In HxH, En is a technique for expanding your Nen aura to cover a wide area, so you can sense any threats within it.
In improv, En is soft focus.
If Ten is listening, En is Ten to the max. Even with excellent Ten, youâre focusing on whatâs in front of you. Whatâs happening right now. Catching and embodying offers the moment they arrive. But what about everything else in the scene?
In HxH, Shu is the ability to strengthen an object by enshrouding it in Nen. The characters use Shu on shovels to dig faster. In improv, we famously donât have objects, so Shu is very difficult. We enshroud the void itself in Yen, and do object work.
Because our objects in improv are so fragile, we must use En to avoid disrupting them.
Your scene partner uses Shu to create a desk behind you. You turn around, and walk through it. All of the Yen used to create that desk is destroyed! Your entire scene quakes from the disruption! But with En, though the desk is invisible, though it was manifested behind your very back, you still turn around and bang your fist against it to accentuate your point.
En is about listening to everything, everywhere, all at once. Conversations happening between characters on the other side of a split-screen. Scene partners entering on the other side of the stage. An audience memberâs phone alarm going off. Someone starting to edit at the same time as you. You must sense all of it. Every falling leaf that escapes you could be a missed opportunity, an unwelcome surprise, or a crack in the reality of your scene.
En is gentle. It is not a frantic looking around, it is a gentle awareness you maintain on top of everything else. Ten is you listening from within the scene. En is listening from above the scene. A birdâs eye view you maintain with subtle glances and open ears.
En mastery grants a relaxed confidence. If something happens on your stage, youâll know. The only surprises will be welcome ones.
We donât quite have no objects in improv. We love our chairs. Hereâs how to use chairs like a Shu master:
Donât mention the chairs. One of the only things every improv scene has in it is chairs. If you do a scene about chairs, you are doing a scene that has been done thousands of times before, invalidating Improv as a means of novel expression.
Your scene partner did not âset up the chairs wrong.â They did it right and you can move on.
Your scene partner did not âset up the chairs.â They were like that when their character got there. The part where you saw somebody moving chairs was before the scene started. Your character did not see somebody moving chairs.
Donât drag the chair. Pick it up and put it down.
Move the chairs every time you change locations.
If your scene partner is setting up four chairs to do a car scene, help them.
If your chairs are set up weird, your scene is going to be weird.
Stop fucking with the chairs once the scene has started.
If you use chairs as anything besides 1) a chair, or 2) a bed, it had better be really funny.
Those Second City ones with the loopy backs really are the best. Theyâre light and easy to grab.
Donât mention the chairs.
Weâve been in pretty abstract, philosophical territory for most of this series. Iâm doing my best to blend inspiring elements from animĂ© with insights about improv. Not this time. Iâm dropping the metaphor. Stop fucking with the chairs and do the scene!