M2M Day 160: I’m taking an improv class (and what it has to do with Hebrew…)

This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For April, my goal is to hold a 30-minute conversation in Hebrew on the future of technology.

As I’ve previously mentioned, speaking in Hebrew has always been a struggle for me because of my strong mental filter. This filter is very judgmental and lets few words pass through.

In fact, this isn’t unique to Hebrew — I’m pretty sure my high school Spanish teacher thought I was mute.

Anyway, to eliminate my filter and overcome my fear of being vulnerable, I’m taking an improv class. It meets for three hours every Sunday for the next two months (as of last week… today was the second class).

So far, the class has been awesome: For the past two classes, we’ve mostly just played improv games, only acting out our first scene at the end of today’s class.

Honestly, it’s one of the most fun things I’ve done in a while. I’d highly recommend to anyone. It’s also been effective — I’ve found it very easy to completely drop my filter during class.

Of course, the class is in English, so I feel much more comfortable with that aspect of things (In normal, every day, well-controlled, English-speaking life, I basically have no filter… I guess it’s a control and comfortability thing).

Improv doesn’t allow for calculated speaking (or really thinking of any kind), so it attacks a very similar filter to the one I use with foreign languages. I’m not exactly sure how much it’s helping with my Hebrew, but, during my Skype calls, I seem fairly comfortable.

Even if it doesn’t help at all with Hebrew, it’s a lot of fun anyway, so there’s that…

Plus, the improv class is in the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture building, which is nicely outside my SOMA bubble. Fort Mason is a beautiful area on the water, with nice views of the Golden Gate bridge, etc. So, I get to enjoy the area after class as well.

The Fort Mason area is beautiful. Somehow, I managed to capture the parking lot, rather than the water, park, and general scenery. The bridge is viewable though.

Overall, so far, improv class has been a great investment in Hebrew and life.

Read the next post. Read the previous post.

Max Deutsch is an obsessive learner, product builder, guinea pig for Month to Master, and founder at Openmind.

If you want to follow along with Max’s year-long accelerated learning project, make sure to follow this Medium account.