Different Improvisers Explain the Game of the Scene

An example of game

Here are some improvisers on their different takes on "the game" of a scene:

JOE BILL

I look at ‘the game’ as more of a macro proposition, whereas classic IO looks at it more as a micro proposition. I believe that ‘the game’ is nothing more than the context. Within the context, certain things that represent pattern happen. Within the context, there’s a one-upmanship quote, unquote ‘game’ that happens. What’s more important is not that you find or get ‘the game,’ but it’s how you play ‘the game,’ so that the context that has two characters one-upping each other is more important than that they one-up each other...

When you say ‘find the game’ in a scene, there’s always a game. You cannot help but have a game. There is always ‘a game.’ The game could be something routed in something as simple as proximity, or perceived cause and effect. There is understanding in that your left-brain knows that you want to bring this back, you want to repeat the pattern, you want to quote, unquote ‘explore’ that. The quote, unquote ‘game,’ the context of the scene is far more interesting to behold when it inspires people because of it, instead of obliges people to uphold it...

I usually say ‘the game’ in this context, there’s always a fucking game. Anybody who tells you to find a game is not giving you the best note. The best note is embrace the ‘the game’ that is there. I think that sometimes improvisers drive themselves fucking crazy trying to look for the game, trying to find the game or whatever, because that makes them analyze and think. The game is just really what the scene is about, or in a more immediate Annoyance sense what is your character about. To use Napier’s word, what’s your ‘deal?’ What’s your thing? What’s your shit?

Joe Bill

If the lights come up and you and I are onstage and I snap twice and you fart, what’s the game? Do I just keep snapping and you keep farting? The answer is you don’t know, because we’re not there and it’s not happening. Who the fuck knows? You can theorize about it. You can talk about ‘what if?’ I could snap twice. You fart. We pause for 5 seconds. I snap twice. You fart. We pause for 4 seconds. I snap twice. You fart. We pause for 3 seconds, and so on until we do it simultaneously then we turn and smile to the audience and the lights go out. Then you can fucking sit and have a conversation with 20 people in your class about how you should have done it or what the fucking game was and you get 20 different fucking answers. When all we did was, we engaged in the simple active thing that I just described, snap, fart, and called that a game, and repeated it, so that’s the game. Alright, or is the game us smiling at the audience after snapping and farting?
If I’m going to talk about ‘the game,’ it’s usually in response to a question. I think when you talk about ‘the game’ in a non-specific [way], and you start talking about the quote, unquote ‘game’ in theory, it ends up having you take away stage time from students in a class that could be spent with them doing something, because it’s a very seductive conversation to have. I think it’s more important to know that laughter is always the result of tension broken. If you want to look at ‘the game’ in a micro, classic IO sense, the game is that which creates and breaks tension. Armando and I have talked about tension. Armando will talk about tension in terms of building and releasing tension, and I say creating and breaking tension. They’re the same thing, or are they? Do you know what I mean?
As long as you can get people to understand that, as soon those lights go up or as soon as they step onstage, whatever they do is an observable aspect of their character and their job is not play to the top of their intelligence but rather to play to the top of their character’s integrity, then the game kind of takes care of itself.

Craig Cackowski

CRAIG CACKOWSKI

I’m constantly aware of trying to create patterns, doing and saying things that have been done and said already in the scene. If anything that is at the power of two in the scene, it’s more important than anything that’s at the power of one. When in doubt, I will do or say something again that I’ve already done, but I’m not thinking of a big overarching game usually. I’m much more likely to do a relationship-driven scene than a premise-driven scene. If a partner lays out a premise-driven scene and it’s abundantly clear to me what the game is, I can play it, but that’s rarely something I’m conscious about creating.

