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.