Why You Should Make Friends With Your Safety Moves

By far the most common question I get about improvisation is:

“I know a lot of moves, but when I’m on stage, I always think of the same three. How do I stop them from popping into my mind all the time?”

Don’t fight them – embrace them.

Most people fight the movements that easily come to mind.
But that’s counter-productive!

Those are your safety moves. They are the ideas that rush to your aid when you’re on the spot, and can’t think of anything else.

(Not like your other moves. They just sit in the back of your head and let you fail. Those slackers.)

Instead of stressing about all the movements you can’t remember, find interesting ways to use the ones you can remember.

Make them your best friends.

Why make friends with your safety moves?

For one thing, you’ll stop drawing a blank. Once you stop fighting them, you’ll be able to produce good dancing with the moves that come to you easily.

More importantly, all that brainpower that you were using to fight your safety moves can be used to help you access the rest of your movement vocabulary. It’s ironic: if you want to move beyond your safety moves, you have to make friends with them first.

So how do you make friends with your safety moves?

1) Identify them

If you’ve been fighting your safety moves, you may already know what they are. But if you don’t, just put on some music and play. Notice which movements occur to you in the moment.

(And don’t think too hard about this. You don’t have to make a final selection. Just pick three to try on.)

2) Play with them

Play with different ways to vary your safety moves. You can decorate them with different arms, play with timing, explore different traveling patterns, and so on. (Try out as many variations as you can imagine.)

3) Mix it up

Mix and match your safety moves, and see how they fit together. Or spice them up by adding a non-safety move here and there. (But keep your focus on the safety moves!)

Once you stop fighting your safety moves, they’ll become your true friends. Instead of limiting you, they’ll help you be more creative. But like all friendships, that relationship is built on trust.

So start building that friendship.

Need some help?

My instructional video, Improvisation Toolkit Vol. 1: Movement Recall has more detailed exercises to help you find and make friends with your safety moves.