ARMANDO DIAZ

The game’s very important in improv like all components. You need all of them. You can’t just go ‘hey, you need environment. Or you need dialog, or chairs or whatever. You need history.’ All those things contribute to the game, so the game is only as good as the specifics that you bring to it. We can play a one-upsmanship game where I would keep on topping you, but what’s going to make it funny are the ways that I top you, the specifics that top you. Therefore, that’s the reason that you want to develop a character, and you want to develop the location, the history, whatever, because then I have lots of interesting, more profound, heightened,

Armando Diaz

high stakes ways to top you. 
To me the game is only a structure, the same way that Harold’s a structure. What makes Harold work is what you bring to Harold. And what was great about Del was how much he would inspire people to be able to play the structure, but being able to play it in a way that you aspired to something smart and meaningful. He didn’t say ‘play the game. Play the game. Play the game,’ but if the game’s not meaningful, then it’s sort of not interesting. It’s not going to be very funny. So to me the game is a structure and you can learn to recognize it, but you also have to be an interesting human being and have something to say...

We respond to patterns. We like music and music repeats itself. Music has a verse and a chorus and verse. The rule of threes. We just get used to cycles. The universe is like that for some reason, and every living thing on it seems to be hardwired to it. And there’s probably some kind of Eastern philosophy that talks about this.

Just kidding. Here is Armando in the middle of a dance.

So we get pleasure every time a pattern in music happens. The same thing with game, with the joke that keeps coming back. We don’t want to hear it consistently. We want to see it [then have it go away.] In music, there’s this thing: the build up of tension, the release of tension. Most music is based on it. Build tension release tension. There’s a pattern to it. In comedy, it’s the same thing: the building of tension the release of tension. And that’s what the game does. And why that is? I don’t know. I don’t know the nature of the universe, but it seems like that’s just how it is and how we respond to it.

Where's Armando? (Much easier than finding Waldo) Others in the picture include Charna Halpern, James Grace, Neil Flynn, Matt Walsh, Jimmy Carrane, Brian McCann, Peter Hulne, Pat Finn, Brian Stack, Theresa Mulligan Rosenthal, Armando Diaz, Susan Messing, Matt Dwyer, Miles Stroth, Craig Cackowski, Peter Gwinn, Jon Glaser, Noah Gregoropoulos, Laura Krafft, Pete Gardner, Matt Besser, Rebecca Sohn, Kevin Dorff, David Koechner, Michael Broh and Adam McKay

CHRIS GETHARD

Make your scene about one thing. That one thing will be the game of your scene. If all of the players on stage are trained in how to detect and notice that one thing, you can all stay on the same page and focus on it, build it together. A lot of it comes down to: Start your scene. Commit. And listen hard enough that you notice the first unusual thing about the scene. When you notice the first unusual thing, start asking yourself, “If that’s true, what else is true?

Chris Gethard

If all of your comedic choices are driven by figuring out, “If this is true, what else is true?” you quickly start to build a world for your characters to play in that has a specific set of rules, a philosophy for them to live by. And because you and your scene partner are focused on just that one thing, you can explore it thoroughly without confusing it along the way, without having monkey wrenches tossed in. Everyone knows to build one singular idea. It makes life much, much easier.

ED HERBSTMAN

Ed Herbstman

The game to me is the pattern and structure of the dynamic between two or more people. It’s more of a mathematical equation. It’s extremely important when you’re using it, and mildly important when you’re not focused on it. There are some people who can do the game in the scene, find the game in the scene and play the game in the scene and do it well. And there are some people who can’t or who don’t, or who don’t yet. 

ROB HUEBEL

Rob Huebel

It’s something you really have to focus on. You have to think: ‘what has been said, and of that what is the unusual thing? And how do we have fun with that unusual idea?’ I guess that I got it right away in my brain, but that doesn’t mean it was always in my scenes. It takes a little while. Even now, I perform with people who I’ve performed with for years and years and years and we still buzz past things some times, because I think there’s a tendency now to maybe not play the first or second thing. We’re waiting for something bigger and more complicated and some times that fucks it up.

BILLY MERRITT

Billy Merritt

Game is structure. Game is the premise or what is funny about this. A game can be anything at any given time. I think the trick of knowing a game is not knowing it and just instinctively playing it. Because if you ‘know’ it, then you’re just playing it way too much. You know, that’s what ‘gamey’ is. To me, it’s important that you know what it is so you can get away from it then come back to it again.
I think all great comedy sketches have that [circles his finger] circle, the magical circle. Here’s the game. Now let’s get away from it. So when we get back to it …we ‘if that then what else’ and it gets bigger and bigger. It’s got a lot of different things. A lot of different phrases. I don’t think there’s one single sentence that explains it, because I think every scene can be different.

