Next week is Thanksgiving, which makes me think of gratitude… and turkey, and pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce, and stuffing. But mostly gratitude.

I used to hate when people would use that word. I thought it was some New Age bullshit or Oprah-speak.

And I certainly didn't think having gratitude was attainable, and if it was, I was not interested in having any of it.

But the older and wiser I have become, the more I have realized that having gratitude is attainable, and it’s also something I would like to have even more of in my life.

One thing that always helps me feel gratitude (which I have probably stolen from Oprah), is to make a gratitude list of the things I am truly grateful for: a great family, friends, a house, a career and lots of support from people all over the country.

That, to me, is gratitude 101. What’s even trickier is being grateful for where you are at right now, especially if you think you should be farther along. This is PhD program in gratitude.

Maybe you have been improvising for two years and you aren't as far long as you’d like to be. Or you decided to write a screenplay and you can't understand why it's not going faster since you have been performing comedy for 11 years. Or one of your friends got a big opportunity and their success turned your life to shit.

A few weeks ago I wrote weeks about taking a stand up class online, and I am taking it again and it's kicking my ass, in a good way. That means I am learning and trying to break old habits.

I leave each class dejected. It's frustrating. I have all of these years of improvising under my belt and I’ve put up hugely successful one-person shows, and I am struggling with a stand-up class online.

It's humbling to say the least. And after all the self-pity and beating myself up settles, I can focus on the parts that I love. I am loving the process. The writing and rewriting of jokes. Getting clarity on my voice and sensibilities. Working with a great teacher. Being in a class of people who are as passionate about comedy as I am. Reaching out to Lauren and my friends for help and support.

And realizing, in spite of what I think, I am getting better at it. Is it where I want to be? No way, not even close.

And that is where the gratitude comes in: that I have been here before, not in stand-up but with improvising, podcasting, teaching, acting and a hundred other things I can't name right now.

"Anything that is worth doing is worth doing poorly," the old saying goes. So I’m trying to be grateful for showing up and doing it poorly. The more that I focus on the gratitude the less I focus on feeling like I am a complete loser and the less I ask myself what I am doing with my life. This is called progress and I am grateful that I can see it.

And one more thing while we are on the subject of gratitude — thank you for reading this blog on a regular basis and have a great Thanksgiving. I am taking next week off, so see you in December.

There's still one day left to sign up for Jimmy's in-person workshop this Saturday! Save $20 with the code THANKS21!

If you want to get better at your art, you have to constantly stay open to learning.

This has not always come easily for me. After a couple of years of improv classes, I thought I had it all figured out. I was done with classes. I was more interested in the results than in getting better.

But a true artist (and I know plenty) never stops learning.

Today, as old as I am and as big as my ego can be at times, I am grateful that I do a pretty good job at staying opening to learning.

I would even say that learning brings me joy. And if you have been reading this blog for some time, you know joy does not come easy for me, either.

When it comes to learning, this weekend was a big deal for me. On Saturday I re-opened my one person show, “World's Greatest Dad(?),” and it went extremely well. The show and my performance keeps getting stronger because I willing to learn.

For this run, I am working with stand-up comedian Dave Maher. Dave is about 20 years younger than I am, but I wanted to work with him because he had put up a successful one-person show called “The Coma Show” about him waking up from a coma. I also like his style of comedy, so despite the age difference, I decided to give him a call.

We’ve been working together for several weeks, rehearsing and tightening the show. He is smart, funny and gives honest feedback. He’s given me writing notes, performance notes and helped me with the show’s structure. Working with him has been really fun, and I’m so grateful for all of the help. Now I just need to slow down a little and pause for the laughs a little more.

Then on Sunday, was the 8th anniversary show of Jimmy and Johnnie, and our special guest was TJ Jagodowski. I have always learned by watching TJ improvise, and I learn even faster when I am lucky enough to play with him.

TJ’s and John Hildreth's approach to improv is similar -- they can organically find a point of view for character in a scene in a matter of seconds and just heighten the shit out of it. This is something I struggle with since I am more reactive in my improv.

As an improviser, TJ always plays at the top of his character's intelligence, he always responds honestly, and he always brings a sense of playfulness to his improvisation. This can be ego-deflating or inspiring, or a little of both.

When I play with him, it can be easy to fall into the trap of comparing myself to him, but when I do that and tell myself I’m shit, I block myself from learning. Instead, I try to approach playing with TJ as if I’m in a grad school class for improv, and remember that playing with someone who is better than me can only make me better, too.

I am grateful today that I am able to keep learning from these artists and don't have to leave Chicago to do so.

Are you a seasoned improviser looking to get out of a rut? Don't miss Jimmy's Long Form Tune-Up on Oct. 14! Sign up today!

As an improviser, there's nothing worse than being in the middle of a scene and calling your scene partner by the wrong character name. Or saying that you are in Paris when it was already established you are in California. Ouch.

To be a good improviser, you need to not only listen to the last thing that was said, but you also need to improve your memory to keep all of the details of every scene straight -- something I've struggled with a lot over the years.

In this week's blog, I asked Katy Schutte -- an improviser from England and author of the new book, "The Improvisers Way: A Longform Workbook" -- to share her thoughts on how you can sharpen your memory so you can be an even better improviser.

***

Some improv students that worry their memories are not good enough to practice longform. They are concerned that character names, beats and all manner of details will fall out of their heads. The thing is, I also have a shitty memory. Yesterday I spent about four hours trying to remember the type of wool my sweater was made from. So how can I remember character names, beats, games, where things are on stage and make callbacks?

People who compete in memory competitions don’t necessarily have a greater capacity for remembering everyday things, they have just learned a lot of techniques in order to function in that context. Here are a few of my tips for how to improve your memory so you can have an awesome show on stage.

Names

Remembering names during a scene is the first and hardest memory trial in improv. I kind of buried my head in the sand about that for many years, but now I enjoy the challenge.

Here are a few ways that I’ve found useful:

Lists

Card-counters and memory nerds use visuals to remember specifics (as above). If you have a list of ten things to remember, try visualizing something that you associate with each item. This can work great for beats in a Harold. My students did a Harold show last night. The first beat was broadly about “driving,” so I pictured a car; the second was about languages so I pictured someone saying “baguette” in a speech bubble; the third was about “smugness” so I pictured a smug facial expression. I can easily remember the beats today. The games, character names, and settings all come along with those one-word beat titles.

Spaces

Use your own familiar living and working spaces as a template for improvised settings. If you’re in a bedroom on stage and you need to define a sock drawer, put it exactly where it would be in your bedroom. That’s less to think about. Equally, if you’re in a spaceship, there’s no reason you shouldn’t put stuff in the same relative places as you would at home. Instead of putting a cup in the right hand cupboard, stick your astronaut water bag and straw to the wall in the same place.

Active Remembering
Merely deciding that you will retain more information is a great way to get better. Much like active listening, active remembering means that you are consciously applying yourself to taking in more information.

Start small and add more and more information, just like beginning with short runs in order to build up to a marathon. Here are a few ways to start:

…and so on until you can play and retain all this without having to think about it too much.

In case you’re wondering... my sweater was made of Marino.

If you enjoyed this article, take a look at Katy Schutte’s improv book, shows, classes and podcasts here: katyschutte.co.uk

 

Want to give yourself a gift this holiday season? Sign up for Jimmy's Two-Person Scene Tune-Up, happening Dec. 30! Only $79 if you register by Dec. 14.