Gerry Thompsons's story of comedy and personal development with Positive Comedy Training

Comedy and Personal Development: my story

by Gerry Thompson

Everyone knows that humour is a great healer and laughter the best medicine; carrying this principle one step further, I've spent much of my life exploring the potential of comedy as a do-it-yourself means of personal development.

When I was young, I suffered horribly from other children laughing at me. You know what kids are like - any hint of weakness, vulnerability or anything out of the ordinary is up for mockery. This is all fairly normal, but I was particularly sensitive about it and went through a lot of anguish over it. After some years, though, something different began to happen. Aware that people would laugh at me when I said or did anything dim or uncool, I gradually started to experiment with recreating that effect deliberately, on my own terms. I was beginning to be in charge of the process, which was a big change; people were still laughing at me, but now I was more okay about it.

After a decade or more of experimentation, I was earning a reputation as being one of those people with 'a sense of humour'. Without fully realising it, I was turning an experience of victimhood into a positive process, discovering a source of power - for humour is a highly regarded and powerful asset in our society. People who can get others laughing, it seems, are that bit more popular and more charismatic; I liked this.

Nowadays, the question I'm most often asked is, "But can everyone be funny?" - usually meaning: "...even me?" Our society seems to believe that only a chosen few truly have the gift. I don't accept this, and my experience in this field consistently back me up. I believe that the gift of humour and comedy is universal, part of the natural apparatus with which humans are born, and which everyone is able to develop further if they wish. Furthermore I'm convinced that absolutely everybody can express their humour in a way that is a little bit unique to them. The problem has arisen because some people may not be using that humourous potential, or maybe it's blocked, or perhaps someone once told them that they're just not funny. It certainly doesn't help when society drops the habit of entertaining itself, and mostly leaves it to celebrities on stage or telly. Everyone can indeed be funny; and I believe the trick of it is to be yourself; but I'll return to that presently. And anyway, there's much more at stake here than just being able to make people laugh, as we shall see.

In the nineties, comedy was hailed as 'the new rock-and-roll'; and since then it has continued to occupy an increasingly powerful presence in entertainment and the media. Stand-up comedians are regarded as demi-gods, adulated for their ability not only to be funny but to do it in circumstances which most people consider more scary than being naked in public. But I reckon we're now coming into the next phase of this development, when many people are ready to reclaim some of this and have a go for themselves. Something parallel is happening in the field of artistic creativity with Julia Cameron's phenomenally successful work with "The Artist's Way".
But the work that I'm concerned with isn't just for people who want to be comedians or want to be funnier; something much more profound and valuable is available here. It's really about personal transformation - becoming more confident, more creative and inventive, more spontaneous; it's about being less nervous, less stressed, less fearful of meeting life's experiences and taking risks; it's really about being ourselves more, with all that this can bring. These are skills for life and not just for performance.

Comedy improvisation is the key factor in this work, the magical catalyst that fuels this powerful alchemy of comedy and self-development. Improvisation simply means making stuff up as you go along - not knowing what's going to happen next; it's an extraordinary tool. Yet improvising is what we all do every day as we go about our lives. There isn't a script - we respond to each moment, even though we may have principles and strategies to guide our overall progress. We're constantly dealing with the unexpected, because most of what happens around us cannot be anticipated. So we do improvisation quite naturally. Furthermore we were all children once, and we knew very well how to play-act, to accept a role and dive into it whole-heartedly, believe in it totally and live it fully, then cast it aside and take up another without batting an eyelid. And that was a fantastic way of learning and evolving for us. We all still have that inner child somewhere inside us - even if we're now ninety-five.

Now some very interesting things happen when we go into this mode of improvisational play-acting, spontaneously creating bits of life - speeches, dialogue, events, interactions or whatever. For a start, we're obliged to reside more in the present moment, because we don't really know what's going to happen next. We don't know what we're going to come up with by ourselves, and if we're improvising with someone else we're constantly having to let go of our own ideas of what should happen, because the other person has just taken things in another direction. There's a lot of letting go and going with the flow.

Being able to be in the moment, as nearly all spiritual traditions agree, is crucial to our awareness, effectiveness, our progress and evolution. The greater part of our suffering in life comes from not doing so - we worry about things that we think are going to happen, or that could happen if things continue the way they're currently going or indeed get worse; and most of the time what we fear won't turn out that way. Or else we dwell on things in the past that we can do nothing about. Or we do both. But the present is the important time, even when we're planning for the future or resolving issues from the past; that's where the point of power is. Improvisation provides extremely valuable practice in the art of being right in the present moment.
In unselfconscious improvisational mode we also tend to be more true to ourselves; when dealing with the unexpected from someone else or when 'winging it' on our own, we tend to fall back on our own natural responses and individual, quirky ways of expressing ourselves. And if we're fully preoccupied with the process, living it fully, we rely less heavily on imitating other people. We also become more creative, more able to come up with imaginative stuff. The reality is that we each have within us an infinite, inexhaustible and instantly accessible reservoir of such ideas and possibilities.

People who are new to improvisation are always surprised by this phenomenon at first. It's not about doing anything special; it's more to do with stopping doing something else - getting certain obstacles out of the way. If we can enter into the process fully enough to drop our habit of judging and comparing ourselves - to stop wondering with a separate part of our minds whether we're performing well or being funny or clever, or better than someone else, or whether we're failing or looking stupid or being ridiculous - then we can leave off these limiting habits. The magical thing is that comedy can then arise naturally and organically, without particularly trying - comedy and humour, and wonderful moments of poignant drama, compelling and authentic stories, revelations of the extraordinariness of the human organism. People think that this should be incredibly scary, but it isn't. It's not a trial by fire, putting somebody on the spot and saying "Now make us laugh". That's where the use of particular exercises and routines comes in; they create circumstances in which we're too preoccupied to keep up the detached voices of judgment and self-conscious criticism.

So following certain simple guidelines, and stopping doing the things that get in the way, creative improvisation is actually very easy. Gradually eased into it, we suddenly notice that we're making up comedy and drama out of nothing, on the spur of the moment, in a variety of formats - an observational stand-up mini-routine perhaps, or a surreal monologue, a spontaneous double-act number or a strange but interesting sketch with others. And we may well be complete beginners. We know we're pushing back our boundaries, but it isn't so terribly scary; in fact it's quite a buzz - exhilarating and liberating, and potentially quite addictive.

As soon as we realise we can do this sort of thing, it's going to revolutionise our way of being in the world. We'll naturally be more confident, more effective and engaging, more comfortable in presenting ourselves and in handling emotions, and more trusting of our capacity to deal with the unexpected in life - more trusting of ourselves. Through practicing group improvisation we can also become more comfortable in interacting with others, more effective at communication, and better at co-operation and teamwork. I believe it's very profound stuff; being able to be your true self more of the time has got to be an improvement. It's all practice for life. It's also fun - and we all learn and develop more quickly when we're having fun.

As for me, I've certainly found the path of comedy improvisation to be transformative. I haven't turned into an out-and-out extrovert -I still honour the part of me that is shy and vulnerable; but that old wound seems to have been healed. I've extended my personal comfort zone, and I can now thoroughly enjoy the thrill of a thousand people watching me, listening and sometimes laughing as well - , without being entirely sure what's going to happen next. Best of all, though, I spend more time being me.

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