Spoiler-Free For 30+ Years

I am special. Somehow, at an early age, I had developed an immunity to people "spoiling" a show or movie for me. You can tell me everything that's going to happen and I'll still go see it because the art of storytelling is held by few and many details are left out in the telling of a story. Most people can tell you the "what" of a story but many times they leave out the "how" & the "why" which is what I get to experience for myself.

Case in point: I remember my Dad taking my brother to go see the Clint Eastwood classic  "Firefox", a 1980's Cold War spy thriller where an American Vietnam war pilot is trained to steal an advanced Russian warplane from the heart of the Soviet Union.  I was so envious they had the chance to see it (it was treated "R") that I settled for the next best thing - I had my Dad tell me the entire movie. I sat on the floor of his room for an hour patiently as he explained the intricate plot points, the interactions between the characters, the motivations behind those characters, and the results of decisions made throughout the movie. By the end of the storytelling session, I felt as if I had seen the movie myself.

I eventually rented the movie from the video store and watched it. My Dad's telling of the story was incredibly accurate and have me a deeper understanding of what I was watching. His rendition of events couldn't capture what I thought at the time were some of the best special effects on a movie; I really thought all of the scenes with the plane were so good that I was truly there. I didn't feel that I lost any enjoyment of the source material even though I already knew what was going to happen. I've read Wikipedia summaries of the show "Lost" while watching the episodes during DVD-binging marathons, have had kids tell me the plot points of "Knight Rider" episodes while I was on bio breaks, and have pieced together movies based on parody movies I've seen elsewhere. I never once felt like I missed out on the chance to discover something new for myself.

These days people lose their bloody minds of you "spoil" things for them. To me that level of investment over a movie or TV show is too much. A good story is a good story no matter how is conveyed and can be enjoyed no matter how many times you've heard it before.

Looks Like I'm Doing Something Right

Last night during my break from teaching class, I locked eyes with a fellow instructor in the teacher's lounge.  She looked like she wanted to connect so I introduced myself and she said, "Oh my God!  YOU'RE Nelson!"  I was taken a little bit by surprise but kept my cool.  She then said, "I have a lot of your former students in your class and they say 'Oh Nelson taught this' and 'Oh, Nelson has taught us that' and I could tell that they really did learn things from you.  I know you really know what you're doing."

That felt absolutely awesome.

I did my best to stay humble and accept those comments without losing my cot damn mind and thinking I was awesome.  I think I did a good job by just smiling even harder and maintaining eye contact during our conversation.  We talked a bit about our respective histories at the training center and what our approaches were for teaching improv to our students were.

My approach to teaching improvisation is to not only expose my students to new, exciting ideas, games, and connections, but also explain the theatrical philosophy behind the usage of those items and give them consistent, practical real-time tools that they can use for themselves to explore the artform while trying to develop their own artistic voices.  Some tools may work for them while other may not, but at least they understand the theory behind the tools.  The other teacher and I resonated on this and that felt ultra-cool!

It was nice to know that I had made a large impact on my students; so much so that my name is being spoken in high regard to other teachers and piquing their interest in finding who I am. I must be doing something right.

Why Ain't I Sad

My father passed away on December 3rd, 2016.  I haven't really thought about his passing too much.  However, lately he has been on the mind as my toddler of a daughter resembles my dad so much.  Everyone who interacts with her sees my father's face & mannerisms in the various cute expressions she exhibits.  Although I cherish those things, I feel guilty for not being devastated by his passing.

My first pawppy ever Lola is dying.  I love her very much and it was through her that I got myself mentally prepared for the idea of being a father to human children.  However, I can't seem to bring myself to deal with her declining health.  For some odd reason I can imagine a life without her and feel guilty that I feel that way when I see others who shutdown completely when their pets are sick or pass away.  So, I've got to ask...

...what is wrong with me?

I've watched enough 1970's & '80s television to know that everyone mourns differently.  I know that it could hit me loike a ton of bricks when I least expect it.  I'm still waiting for it to hit me for my father's passing and I'm not really into lamenting Lola's passing either.  Am I running away from my emotions?  Am I suppressing them to keep my sanity?  I don't know but I still feel very guilty regardless.

Guess I'll find out when Lola finally does meet her maker.  until then, I'll struggle with my feelings of how I should feel versus accepting what I actually feel.

