Metacognition and improv: how to use your monitoring brain in a scene

WEBVTT

:: 00:14

There's a phrase, a piece of advice out there that probably every improviser or a whole lot of us have heard.

:: 00:22

Get out of your head.

:: 00:23

It's like a goal.

:: 00:25

Coaches say it, books say it, teachers say it, your Steam partners might say it after a rough set.

:: 00:30

I did a whole episode on it that I'll link in the show notes.

:: 00:34

And this advice makes sense, but it skips over something that might be kinda useful.

:: 00:41

Uh something that we love to discuss on this show.

:: 00:44

What is your brain actually doing when you're in a scene?

:: 00:48

During the 2026 Winter Olympics, freestyle skier Eileen Goo did a series of interviews that went kind of viral.

:: 00:56

And in one of them, a reporter asked her.

:: 00:59

Do you think before you speak?

:: 01:01

And it it it went on from there.

:: 01:04

She wasn't being rude, this reporter.

:: 01:07

She was

:: 01:08

asking how Eileen's brain worked.

:: 01:10

And Eileen didn't brush it off.

:: 01:12

She gave a detailed breakdown of how she monitors her own thinking, and it was amazing.

:: 01:18

She described herself as someone who spends a lot of time in her own head analyzing how she thinks, and that she views this as a skill that she's built on purpose.

:: 01:31

And I'll put a link to that response in the show notes.

:: 01:35

And what Eileen was describing is something that's called metacognition.

:: 01:40

It's thinking about your thinking.

:: 01:42

And metacognition is very relevant to improv.

:: 01:49

I'm Jen Haan and this is your improv.

:: 01:51

brain where I break down improv concepts often through a neurodivergent lens and give you exercises to practice with a SIM partner or solo

:: 02:04

So let's talk about this concept.

:: 02:07

Metacognition means that you have the ability to observe your own brain while it's working.

:: 02:13

And in improv this happens constantly, all the time, right?

:: 02:17

You're in a scene and part of your brain is doing the scene, like you're listening, you're responding, you're

:: 02:23

Building that base reality.

:: 02:25

And another part of your brain is kind of like watching the scene or monitoring

:: 02:31

And that part might be saying things like, hey, this scene is going well.

:: 02:35

I'm hilarious.

:: 02:36

Or I have no idea where this is going.

:: 02:39

Or I should have said something different back there.

:: 02:42

Or

:: 02:44

what's the game or what's my character's deal?

:: 02:48

And that second channel in your brain, that watching monitoring part

:: 02:53

is often just on.

:: 02:56

Like, and it's hard to turn that off.

:: 02:58

And so the the get out of your head, that's about turning that part off, which is

:: 03:05

why the advice can kind of make things worse or make things seem worse.

:: 03:10

You hear that and then you might be monitoring whether you're monitoring the scene.

:: 03:16

And so that just

:: 03:17

adds another layer of complexity.

:: 03:19

It's kind of like brain improv brainception.

:: 03:22

It's kind of like that.

:: 03:24

So the goal is to make that monitoring channel either useful or kind of

:: 03:30

automated kind of put it on autopilot instead of like working against you.

:: 03:36

I learned this

:: 03:38

partly in dance fitness, sort of how this felt.

:: 03:41

It was the one thing that happened that really made me make that connection between improv and teaching dance fitness.

:: 03:49

Because dance fitness, you're

:: 03:50

thinking about the uh the choreo and you're thinking about the class and you're thinking about the music and you're thinking about safety and you're thinking about all these different things.

:: 04:01

And some things you can put on autopilot and other things you don't.

:: 04:05

So this is sort of similar in improv.

:: 04:09

It's what you put on autopilot that

:: 04:12

is getting out of your head, getting out of your way.

:: 04:16

So there are different ways to think about this.

:: 04:19

And the way I like to think about it is can we get parts of our brain to either speed up or automate

:: 04:25

but they're still technically there.

:: 04:28

Because most of the thinking that we want to do about these things is after the scene or the set.

:: 04:34

And we want to analyze how we use them, that's how we get better at improv.

:: 04:39

So let's get into that.

:: 04:40

So let's talk about what makes these things useful versus not useful or unhelpful.

:: 04:47

Useful self-monitoring sounds like noticing.

:: 04:51

Like my scene partner just shifted their energy.

:: 04:54

Something kind of changed.

:: 04:56

Or I'm talking a lot.

:: 04:58

I should give my scene partner more space.

:: 05:00

Or maybe this scene is about status now, so I can heighten that.

:: 05:05

So these observations, they feed directly back into the scene.

