them.
That is simply asking too much. They’ve got enough on their minds already, remember: this is all new to them. Because they’re beginners. And because as teachers we’ve forgotten how scary it can be to do improv for the first, second, or twentieth time. Dealing with 50 shades of No on top of that is too much.
Not to mention that as a teacher and community builder I’m sick and fucking tired of hearing horror stories from beginners being violated in workshops worldwide, believing they have to Yes And everything, including every inappropriate suggestion and abusive behavior from their fellow improvisers, not just the other beginners. This tears down everything we’re trying to build.
Besides, no still means no. No should be a complete sentence in any workshop.
Some suggested alternatives for beginners
This is where it can get messy, so please keep in mind these are all suggestions:
Reduce the emphasis on Yes And and introduce it later, when they’ve got enough experience to differentiate.
Creating a safe space is key for teaching, so safety rules and practicing saying no is a good place to start. And listen when students share bad experiences. Not every incident is intentional, but we need to take every incident seriously and deal with them accordingly.
If it’s true that students are desperately looking for rules I suggest giving alternatives to Yes And that are more flexible. Something that allows them to decide how much control they want to let go of in any given situation but also focus on agreement: this is what we’re doing, or this is where we’re starting from. One such tool I call the Why/Because.
The Why/Because
It works like this:
- say yes or no to any offer you’re given.
- then tell us why or why not.
With Why/Because we have an agreement and we’re adding information. It’s very similar to Yes And, but there’s a very subtle difference:
A: Coffee?
B: Yes, because I like coffee.
or
B: No, because I don’t’ like coffee.
Both replies acknowledge A’s original idea. No normally comes from a fear of letting go of control. In this, B gets to decide for herself if she’s ready to let go by saying yes, instead of being forced to. It may seem like a minuscule detail, but neither A nor the teacher have any idea what it takes for B, the beginner, to let go of even the tiniest amount of control in something that for them can be a very stressful situation. Everything after ‘because’ moves things forward by adding information to the scene.
A: We’re at the zoo.
B: Yes, because I see an elephant!
or
B: No, because I don’t see any elephants.
One could argue that the second reply negates A’s offer, but you could also say that for B’s character this place has to have an elephant to call themselves a proper zoo. And now we know something about B’s character. Maybe she’s a person with high standards.
A: We’re at the zoo.
B: No, because I don’t see any elephants.
A: There’s one over there
B: No, because I don’t see it.
Same thing, but perhaps we just found out that B has bad eyesight, misplaced her glasses, or doesn’t know what an elephant looks like. If that is true, what else is true about that character? Not only are we not negating, but we’re also building characters through our justification as well as pushing things forward by adding information to our scene. This is also relatively simple because we do this in real life all the time.
Saving the worst for last:
A: Touch my groin.
B: Yes, because I like inappropriate suggestions.
or
B: No, because I don’t like inappropriate suggestions.
Or even better:
B: No, because.
Because we do this in real life, kids are especially great at it. I don’t want to. Because. Just because.
Or just No.
Sometimes we don’t even need to justify, because no should be sufficient.
And the Why?
The Why is for when B forgets to add the Because and you want to give them a chance to add it. If they want to, that is. A is taking care of B by asking why.
A: Coffee?
B: No.
A: Why not?
B: Because I don’t drink coffee.
This reveals surprisingly much information about the characters and their relationship!
You can also add the why for them, but I suggest making it about you.
A: Coffee?
B: No.
A: Why not?
B:….
A: Is this because I crashed your car?
The why also works with a yes, plus many why’s in a row can provide a lot of character information and point of view, but that’s an exercise for another day. Keep it as simple as you need to for your beginner students. Don’t dumb it down, look for clarity.
Disclaimer
I love the Yes And and this is not an attempt to stop anyone from using it when teaching improv. That said, I do believe it is healthy to treat Yes And as an improv tool instead of an improv rule, and be aware of when we expose our students to it. I want improv to be for everyone and to do that we need to create a safe learning environment where consent is key.
tl;dr
Yes And is powerful. Abuse of power shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Thank you for reading!
Terje Brevik is the founder of Tøyen Impro and the Oslo Impro Festival. He’s also the co-founder and former director of Impro Neuf, Norway’s biggest and most inclusive improv community. Terje teaches and performs improvised theater on and off stage and he loves to travel. Check out his stuff and connect at terjebrevik.com.
