Meditations on Meditation

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I've been listening to the “Zenprov” podcast for a while now, and those guys are way into the meditation as a good way into improv approach. First, as full disclosure, let me say I've never pursued meditation seriously (or semi-seriously, for that matter). I don't feel like my brain is the kind that really takes to meditation well – I can't really sit still with an empty mind much, if at all. I do appreciate some of the things that they talk about that are adjacent in the topic, things that are found in both Zen Buddhism and some improv texts – being in the moment, reacting honestly, and I really do feel that they do know what they are talking about. Just not for me, is all I'm saying.

That having been said, I do have a beef with meditation as a way to warm up before improv. I was in an improv troupe that did pursue quiet meditation, stretching, yoga and other things which I'm sure have names, but I would probably end just calling “that thing where we did the one thing”. Now, I know that one data point does not make a pattern, but I would say that my experience from that group tells me that meditation as warm up may not be the best choice. What are warm ups intended to do? Establish group mind, get energy up, get the mind working, get the players listening – these are all good reasons. Meditation, doesn't appear to do those things. This group would dutifully follow the whole routine, spending 15-20 minutes clearing the mind and whatnot, and then get up on stage and yell at and ignore each other.

I can see the benefit of the meditative approach: spending some time focusing on yourself, the environment, the other player (not necessarily in that order) before you muddle the whole thing up with words. Really paying attention to things, instead of just waiting for your chance to talk, sure, I can get behind all of that. My point is that I have seen much better work come out of a group that has taken the time to focus on the group at the start of a practice with “zip, zap, zop” (which focuses on energy, listening, and responding quickly) or a pattern game (focus, listening, paying attention) that I have with silent solo meditation. There has been a lot of talk from a number of different people who are all saying the same thing, that we must first take care of ourselves, but improv still is a team sport, and we need to still pay some focus to our fellows on stage. Even the meditative approach to scene starting (what my friend calls the “shut the fuck up” method) is about tuning in to what is going on with you and your scene partner.

This whole approach goes back to those very Zen like principles of quieting the mind so you can a) turn of your internal policeman that criticizes and second guesses your instinctual reactions and b) really listening. Ultimately though, a warm up regimen must be selected that fits your groups personal style and benefits them, and if meditation isn't doing it for you (as in getting you do all the good things you should be striving for), then you've gotta try something new.

Drink the Electric Kool Aid

I’m currently reading a book called “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test”, by Tom Wolfe, and I feel it’s a happy coincidence that I’m reading it on the tail end of reading “Lamb or The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal”. (It should probably be noted at this point that I am, in fact, a heathen.) I say happy coincidence, because the two texts echo each other in the search for a certain divine thread that holds the whole of life in the universe together. “Electric” is all about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, who, during the sixties were at the forefront of the psychotropic movement. They lived in a little communal in La Honda, CA and spent their time doing extraordinary amounts of LSD, DMT (DMT is extreme psychotropic by anyone’s standards. To reference the book, LSD is like “taking a long journey”, whereas DMT is like “being shot out of a cannon), amphetamines, weed, and any other pharmaceutical they could get their hands on and chanting, meditating, and being their way to some sort of consciousness. “Lamb” on the other hand, is a comical telling of the 18 years in Christ’s life that are left out of the Bible, as seen by his best friend, Biff. Christ makes his way through Afghanistan, China, and India, talking to various holy and spiritual men trying to understand the nature of being. Whereas the Pranksters would have probably just taken some acid spiked O.J., Christ explores it through meditation.

Now, I say again happy coincidence because both books are concerned with the concept of breaking through our own mental, physical, and metaphysical barriers that limit our view of the world and make us petty, spiteful, greedy creatures and trying to push beyond into a grand consciousness. Certainly Christ wasn’t interested in improv games, but the Merry Pranksters constantly pushed each other over the limits, trying to achieve in-the-moment-ness and group mind. They would even play “ball games” (as in passing focus by passing a ball and trying to keep the game constantly going so that everyone was always on their toes) and free associations. It should be pointed out that Del Close was known to be a heavy experimenter with drugs (notably Heroin and Amphetamines), but that probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with his philosophy towards improv (and art in general, I suppose).

He was interested in psychotropics as a road towards opening the mind – unlock that brain with some drugs, and watch the grand splendor of the doors of perception being whipped open with the force of unimpeded imagination flowing forth like a typhoon (think about that metaphor, drug heads). It’s worth noting too, that around the same time the Merry Pranksters were gliding around the forests in Nor Cal drugged out of their gourds humming to each other, Del was less than an hour away in San Francisco formulating the basis of his entire approach to improv. (That most of the acting “elders” at the time resisted his arguably new approach exactly mirrors the same thing Kesey et al were going through should also come as no surprise.) I’m now not sure who developed the ideas first, because they expounded the same basic philosophy: group mind, treat your fellows with respect, honor their ideas, live in the moment, be emotionally open, and don’t apologize for a character being who he is. (Can’t find any mention of Kesey ever knowing Close, so I’m forced to draw this radical new thread on my own.)

(I do want to point out that I don’t propose drug use as a method to unlock your improv potential; quite the contrary – other than some sporadic (though occasionally heavy and sporadic) pot use, I find that the majority of improvisers are quite clean cut.)

One of the sections I liked quite a lot has to do with what the improvisers all call “living in the moment”. This is important because this concept echoes through Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and what athletes call “the Zone”. Kesey explains that the fastest someone can hope to react is 1/30 of a second, and even then only if they are running at their utmost potential. Even with someone reacting as fast as possible, we’re still reacting to a movie of what went on in front of us 1/30 of a second ago. I list this as important because since leaving Chicago, I can’t recall a single person talking about living in the moment, and not planning ahead; something that was drilled into us constantly. (I also haven’t heard anyone use the idea of “group mind”, but this may be just because I’m out in the hinterlands now.)

And here, dear intrepid explorers of the mind, is where I bring it back to improvisation. We’re working on a game right now called Good Advice, Bad Advice (some Monkeys may recognize it better as the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, with the primary difference being the addition of a characterization to each seat). Game works like this: people from the audience ask questions, a panel of experts in turn gives them back good, bad, and worst advice to the question. I say working on this game, because I have yet to see it consistently work. Even a small, decidedly unscientific poll among my improv friends have turned up but 3 recallable instances of even one seat working. The problem, I feel, is in the moment. This game suffers from affording players too much time to think. This game (especially with the addition of characters) slugs along, with each seat trying to come up with something funny to say. When it’s played, these people are way behind the 1/30 of second mark. They’re, like, living in yesterday (man). I feel like most of the scenes I watch that don’t function right is because the scene isn’t moving along fast enough to keep the improvisers engrossed (or maybe their drug addled brains are wandering off), so they start thinking. And thinking. And planning ahead. And reacting slower, and slower.

Now I can’t quite get completely behind the Pranksters in everything they were expounding (their commune sounds like living in a gulag, only with fewer functioning toilets), but I’ve got to feel like they were on to something. (It may also hurt improv that most improvisers are of the “analytical” type, nearly the exact opposite of the Pranksters.) But like fictional Christ learning Kung-Fu, I’ve got to feel like that mysterious improv current is out there, and you just have to tap into it and let it make you move at the speed of life (man).

And if you want, I know a guy.