The Four Basic Yen Techniques are a deeper exploration of an improv concept that Iâve heard described with many metaphors by many teachers. Here are the ones I remember:
What a lovely metaphor! I think this one is great if an improv group is having an issue where theyâre jumping ahead to the funny before theyâve established enough ideas to sustain the whole show. Having to go scavenge more wood when your fire is already burning is no fun! And trying to keep a fire going when youâre out of wood is even less fun.
This is straight out of my favorite improv book, Pirate Robot Ninja: An Improv Fable, so Iâll let Hines and Merritt explain:
Pirate Teacher says, âThink of an improv scene as a pyramid with just two levels.â
And with that, a pyramid appears in the middle of the hall. It is made of ancient stone. It indeed has two levels.
Pirate Teacher continues, âThe bottom level is YES AND. In this level are all your improv fundamentals: saying yes, being affected, being specific, accepting gifts, philosophizing. Itâs got everything you learn in your first improv class.â
You look at the bottom level and see etched into the brick the images of various characters, feeling different emotions, sitting in different locations. There are good specifics in there, too. Like a garden full of petunias.
Robot Teacher continues, âNow, on top of that is a second level to the pyramid, and weâll call that THE GAME. This level is made up of unusual things, and patterns, and heightening moves. Itâs absurd and fun.â
You look at the top level and see characters with pronounced emotions, and lots of strange juxtapositions. Like, there is a nun tearing apart a hotel room in anger because she didnât get a mint on her pillow. Fun, crazy stuff.
This one comes from my old coach, Jim Karwisch. Itâs beautifully simple.
If your show feels restrictive, expand. If it feels scattered, contract.
Expanding means introducing new ideas, characters, etc. Contracting means using and combining what you already have.
I love how actionable it is. Itâs handy when improv advice can be reduced to a word you shout inside your head during a show. We started the show with two scenes about the same lawyer whoâs a dog in disguise? Expand! Uh oh, only three minutes left in your 16 person grad show with fifty loose ends? Contract! Contract!
These metaphors get at two insights. The first is that introducing new ideas and being funny are separate steps, and if you and your scene partner arenât on the same page about which one youâre doing right now, youâre gonna have a bad time. The second is that, for a given scene or show, thereâs an optimal amount of âstuffâ that the improvisers should introduce. Too much, and thereâs no time to use it. Not enough, and the well runs dry before the lights go out. The âPyramid of Prioritiesâ examines this at the scene-level, âExpand and Contractâ looks at it at the show-level, and âFuel and Fireâ works for both.
What I would like to explore further, through the lens of Yen, is how this concept works at the personal level. Beyond asking how many ideas a scene needs, or how many ideas a show can handleâ how much can you handle?
What does it take to cross that gap from the one-off three-minute scenes in class, to the twenty-minute six-person set, to the forty-minute âTJ and Daveâ two-prov show?
Hunter X Hunter, as a work, is unusually rigorous about separating gathering fuel from burning it. A common rhythm in modern storytelling is to constantly introduce and resolve new plot lines, back and forth, overlapping. Togashi doesnât do that. He introduces a staggering amount of information up front, with sometimes frustratingly little action, then delivers the payoff in a torrent. His ability to keep so many plates spinning at a time is representative of a huge Yen capacity.
My biggest criticism of every improv training program is, they skip the basics. Tons of students end up in classes about âthe game of the scene,â or are learning lots of different forms, before they can consistently establish a who-what-where when they step on stage.
I ainât mad. You can always re-take a class, I guess, if youâve got the money, though students seldom do and teachers seldom encourage it. But if you wanna keep the kids hooked, you canât drill them with listening exercises for sixteen weeks even if that is what it would take. You gotta teach them the secret to comedy. You gotta explain how the magic they saw at that Friday night âCagematchâ show was done. If you donât, theyâll find a theater who will!
But Iâm here to tell you, those sixteen weeks of listening exercises is what it takes. A hundred weeks! What separates those improvisers who do a solid show almost every time from the rest? It isnât that they know a million forms, or even that they can spot a âgameâ from a mile away. Itâs that they do the absolute basics, correctly, automatically, every time. They feel it in their bones when a scene is missing something fundamental, and they act without thinking to correct it.
Maybe thatâs you! But if itâs not, it can be. Nay, it will be! And the journey is half the fun.
One of improvâs great joys is that even something as simple as âlisteningâ is rife with nuance. Enough nuance that âimprov listeningâ is itâs own whole thing, the first and most important Yen Technique: Ten.