Hey everybody and welcome back to the SoCap Improv
Comedy Podcast. My name is Ralph McLeod. I'm
your somewhat genial host. I'm also the owner
and artistic director at SoCap Comedy on the
Danforth in Toronto. That's SoCap .ca, S -O -C
-A -P. We do all the usual improv stuff. Shows,
improv classes, corporate events, rentals. Now
if you're in Toronto and the surrounding area...
And something you hear on here sparks your interest.
Come and take a class with this old shoe, this
old hunk of leather. And if you're outside of
Toronto, you know, I've done Zoom classes and
I wouldn't be opposed to doing them again. Actually,
there's a lot of on Zoom is an interesting way
to teach improv. And I learned a lot. And Zoom
has a couple of advantages, which I've talked
about before and we'll talk about again. All
right, so today I want to talk about the old
mistake. You know, there's, you know, these things
happen all the time. And people, I say mistakes
because people treat them like mistakes. They
misspeak and they try to, oh, I feel they feel
bad about it. They want to take it back. They
want to undo it. They want to explain. And I,
you know, I totally understand that. I mean,
in the world, that's what we've been, you know,
drilled into us. Don't make mistakes. You get
that big red X on your thing. People make fun
of you, you know, and so there's a lot of, there
can be a lot of stress over getting things right.
Also, it's just sometimes in certain exercises,
people want to make sure they've got the rules,
quote unquote. correct so that they can play
along and not be, you know, not appear dumb or
in some way, not entirely with it. But for me,
and what I would like to encourage in this podcast
is to think of improv mistakes as not a mistake
and not just improv mistakes, just mistakes in
general as a doorway. A doorway to learn, a doorway
to a new way of looking at something, to a new
avenue that would not have been explored if you
hadn't made that mistake. You know, now this
is not always true, but by and large, for the
most part, a mistake is only bad if you treat
it as bad, right? Here's an example. I have thousands
of these. Well, not thousands, but I have a lot
of them, a multitude, a legion, if you will.
But this one happened. I have performed with
these three nincompoops called the Coincidence
Men, the four of us. And this was a few years
ago. We were doing a montage, which is a series
of scenes. And you need to know that for one
reason, which is coming up. But a montage, you
know, it's the same group of people. You start
a scene when that scene's over rather than, you
know, stopping and doing a new one. Someone sweeps
it or somehow edits it and it's gone and you
do a new one. You do another scene and another
scene and another scene. And over time, because
it's the same people and it's the same show,
you know, games develop and patterns and all
these other wonderful things. I love doing montages.
Again, I won't go into that now, but I love doing
them. And, yeah, so you basically get a chance
to do several scenes. Anyway, on this one particular
night, one of my fellows tripped. And, you know,
fell. It wasn't bad, but he kind of just tripped.
And I believe it was Gord Oxley misspoke. And
he meant to say, well, that's unfortunate. But
he said, well, that's malfortunate. And the audience
laughed. They tittered. They ha -ha in their
head at the mistake. And whenever I hear something
like that and I'm on stage, I just put that in
my pocket because, oh, they laughed. It registered.
So I just hang on to that because you never know
when you're going to need it. Anyway, that scene
got swept. We started a new one. And in this
one, it ended with someone getting shot. And
as they were dying, I said, wow, that's unfortunate.
And the audience laughed harder. And the third
and fourth and fifth scene, we kept ending them
with, that's Malfortunate. You know, by the sixth
time we came out to start a scene, the audience,
they're buzzing. They're vibrating. And they're
just like, well, please say Malfortunate again.
Please, please, please. And, you know, I remember
it ended with, again, something happening and
me. I just paused and I went, boy, you know,
there's a word for what just happened. And I
can't think of the word right now. And everybody's
just like, say the word, say the word. And it
was very fun. But that all happened because somebody
made a mistake and misspoke a word. But that
became the whole, basically the whole thing.
The whole show, our 20 minute or 25 minute thing.
was variations i mean that's not the only thing
we did there were other things going on but this
we would call it the Malfortunate you know show
or the Malfortunate set uh because that simple
little mistake because we didn't treat it as
such became a fun thing and uh there's a real
life example uh and i uh If you go on YouTube
and Google Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis, Herbie
Hancock tells this story about Miles Davis. So
Herbie Hancock, a jazz musician, keyboardist,
I believe, mainly. And Miles Davis was one of
the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time. Anyway,
Herbie's telling the story about... They're in
Germany, and they're playing, and it's a real
night. It's a groovy night, and Miles is starting
to do his solo, and he's in the middle of it.
And inexplicably, in the middle of this, Herbie
on the keyboard hits the wrong chord. And he
says, I'm paraphrasing, that it just sounded
all wrong, and he didn't know how he did it,
and he panicked, and he pulled his hands off
the keyboard and just grabbed his head and went,
oh, no, oh, no, and he felt so bad. But he said
Miles, the professional that he was, paused for
a second and then played a series of notes that
made that wrong chord, quote unquote, right.
So Miles Davis, you know, he didn't call out
the mistake. He didn't stop. He just absorbed
that into what he was doing and did this thing
that I call the bigger circle. This thing that
seemed to be outside the circle is not outside
the circle. It's now actually inside the circle.