:: 05:09

You're noticing something and then it informs your next

:: 05:13

move and over time this is just gonna start happening kind of automated it just keeps the scene moving it keeps you moving it keeps

:: 05:22

your brain moving and that's sort of the autopilot part or the the part that you want to speed up so it's somewhat automated so you don't have to think about that that's getting out of your head

:: 05:33

Now unhelpful, the self-monitoring, that sort of sounds like evaluating, like that was a bad choice, or the the audience isn't laughing, or

:: 05:43

I'm gonna mess this up or what should I do next?

:: 05:45

Those sort of things.

:: 05:46

These are pulling you out of the scene and into your self, not your character, because they're not about you, they're not about your performance.

:: 05:56

they're your fear, they're your anxiety, they're your evaluation muscle.

:: 06:02

So they don't give you anything to really act on 'cause it's really hard to like, I'm gonna mess this up, okay, I'm not like that's not gonna help you during the scene.

:: 06:11

So they're just taking up like cognitive resources, brain power, and that sort of stops you.

:: 06:17

It's very stopping and halting.

:: 06:19

So that's the part that we might want to reduce or get rid of

:: 06:24

And this difference sort of matters because both of these things feel like being in your head, but one of those things can make you a better scene partner.

:: 06:34

It can keep you moving.

:: 06:35

It leads to autopilot, quicker moves, and the other thing doesn't.

:: 06:39

It sort of makes you stop.

:: 06:42

So let's look at neurodivergent brains.

:: 06:45

and your nervous system so for neurodivergent brains that monitoring channel can run pretty loud

:: 06:54

So we have a lot of extra neurons and synapses in some regions of the brain related to this.

:: 07:00

So if you experience things like hypervigilance or anxiety or a a nervous system that's just scanning for social threats.

:: 07:08

Your monitoring channel might default to this evaluation mode, or it might be like really loud in your head because it's looking for risk.

:: 07:18

It's looking for rejection or embarrassment or getting it wrong or being too much because we've been told that so much, right?

:: 07:26

So until you can sort of let that go, it's really hard to get out of your head

:: 07:32

But until then, this is oftentimes a nervous system response.

:: 07:36

Your brain is doing what it was designed to do under a sort of perceived threat, which is maybe

:: 07:43

an audience looking at you or the social of your team or something, you're you're watching for these problems.

:: 07:50

So the issue is that a scene isn't

:: 07:54

actually dangerous.

:: 07:55

But your nervous system might not know that.

:: 07:59

It's still scanning for social things, even though you might not need to really think about those social things when you are all characters, for example.

:: 08:08

And this is especially true if you've had experiences in improv or elsewhere, things that are like improv that have taught you that system needs to stay alert at all times.

:: 08:20

And when you regulate your nervous system, doing whatever works for you, and I'll discuss this more in other episodes, that regulating can help sort of this monitoring channel shift from

:: 08:32

The scanning threats to just maybe noticing them, which is a lot quicker and less loud, less noisy.

:: 08:39

So it's the same sort of channel, but it's uh different speed.

:: 08:43

You're still self-aware.

:: 08:45

You're still maybe watching a bit, but you're watching for things that are say interesting.

:: 08:50

You're being curious

:: 08:52

instead of always looking for what's wrong or being critical.

:: 08:59

So let's get into some exercises that can help you with these things.

:: 09:03

These exercises are going to help you practice the act of self-monitoring.

:: 09:09

You're going to notice things about yourself.

:: 09:12

in relation to your scene partner or your own brain.

:: 09:15

And your goal here is to give the monitoring channel like a really constructive job to do during the scene.

:: 09:23

Something that sort of makes noticing more of an active skill than sort of telling on yourself or your students to just stop thinking because that's just a really hard thing to say and then

:: 09:34

Do right.

:: 09:35

So let's call this one ground my brain.

:: 09:38

This exercise is going to help you notice when you get into your head or otherwise like lose attention.

:: 09:45

And it's going to help you come back.

:: 09:47

Into the scene actively.

:: 09:49

And there's lots of versions of this one out there in the improv spaces.

:: 09:53

This is just one version.

:: 09:55

So you might have done something like this with someone before.

:: 09:58

And they all work, whichever one you do.

:: 10:01

So two players up.

:: 10:04

Player one is going to talk uninterrupted for uh two to three minutes, like let's give a big chunk of time here, about something that they're genuinely passionate about.

:: 10:14

So

:: 10:15

Figure out something that player one loves to talk about a lot.

:: 10:19

So it's just really easy to kind of info dump to monologue here.

:: 10:23

It can be anything.

:: 10:24

Just really info dump player one.

