Top-down thinking in improv (for bottom-up thinkers)

If you are a bottom-up thinker, there are certain techniques in long-form improv that might work better if you try to do top-down thinking instead. Why would you do such a thing? And When?

Game and second beats might be challenging to a bottom-up thinker. You need to get used to wrapping up a bunch of details into a single idea, gist, or synopsis regardless of what direction you think in. The synopsis is where top-down thinkers start! Maybe it’s faster doing top down for this?

This episode includes a couple different examples of when I think I probably take more of a top-down approach as a life-long bottom-up thinker.

I also detail a pretty quick way to do a second beat using a form of visual thinking (hyperphantasia), since we were talking about it. Selfish tangent, that, maybe. But it’s in there too.

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This podcast was created, written, and is hosted by Jen deHaan. You can find her bio here.

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