Festivals: Celebrating Passions

Impronol at Trill Comedy Festival

I adore going to improv festivals.  It's a chance to show your wares and depending on the caliber of the improv festival, a good way to raise your stock in the community, make connections, and hopefully get invited to perform or teach elsewhere.  Improv festivals require a certain mindset from the people who apply:

• Festivals Are Full of Fawkery
  Festivals are large, living organisms comprised of a lot of individual, independent cells, i.e., volunteers ,staff, and talent; they evolve in a blink of an eye and you have to be ready to accept that change. Anticipate that your time slot, venue, line-up, and/or living accommodations will change multiple times and will little to no warning.  Many processes, promises, and practices are put into place to give festival talent a showcase with a viewing audience.  You as an attendee just have to roll with it or otherwise lose your mind with disappointment, bitterness, and outright contempt.
  
• Everything Is An Audition
  The application process is an audition to get into the festival.  Upon arrival, you begin interacting with the staff and volunteers of the festival who are working hard to execute what's needed; they are judging you to see if you're easy to work with or a pain in the ass to ignore.  Your show itself is being judged by not only the people who brought you in as they only saw a 5-15 minute part of a full show to determine if you were worth bringing in; they want to make sure they didn't make a mistake; but by as the other teams on your slot and the festival.  Those teams are asking themselves, "Why does this team deserve to be here in this slot over my team?"  Assuming you did a good show, you are being watched to see how gracious and humble you are about your performance and whether or not you showed respect by staying and watching other teams. 
  
  All of these things sum up to whether or not you get invited/accepted back to the festival, whether or not you get a teaching/coaching gig somewhere down the road, and whether or not the word gets around that you should be considered to work with in the future elsewhere.
  
• You Must REALLY Want Go
  In order to be successful at anything, you must have a passion for it.  You should be willing to deal with anything that stand in the way of pursuing your passions.  Festivals test that passion for the reasons mentioned above.   If you want to showcase your art outside of your city/town and get better at your craft by seeing different style, disciplines, and approaches, you must put in the time to do so.

With those things said, I recommend the following the following rules of thumb when considering going to an improv festival:

• Ask Yourself Why You're Going
  Are you going to see something new?  Enhance your skills by taking a workshop or watching a hot team you've heard about?  Should you better go as a patron or as talent to achieve what you want?  Is your team so awesome that you have no choice but to showcase it?  Answering these questions should tell you whether or not to apply. 
  
• Commit To The Dates
  Back in the day there were only handful of festivals going on and they were peppered through the calendar year.  Now there are so many festivals, that it's inevitable you will double-book yourself or you'll forget about the dates adn forget to ask off of work, or some other preventable issue will arise blocking you from going.  If you plan to go a festival, put the dates in your calendar as to when you applied, when you expect to hear back, and when the actual festival dates are planned.  Don't book anything else for those weekends.
  
  I must admit this is the hardest thing for me to do personally.  I've double booked myself during festivals by either hedging the bets that things will work out in my favor or by performing marathon runs heading between 3 festivals in just a weekend.  I need to follow my own advice and honor what I'm committing to by applying somewhere and avoiding the temptation to "do it all".
  
• The Road Is Ruthless
  Traveling, living out of a suitcase or backpack, getting little no sleep and or exercise, eating like crap, and spending way too much money are the side effects of going to and performing at a festival.  The vast majority of festivals do not pay their performers so expect to pay your way to be there.  If you're not built to deal with these challenges, you probably shouldn't go.

What do you think about improv festivals?  Have you gone to any?  What was your experience?  Comment down below!

10 Down - 5 More To Go: A Weight-Loss Journey

Over the 6 months or so, I've been working out seriously.  99% of it is cardio-based, i.e., walking, but it's exercise nonetheless.  I'm currently at 220 lbs and am excited to reach my goal of 215 lbs in the next few months.  I've been losing a pound or so here and there roughly every 1.5-2.5 weeks.  I haven't weighed 215 in almost 10 years!

