Why I Love Still Teaching Improv
On Tuesday I turned 62. (If you didn't have a chance to wish me happy birthday, you can do it the comments below.)
When you become my age, it’s very popular to get together with your friends and complain about your health. You talk about your cholesterol levels and statins and how it sucks to get old. Old friends get sick and die. That is why at my age, it is easier to look back than look forward, because the future is scary.
And as I look back, I realize that I have been teaching improv for over 33 years — more than half of my life at this point. Teaching improv is like raising a child: One day you wake up and realize that your kid is in the fourth grade, and you wonder how did the time go so fast?
Improv has changed a lot since I started, and thank God, I have changed with it — sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. When you resist change, you resist being relevant.
As I have gotten older, I learned how to make adjustments physically when I teach. I have to conserve my energy more before classes now, and sometimes I struggle to find the words that used to come so easily. But with age comes patience, wisdom, and kindness. This makes up for the natural aging process and makes me a great teacher.
But the biggest thing I have lost with age is this need to constantly prove that I am worthy —something I wish I had in my 30 and 40s, but that only comes with years of experience and a little therapy.
I suppose I could start thinking about retirement, but I love what I’m doing too much to want to quit.
The thing I still love about teaching is you are never done learning. When you think you have all the answers, you don't, and that means you are stuck.
I recently watched the Lorne Michaels documentary. Lorne Michaels is 80 years old and has been producing Saturday Night Live for 45 of the show's 50-year-run. Someone like him could be stuck in the past, but what people said is that Lorne is always focused on the next show, thinking about things like who is going to be the musical guest in two weeks. He is in the present; that’s probably why he can still do it at his age. But it’s more than that. Just like me, he’s not just doing the job because he can, but because he gets to be around these amazingly creative people working together to create something special. I get to do this every time I teach. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.