And we're off in a new direction, a direction
we never would have had if someone hadn't done
that, quote, mistake. So this mistake became
a new direction, you know, and Herbie says himself
in the thing. It's like he uses that in music.
He learned a lot that day about music and also
in life. And that's the thing, too. You know,
when I teach. And the way I live my life, like
I live, I teach all these improv nuggets, philosophies,
you know, best practices, whatever you want to
call them. And I live my life like this. So the
same thing with mistakes. You know, we make tons
of mistakes as we go through life. You know,
we befriend the wrong people. We cast off the
wrong people. You know, we say no to opportunities
we shouldn't have. And we say yes to opportunities.
that we shouldn't have, and all these things
and mistakes. And you can look at them as, oh,
bad choices, and oh, I wish I could undo them.
But these bad choices, these mistakes, they're
our teachers, and they teach us. You know, when
I was teaching my daughter to skate, and she
was like five, and she kept falling, and she'd
get frustrated. And I'd say, like, look, man,
every time you fall, you're learning how not
to fall. So you're learning how to skate. And
when she started thinking about it like that,
A few, a little bit later, she wiped out, had
this big fall and she got up and beaming. She
said, dad, did you see that wipe out? I said,
that was amazing. You are so learning how not
to fall. So mistakes are only mistakes by and
large. If you think of them as bad, they don't
have to be. And just, you know, just thinking
about this because it happened literally like
two days ago in my class where another, again,
another character misspoke. And he had meant
to say, you never cease to amaze me. But instead
he said, you cease to amaze me. And people laughed.
That same kind of like, ha, ha, ha, laugh. That's
not right. And they kind of laugh. I don't know
what you'd call that kind of laugh. It's not
quite self -conscious, but it's certainly not
a belly laugh. It's an interesting laugh. And
then later on in this class, when one character
was confronted. by another character who gave
them this ultimatum, that person who was given
the ultimatum said, you cease to amaze me. And
the room exploded. They lost it. And what's really
special about that, you know, these games, these
references that we create in the moment, is for
the eight or ten of us in that room, you cease
to amaze me means something. And it's special.
It means something only to us. Like even hearing
this, it won't mean the same to you. You might
be able to appreciate it if you have similar
experiences. But it's really powerful. And that
only came about because the mistake, although
originally in the class, the student wanted to,
oh, oh, oh. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no.
Say it again. You cease to amaze me. There you
go. That's it. And we're going to hang on to
that. You know, I know like in scenes and in
life, we don't like to make mistakes. But mistakes,
you know, they humanize us. They make us relatable.
They create these inside jokes and callbacks.
They generate games you could never plan. They
bond the audience. They open up all kinds of
doorways to you. And, you know, one more real
life example. For Canadians, especially of a
certain age, I mean, I wasn't old enough to really
appreciate this, but 1972, the Canada -Russia,
USSR at the time, hockey game, hockey series,
eight games, four in Canada, four over there.
And everybody in Canada thought, oh, we're going
to wipe the floor with them. Well, they came
to Canada and I think they won three out of four
games. Like they dominated us. And then we went
there. And on the first game, game five, the
first game of the Soviet Union. I believe it
was Phil Esposito, one of the captains or the
captain of the team, went out on the ice and
fell. And the audience kind of jeered him. And
he didn't get upset. He got up and he bowed to
the audience. And I'm not saying that was the
turning point. But after that, Canada took control
of that series. And it lives in Canadian folklore.
So mistakes aren't mistakes. Only they're bad.
Only if you think they're bad. You think about
them a different way and think about their opportunities.
That's the thing. Not bad. They're possibilities.
They open up the life and open up life of the
character and the scene and in real life, right?
So in real life, mistakes equal growth, right?
You understand, oh, okay, I shouldn't say yes
to these people. I shouldn't do these things.
I'm learning, figuring out, navigating my life,
you know? Move to the wrong city, get the wrong
job, wrong relationship, all that stuff. So we're
changing away from like, oh no, to curiosity.
Like, oh, what's this new thing that I never
would have figured out if I hadn't made that
mistake? So a mistake is only bad if you label
it that way. 95 % of the time or more, it's an
opportunity. And start there. Start with the
opportunity. You know, maybe it is, maybe a mistake
is bad. Like, I'm not saying it's never bad.
It can be, right? And especially in certain situations,
you can make mistakes. Uh -oh, I'm sorry, and
you apologize, and you move on. But far too often,
we go, oh, no, that's, oh, what have I done?
Right? Think of them as opportunities, as doorways,
as a new way of thinking. You know? all that
stuff in improv and in life. And in both those
places, growth happens at the edge of your comfort
zone, right? People come to me and they say,
Ralph, I want to get out of my comfort zone.
I'm like, no, you don't. But you might want to
push up against the edges of it and expand it.
Sure, that's fine. I get what you're saying,
but you want to get it bigger. And that's where
growth happens. If you stay too far in your comfort
zone, nothing happens. No risk, no reward, no
growth. Outside your comfort zone. Chaos up against
the edges. Yes. All right. That's my time for
today. So thank you very much for tuning in.
I hope to see you again. Check us out at socap
.ca. And, you know, we'll look forward to hearing
from you and getting all your questions. Thanks.
Bye.