5 Ways Improv Training Will Improve Your Acting Career – Part 5: Practice on Your Own!

We discussed in our previous post (5 Ways Improv Training Will Improve Your Acting Career Part 4: Increased Imagination how Improv Training can help you literally boost, practice, and enhance your imagination.

You can Practice anytime on your own (or with friends)

This is perhaps the most liberating and exciting part of all of this. You can cultivate these incredible improv  benefits right now.

You don’t need to depend on other people. You don’t need to move to a city with an improv class. You don’t need to scrape up courage to join a big improv class. You don’t need to be anxious every class about each and every time you get up on stage.

Practicing improvisation on your own is liberating. There’s no need to wait for a scheduled class or a scene partner. You can practically do it anytime, anywhere.

You can work on your imagination right now in the safety and privacy of your own home. Let’s try it! Let get really specific by imagining you’re a farmer, and let’s make up a conversation with a prized cow.

If you’re feeling ready for a short and simple creative adventure, let’s take a moment and try it.

Solo Improv Exercise

• Try to set up for yourself a few minutes where you can talk out loud by yourself.
• Imagine with me that you’re a farmer whose income depends on milk from your cow. And let’s add that your significant other doesn’t understand a simple problem you’re having in your life. Think up something small you’re actually dealing with. Like ‘I can’t find enough time to practice drawing’ is something truthful for me I just thought about.  (you can make up the problem as well, but I like to build up to making up everything). Keep it small and simple.
• Now imagine you’re in your own barn with your cow.
• Is it a large barn? Small barn? New barn? Old barn? Make that simple choice.
• Take a moment and smell the smells of this barn. What do you smell? Hay? Manure? Milk left and hardened from yesterday’s milk pail?
• Now name your cow. Anything you want. Just make a simple choice. Now call your cow by name out loud.
• Now start telling your cow what your significant other just doesn’t understand.
• If you’re up for it, talk to your cow for 30 seconds  to a minute and see what comes out. Don’t try to do it right. Just do it. Have fun with it! Use your imagination.

If you did it, you just dove in and greatly exercised your imagination! You created an imaginary experience that you’ve probably never done before.

Even if you didn’t do it, but read through the paragraph above, I bet your imagination was working. Could you almost smell the Hay? Or Manure? Did you imagine glimpses of the barn? Or the cow?

I fully believe that improvisation training will not only improve your acting, but your life as well. I’ve seen that transformation in myself, and from countless of my improv students too. I’m truly grateful for this amazing gift of improvisation in my life! I would not trade it for anything.

Next Steps

If you want to dive into a full Improv Training course that you can do at your own pace in the safety and comfort of your own home, consider registering for our “Become an Improv Wizard” course. Go to “Become an Improv Wizard” to get started!

You will learn the basics, interediate skills, and advanced techniques all in one place.  We take you well beyond the basics of improvisation in one place. At your own pace.

Your improvisation adventure awaits!

Let this year bring you closer to your goals. Discover the magic of Improv!

In addition to story imagination, character imagination, relationship imagination, and just about any kind of imagination you can think of. What else lets you do that?!

Take Our Online Improv Class by Yourself or with a Friend

If you want to easily develop your imagination, I highly recommend you check out our Improv Online Course “Become an Improv Wizard”.  Every single one of the 11 video modules walks you through exercises, tips, and techniques to directly access, activate, and improve your imagination. And you can develop your imagination anytime, anywhere in our Online Improv Course Become an Improv Wizard.

"Become an Improv Wizard" is a PROVEN STEP-BY-STEP ONLINE IMPROV COURSE to Build CONFIDENCE, UNLEASH CREATIVITY, and BECOME FEARLESS through Improvisation

Lincoln Hoppe is an actor, writer, director, and father of 5. He is the the Co-Founder of Improv Wizards training school and Online Courses and Co-Director of the Society Comedy Troupe.