What kicked off the need to get fit was getting pregnant again.  It'd been 7 years since the last child was born and now I'm a bit older.  The idea of having to run after a kid at middle-age and being unable to keep up with them seemed very unappealing to me.   Also, my body was starting to have inexplicable pains here and there; it must've been the years of doing improv that took it's toll 😉.  I had a very acute pain literally in my rear end; I pulled a muscle roller-skating and it hurt no matter what position I was in.  I couldn't get in and out of the car, sleep too long on my side, sit too long in a chair, or stand too long without it hurting.  The only thing that seemed to help it was walking for 30 minutes or more to get blood going into my muscle.

So, I began walking just to avoid the pain. I also figured that I should probably shed a few pounds just in case the added weight to my frame was complicating things in a way unbeknownst to me.  I've had my Fitbit for a while and at first was really into it; I lost weight in the past by tracking my food intake, counting my steps, and feeling good about "taking charge of my health".   Then I got complacent and bored and went back to all of my bad habits of eating too much, not exercising enough, and sleeping too little or too much.  Thanks to this pain in my ass, I was motivated to get that under control.

I've also joined a group of improvisers who also have Fitbits and we have weekly competitions to see who can walk the most during the work week and on weekends.  One of the participants is a professional dog walker.  She average 30K+ steps a day when the weather is good and the holidays aren't around.  She consistently beats us; which keeps me motivated; however, there are times where conditions favor me maybe winning and I go full-bore into exercising.  I've actually won a few weeks here and there.  Everyone in the group is supportive of each other and we do our best to motivate each other to move.

The weather lately has not been cooperating with me.  I was contemplating during the spring/summer when I started all of this to try to get into enough shape where I could run a 5K non-stop.  When the brutally cold weather came in, it really put a damper on my willingness to train for it outside.  I have a treadmill that cooperates with me roughly 70% of the time but it has issues so running consistently on it is hard. So, I've been relegated back to just walking.  Hopefully when it warms up a bit I can get back to hating myself and wanting to pass out and die behind someone's tool shed when I get back to jogging :)

Current soda of choice.

I've recently began cutting out non-diet soda out of my diet.  Cot damn that is hard.  I'm an avid soda drinker but lately the amount of sugar I've been taking has been just way too much.  I can feel it hampering me from losing more weight.  I've switched over to diet drinks to ween myself off them completely over the next few weeks.  I've been drinking more water as well (if they could just make water compliment my meals better, I'd be done with soda!).

So, here's to losing the last 5 pounds.  My reward for doing so will be the new headshots I've wanted for a while.  I have been featured in a lot of pictures recently and I can truly say I feel like I look good in them.  It's nice not wanting/needing to Photoshop yourself to enjoy  a picture anymore :)

Time to go for a walk!

Overdoing It with A Smile

Hosting one of the Coach Ensemble Shows

I met up with an actor who participated in my first Coached Ensemble at Second City recently. The Coached Ensembles(CE) are teams put together from auditions culled from current and past Training Center students and coached by a current faculty member for a 4 week run in one of the Training Center theaters.  I decided to do it because I had always wanted to be a part of those ensembles as an actor in the past and I wanted to establish my "mark" on the Training Center as more than just a Level A teacher :)

It was such a blast to be able to take what I have amassed as a performer and teacher and apply it to a 15 minute long-form showcase.  I scheduled multiple rehearsals, found a unique form for us to play with, and handled the technical specifications of the show.  I could truly say that our show was unique among the other talented teams during our run and I felt I had a very wide and varied level of experience among the actors involved.

Along the way, I had heard rumors about the other teams' approaches to their shows and felt like I had over-prepared/achieved for my first time out.  I had heard that some groups rehearsed a lot less than we did or didn't really decide on a form until the week of opening.  The shows didn't really reflect that any of our approaches hurt their respective teams' shows and since everyone on staff is talented and a good instructor, there were no obvious "clunker" teams.  We all held out own in our own way.  However, that feeling of over doing the process kept nagging at me.

We met up to for dinner and began discussing logistics around an unrelated performance opportunity.  Eventually the conversation drifted to their current involvement in CE and I was told, "I'm so glad that I had you for Coached Ensembles.  I felt ready for the current round of auditions. I was much more confident and felt I had something to show."  We also compared and contrasted my instruction style with their current coach.  I felt pretty damn good about being so overbearing in my execution of getting my team ready for their show. 

I walked away from sensing that there's something special about these CE opportunities and I should use these encounters to explore my voice and artistic vision as a coach moving forward.