:: 10:27

So now player two just has to listen to that monologue, and that's it.

:: 10:33

Player two has to be honest, though.

:: 10:36

When they notice their brain drifting away from that monologue, like they're thinking about something they want to say or they're judging that story, or they're thinking about

:: 10:47

where they're going after practice or uh whatever it is their brain drifts, they have to make a physical motion.

:: 10:55

This can be anything that

:: 10:56

They can flag down their seam partner.

:: 10:58

They can wave.

:: 10:59

They can put their hands in the air.

:: 11:01

They can point a finger.

:: 11:03

Whatever it is, when they do that flagging motion, player one just has to say their name.

:: 11:09

Like a greeting.

:: 11:10

Hi Jen.

:: 11:11

And player two just says, hey, and then the monologue continues.

:: 11:16

So we're just pointing it out.

:: 11:17

And all this is doing is helping player two notice what's happening in their head

:: 11:23

in the moment, what that feels like, and brings them back into the present, brings them back into the scene.

:: 11:30

Because a lot of this is just noticing that drift.

:: 11:34

So that helps you sort of

:: 11:36

Figure out your own strategies what will bring you back into the moment.

:: 11:43

So how can you practice

:: 11:45

This is on your own.

:: 11:46

Let's get into a solo exercise.

:: 11:48

In this exercise, you're practicing noticing observations versus evaluations in your own internal commentary.

:: 11:57

So that's sort of these two different parts of your brain, the two different things that are making you in your head.

:: 12:03

In this one, you're catching yourself when you shift from, oh hey, that's interesting, something like curiosity, to that was bad.

:: 12:11

So something more judgmental and you're redirecting that.

:: 12:15

This is helping you build the habit of useful monitoring outside the pressure of performing.

:: 12:20

So you're not in a scene with other people.

:: 12:22

You don't have to worry.

:: 12:23

So this is a real low-stakes environment to practice.

:: 12:27

So you're going to choose something to watch.

:: 12:30

Think about what is your own challenge.

:: 12:33

Like what makes your brain drift a lot?

:: 12:36

How challenged are you by your own internal commentary?

:: 12:39

Ask yourself that question first.

:: 12:41

And then make a choice.

:: 12:42

So you could choose something that's not very dynamic.

:: 12:45

You could be going into nature, or you could be watching your cat, Dr.

:: 12:50

Crape, sleep in the sun on the back of the couch.

:: 12:53

Or you could choose a recorded scene from your team or a show like Taskmasters.

:: 12:59

Figure out what's your difficulty level for each thing.

:: 13:03

Start with something a little bit easier and move up, ramp up and diff.

:: 13:06

difficulty for you and this really depends on your brain so your answer is going to be different than mine.

:: 13:10

So the goal here is to just observe your internal commentary and

:: 13:15

Catch yourself.

:: 13:16

Figure out what mode you're in.

:: 13:17

Is that like a curiosity that's interesting or that sucks?

:: 13:21

Curiosity versus judgment.

:: 13:23

And you could also run one kind of like the exercise I just mentioned, when you're focusing on what's happening, what you're learning about whatever you're watching.

:: 13:33

versus catching yourself thinking about something else.

:: 13:35

So if you're like me, this can be really hard.

:: 13:38

My brain drifts all the time, ADHD.

:: 13:42

So you can even create a scorecard if you want.

:: 13:44

See how many time your brain drifts during a 30-minute show, for example.

:: 13:48

This might want to make you cry.

:: 13:52

Um another one you can do, uh it's inspired by a Will Hines exercise.

:: 13:57

It's l letting go of like planning a scene.

:: 14:00

This is where

:: 14:02

Two scene partners, uh, they start a scene, and it that scene starts with like a full minute of silence

:: 14:09

And they can only start the scene when their brain has exhausted all the thoughts that they have for starting that scene.

:: 14:15

So they're standing there.

:: 14:17

And you need to get rid of that thing where you're just planning your move, right, before you make it

:: 14:24

So if you want to do that one solo, you could set a timer and see how long it takes for your brain to just exhaust itself.

:: 14:34

So you're gonna start a monologue, say, and you don't know what that monologue's about.

:: 14:39

Give yourself a word and then set a timer and see when your brain just stops trying to think.

:: 14:47

Is it 60 seconds?

:: 14:49

Is it 90 seconds?

:: 14:50

Is it like six minutes?

:: 14:52

Just see how long that is for you.

:: 14:55

You can practice that one on your own.

:: 14:57

That's all I have for this one.

:: 14:58

I'm Jen Haan, and this is your improv brain.

:: 15:00

Thanks for listening.

:: 15:03

Bye for now.