You are Perfect Just As You Are

You are Perfect Just As You Are

In a good improv class you can discover a new sense of confidence.  This happens over time as you and your classmates experiment doing things, creating stuff, making mistakes, picking each other up and moving forward together.  What begins to happen is a growing understanding that you are okay.  This is an ordinary okay.  Playing games together brings out the body knowledge that when the chips are down you have what is needed.  John Tarrant’s said it perfectly:  “What if you already have what you need?”  Experiencing this truth is fundamental to an improv education.  

When we begin to succeed at solving problems on the fly, when we discover that a useful word emerges when you need it we begin to develop “reality confidence”—that is, we discover that we can rely on the world around us.  I learn that when I merge my intelligence with all the incoming data and offers to solve a problem or come up with a useful idea.  Improvising when the stakes are low (in a class, for example) creates confidence in our ability to act “in the real world.”

Beyond the discovery that we can act “on the fly” is the body knowledge that there is always something to work with.  Each of us has a light within.  The Japanese poet Linji said it well with this koan:

  

There is a solitary brightness without a fixed shape or form

It knows how to listen to the teachings.

It knows how to understand the teachings.

It knows how to teach.

That solitary brightness is you.

That “solitary brightness is you.”   Shine your light.  No one else can. Trust the light. You are perfect just as you are.