The Power of “Yes, and…!”
TAOIST-ANIMIST IMPROVISATIONAL TRAINING: “YES, AND…”
While boxing the other night, I felt a huge revelation wash over me. The tool I learned from Viola Spolin, via Lisa Wells, called “Yes, and…”, has so many intriguing and empowering applications. As soon as I began to, with my body, say “yes, and…” to every move of my partner/opponent, suddenly I acquired an overwhelming sensitivity, and stopped receiving hits. Not only that, but I landed a quite remarkable hit on a mentor of mine who said “he never even saw it coming”.
This didn’t occur because I had practiced harder, or sparred more, or psyched myself up. It happened because I applied what I knew from improvisational games to boxing, out of intense need to avoid getting clobbered. I didn’t acquire more skill, I just applied sensitivity from one area of life, to another.
This has made me realize that, in every day life, in every moment, I can either embrace by saying “yes, and…”, or I can resist with “yes, but…”, or “no, because…”, or just plain “no!”.
A TAXONOMY OF RESISTANCE
“Yes, but…” gives the impression that I’ve accepted the input of my partner (whether a boxing partner, traffic, weather, a creative project), but really it works to passive-aggressively counter it in the end. It doesn’t actually say, “Yes, and…”.
“No, because…” strives to show how reasonably I act with my resistance. Really, in all rational courtesy and right thinking, one must accept that my refusal of the world’s input makes a lot of sense! I will talk my way out of the reality of my resistance. Unfortunately, this means: in boxing I get hit, in traffic I start road raging, when writing I don’t finish projects, in relationships I build grudges., when swimming I drown, and so on. “No, because…” may fool other people, but it doesn’t fool the prevailing forces of the world. And it doesn’t make for a satisfying life.
“No!” actually comes the closest to an honest form of resistance. No apologies, or disclaimers, just outright tension and rejection. I have a lot of respect for “No!”. However, don’t confuse “No!”, with using “Yes, and…” to say the word ‘no!’ to something. For example, someone wants a schoolkid’s lunch money. To express “No!” basically means to curl up into a ball, to turn away, to shut one’s eyes. To say, “Yes, and…” by saying the word ‘no!’ means to stand up for yourself, to draw a line, to totally accept the conflict in which you stand.
CONFLICT GIVES LIFE
“Yes, and…” doesn’t mean capitulating, it means accepting both the energy of your partner, and the energy coming from within yourself. It doesn’t mean to pretend buddha-hood…quite the opposite. Remember, it comes from a methodology used to train actors! So you open up wide for the energy flowing through you. To say “Yes, and…” in the face of your fears, may mean to say “No effing way!”, may mean you laugh, may mean you cry, but whatever it looks like, it means wholly accepting the energies in the present moment.
It means you never ignore energy, you in fact underline it, point at it, jump up and down and get excited when you see it. No matter what. Fear, Joy, Anger, Sadness. They all move as energy, and to follow them means to Flow.
LIFE MEANS MORE THAN SURVIVING
Once I saw a hand-out, for a class on wilderness survival. At the top, I read an admonition to the effect of: when you find yourself in a surivival situation, DON’T PANIC. This struck me as funny because of the unintended reference to Douglas Adam’s ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, and also because of the poor understanding of psychology it reflected. As a poor choice, “don’t panic” ranks second only to panicking, in a survival situation. It doesn’t tell you what to do, it tells you what to reject.
In an amusing way, this also compares well to an object in Douglas Adam’s book, the “Joo Janta 200 Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses”, a pair of sunglasses whose tinting turned completely opaque and jet-black in the presence of danger. This would count as a “No!”, in terms of improvisational technique.
How might you play with this? The next time you find yourself in an unpleasant or uncomfortable situation, with your whole self say “Yes, and…!” to it. Then go into action. Notice what happens.
I wish I could make it more complicated than that. Sorry.
April 27th, 2008 at 9:46 am
>>Sorry.
Yes, you are, and you should be.
J.K/ There are some fireworks till fizzling neath the skin. Not exactly the chinese secret recipe -don’t sell these to disney- kind. Common ditch sparklers. But I hain’t apologizing.
Okay, serious scholarly mode. I don’t have one. Okay. — The Tao that can be spoken? “Yes, and” sounds to me like “Spontaneity is mandatory”… A constant unspoken YES - YES
fusion sounds more like it to me, and I offer up my thought on that without saying it’s right.
> It doesn’t tell you what to do, it tells you what to reject.
Liked this. The cornered mouse, the stampeding elephant, the screeching kitty. Do they panic? Only they experience it, only the can understand it [same thing?], and only they can weigh the value of that reaction in retrospect - if they do stuff like that.
Back to my world
April 27th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Richard-
I’d like to empahsize that “Yes, and…!” differs fundamentally from the more new-agey “Yes!” that one might say to a sunset, or crashing waves.
For example, would you say “Yes!” to your house catching fire and burning to the ground? Or if a car hit you while crossing a street? I would hope not…but “Yes, and…!” comes into its own precisely in these situations. “Yes, and…!” means to take what comes, and channel it (without resistance) into something that will continue to affirm life. Very much like principles of Aikido.
Constant attention to “Yes, and…!” can really exhaust a person, like any new habit. It pays to remember this has nothing to do with virtuous behavior, but with getting as much out of life as you have the current resources to ask for. As Morihei Ueshiba (the founder of Aikido) said, “It’s not that I never lose my center, its that I return back to it faster when I do lose it, than most people.”
August 6th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
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August 25th, 2008 at 10:30 am
No need to make it more complicated. What you have said is more than enough to create resonance with those who have “just a little dust in their eyes.” Hm, was I just egotistically referring to myself? How quickly such energies manifest when one pays attention! Once, I would have chastised myself for such an unskillful thought. But I am learning how to forgive easily. And forgiveness, I think, will evolve naturally into ecstatic love and acceptance. From there, creative utilization of said energy, the freedom and skill of the bodhisattva to assist the world in awakening with whatever tools are available. That is what “Yes, and…” means to me. Thanks for the post.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Yes, forgiveness has a lot in common with “Yes, and…”. Especially forgiveness at lightspeed, as quick as a cobra!