Welcome to Improv for Humans. Ask the UCB. This episode features Ian Roberts of the

Art Bright Citizens Brigade Theatre, giving a lecture on the debate about rules in Improv

Part 2.

Hello everyone and welcome to Part 2 of Ian Roberts' lecture, slash Q&A slash discussion

on rules versus no rules in improvisation.

You want to be better. When you come into class, you want to be somewhere different than

you are now. I always tell people, I say, when you're rehearsing, don't just show up in

rehearse. If your coach isn't a good enough coach to have you working on something you

haven't done yet, there's the only way you're going to be different. If I do the same thing,

back to that thing about people saying, this puts me in my head. This is making me worse.

Yes, you are much better at doing it your bad way than my good way. It stands to reason

that when you come to a class where you are now is a result of everything you've done

up until that point. It can't be anything other, right? We're not instinctual. We learned.

So if you now do this thing such and such a way, you do it that way because that's the

way you have practiced doing it. So is that going to be easy for you to do it that way?

Absolutely. You're a master of doing it that bad way. Or whatever it is. Now I am being

snarky a little joky and I'm not getting laughs. But what I'm saying is I'm calling it

your bad way. I'm saying you came to class. Why did you come to class? You came to class

either to reinforce what you do, just do the same thing or learn something new. I think

the majority of us, we want to be better. We've seen these guys on stage doing this thing

we admire. We want to be like that and we're not yet. So the only way to change, like

I need to make it, I need to make my brain work differently. Mike, they might have point

...