Hey improvisers,

Okay, here’s something I figured out about myself pretty late. Every time a teacher said “make eye contact with your partner” I’d nod along and think yep, that’s me, I do that one, yup sure yeah.

Then at some point I actually paid attention to what I was doing and it turned out I was watching the other person. Watching how they listened to me, specifically… their face, say, and the small shifts in how they were holding themselves that told me how the thing I just said had worked or whatnot, what was happening. I’d been filing all of it under “eye contact” for years, mostly because that’s the word everyone kept saying and sure I was looking at them... my eyes were pointed roughly in that direction, close enough, so I called it eye contact and moved on. (Possibly a very literal interpretation of the instruction on my part? I dunno. Feels on brand for me I guess.)

The thing Good Improv(tm) actually wants from you in that moment is connection. Eye contact is one option for getting there, and for a lot of people it’s a great one, online or off. Teachers push it really hard, so hard that it can start to sound like the only option and if you don't jump on to eye contact you're just gonna get left behind, ya improv luddite. There are plenty of ways to connect though, and eye contact is one of them and you don't gotta do it.

For a lot of neurodivergent folx, eye contact can be genuinely uncomfortable, sometimes to the point where it’s hard to think through at the same time. If you’re spending a big chunk of your energy on holding eye contact because you’re “supposed to,” that’s energy you’re not putting into your partner, or into your own next impulse. So advice that’s meant to build connection can sometimes get in the way of it, and certainly leave you really drained by the end of the show.

So what do you do instead of forcing it? You get curious about how your own brain connects, and that curiosity is the actual practice. Mostly it’s observation, tho. Watch how you connect with the people you already feel easy and relaxed with. Notice how you listen when you’re really listening, and what your eyes and the rest of you are doing while it happens. For me, it turned out I lean really hard on watching the other person listen to me, and I use it to gauge how to keep going, or whether to push or pull back. From the outside it probably looked like eye contact but for my brain it was a way of just reading my partner in the moment and reacting to whatever was going down (even if sometimes I still didn't know... but that's what we get to make up! And is why inside the scene is often easier than outside the scene...).

When you know how you connect, you can do it on purpose, and you can drop the version(s) that were draining you for no Improv Gain(tm).

Online makes all of this easier to spot, too. Online improv is great. Eye contact is possible on camera (you can look at the lens, or at your partner’s eyes on the screen, often just a shade below the camera works best anyway), and it’s also very easy to skip there, and you should NEVER expect it of yourself online anyway. There are loads of ways to practise and perform with no cameras at all too (like improvised podcasts, yall). If your brain connects better through voice, or you just like words, or it connects well by catching someone in your peripheral vision, that’s real connection too and in improv (like life) we can use whatever works. More on that, next! (segues! foreshadowing! da da daaaaaaaaa)

New Group Program: Off Script

I’m running a new group coaching program called Off Script that works on exactly this kind of thing above... connection and being present with another person, using applied improv and then taking it off the improv stage and into the rest of your life.

It’s small and virtual, and I build it to be neuroinclusive from the start (for example cameras off totally fine whenever you need, which feels pretty relevant after everything I just said!).

If you're an improviser this can help your improv practice (understand how it connects to your life, which is a good improv skill to build), and it is designed to help around growth in that part of your life too.

Each session is 2 hours long, on Zoom. The first session starts in July, and for now they are $25 each, or $20 each if you sign up for 3 or more.

• July theme: Listening and Building (Wednesday July 15, 5pm PT)
• August theme: Noticing and Recovering (Wednesday August 19, 5pm PT)
• September theme: Spontaneity and Co-Creation (Wednesday Sept 16, 5pm PT)

Info, Sign Up, More: You can see what's up at jendehaan.com/offscript. Group agreements and code of conduct linked on that page too, and you can find even more details at this page. This is brand new, so send me a message if you have any questions or notice something I missed.

New Show: Wired Divergent

For yall who identify as neurodivergent, what I talk a lot about on Your Improv Brain, I have a new show out on YouTube called Wired Divergent (which also launches on all the podcast apps this coming Tuesday - you can subscribe today and get 6 episodes on launch day).

This is a solo show about nervous system regulation for neurodivergent brains (useful for our scenes!). This is the stuff most regulation advice skips because it assumes a neurotypical baseline a lot of us don’t have. Wild how often that has been true as I go through my new certifications in this! This show gets into functional freeze, autistic burnout, sensory overload, ADHD paralysis, masking, and the shame and lost self-trust that is often underneath all of it, plus the somatic and other regulation tools that actually do something if and when your brain is wired like this.

YouTube and the podcast will have a couple educational and strategy episodes each week, and the podcast will have a weekly follow-along practice episode too.

A couple of episodes are already up on YouTube, and Tuesday it goes live everywhere else you get podcasts. The show's page is at jendehaan.com/wired-divergent if you want to check it out.

Here is this week's first episode, and there are more on the youtube channel.

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See ya, Jen.