Dare greatly and improvise

"I have a confession, Dr. Hair!"

"Your broken legs make me love you more!"

"I love you so much; I'm breaking my legs, too!"

These are some odd lines I said on my quest to learn improv. In an eight-week class, I learned how to at least be competent at improv. Hopefully, I can help any scene. I enjoyed it quite a bit and realize that I love pushing myself outside my "comfort" zone. Why not?

I must give shoutouts to my instructor, Richard Martinez, and Darren Held, the head of the improv studio at Held2gether in Long Beach. They enjoy what they do, are extremely experienced and helped me understand what we're going for. I will certainly give them a plug: If you are in Southern California and want to try improv, I highly recommend Held2gether.

Improv is all about establishing what the heck the audience is looking at, building on that and then bringing BIG emotion and a BIG scene. Strangely, things clicked when my soulmate, Dina, gave me a printout of improv tips. Now, my instructor Richard had been saying this all along, but for whatever reason, by seeing the printout, I really got it.

The main things that helped me take a major step forward in improv were: 1) Stop going for the joke, bro. The humor in improv comes through the relationship and scenario, and 2) Don't talk so much, bro. Well, that actually is an issue in all facets of my life. Why can't I be more like my tightlipped Grandpa Stevens? Use necessary words. Make those count. Right?

But, really, the main story from my improv class was Dina. Damn, girl, she is an improv maestro. She really knows what she's doing. She's got a zillion characters, helps create unique and big scenes. She's also got some experience.

I passed Level 1, so I have the go-ahead for Level 2. Unfortunately, that falls on a day with parenting duties, and so, I cannot take it right now. But I am demanding that Dina sticks with it because she is so good at it. I am considering taking a stand-up comedy class, which is a completely different animal than improv, and I'm hoping that is fun as well.

The big takeaway is that it feels great to do something new and creative. Music, theater, writing, dance, visual art — I love this stuff. It turns out that artistic creativity is a skill and not a "talent." Sadly, the value of artistic growth is rarely stressed. I repeatedly see students, parents and educators discount the importance of the arts because they believe the main role for education is a career path and often find artistic endeavors not worthwhile.

I highly recommend "The Creative Habit" by Twyla Tharp, the famous choreographer. She explains how creative people are not inspired by the heavens or struck with some sort of genius. Rather, they establish routines with creativity in them, and they work daily to build on their skills.

The theme that creativity can be learned and developed is seen in repeated books. "Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin and even "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, which has a stretch on the 10,000 Hour Rule, come to mind. Unfortunately, at an early age, a lot of children are given the message that they either have "it" or they don't have "it."

It's a shame that message is given to kids, and that message also is mentioned in Brene Brown's book "Daring Greatly," where she focuses on the importance of vulnerability in leadership and in life. Perhaps due to many artists' insecure self-images, creative shaming — saying things like "you'll never be an actor" or "you just can't draw" — is common. Then, because the arts just isn't often valued in the U.S. of A., they walk away with that wrong and simplistic idea, and then they might never take the time to explore their arts side.

Apple has that omnipotent phrase "Think different." Might that phrase enable passivity? I say: "Do something different." Why not?