TAMI SAGHER

Tami Sagher

I believe the essence of the game is the relationship, which doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have a 'relationship scene'... It's a matter of listening to everything that is done, not just the words, but whatever the gesture is. It's a matter of knowing absolutely everything that was done since the moment of the beginning. If you're absolutely listening and responding to it, then you're automatically in the game, I think. The less you're in your head and the more you're noticing, you'll automatically get behind the game. And if you're in a real relationship with somebody onstage that will be the game. And if you're still not finding it, it's a matter of noticing a pattern. Even the audience will cue you in to where they're reacting. There's a natural rhythm to everything, and playing the game is a matter of discovering and respecting that rhythm.

MATT WALSH

Matt Walsh

The game of the scene is the dynamic you discover between the characters that when you heighten it creates comedy... Heightening is adding stakes to something, adding detail, infusing it with emotional commitment, expanding it to a bigger world. Something could start in the living room, then it becomes a national problem, then a world problem, so expanding the impact of that dynamic is heightening. ...Just playing the 'if that then what' of the idea...

When you improvise you're seeking out pattern and ideas in the exchanges that you're throwing out there with your team, so you're not necessarily looking for repetition but pattern. There's a Del quote, I believe 'once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.' So things returning definitely heighten things and make the pattern more present; it brings it farther forward in the audience's mind and in the players mind. So repetition is involved in that, but it's not like hitting a table is a complex game. If you just kept tapping a table, tapping a table, that's not necessarily going to provide a scene that is interesting to an audience.

Also, check out Will Hines' posts on game:

http://improvnonsense.tumblr.com/game

http://improvnonsense.tumblr.com/gamereally

Will Hines having a heart attack
(his brother Kevin consoling behind him)

Key Lessons from My Improv Instructors

Viola Spolin (20th-century innovator
in improvisational theater)

Here is a small collection of improv notes and concepts I got from various instructors and coaches. Of course, there is overlap. Pretty much everyone agrees that performing believably is important so sometimes I'll put a note like "Play it real" under the first teacher who really emphasized that concept to me:

ANTHONY ATAMANUIK

1. Play it real.

2. Don't be afraid to make a choice.

3. What is the improviser really saying?

4. When you see something in a scene, really see it with detail.

5. Justify.

6. Commit.

MICHAEL BERTRANDO

1. There are no rules, darling. It's make-em-ups.

2. Let's focus on scenework. Don't worry about the form, tag-outs, or callbacks unless they come naturally. Otherwise, people get too heady instead of being present.

3. Before you even say anything, people have prejudices about who you are based on how you appear. Be wary of what those are and play with them.

MICHAEL DELANEY

1. Make the active choice instead of the passive choice.

2. Agree to a fault.

3. If something happens that you didn't expect, then let go of those expectations and embrace what is happening now.

4. Is that really unusual or is it typical? We really want to discover original games.

5. What's wrong is right in a Harold.

ARMANDO DIAZ

1. (When asked about the most common reason a sketch flops) It lacks truth.

2. Be very mindful of who you are (i.e. point of view). That will help propel the scene and play the game.

3. Why are you taking an improv class? Is this something your parents are making you do? Then don't worry, relax, and stop judging yourself so harshly before you even do anything onstage.

4. Take an on-camera class, and see what you look like on camera. After you're scarred, use that information to see how you come off onstage.

CHRISTINA GAUSAS

1. Focus on what's going on now. Don't dwell in backstory, planning, or people not in the scene.

2. Great artistry is the marriage of technical mastery and the infusion of the artist's personality.

3. Look your scene partner in the eye.

4. Be very wary of your partner's emotions.

5. If you feel stuck in improving as an improviser, become a better listener.

RILEY SOLONER

1. Relax and just be yourself. Talk and act like you normally do.

2. Listen and observe your scene partners keenly.

3. Build on what your scene partner just said.

4. Try beginning the next line with "You're right."

5. Don't let the form restrict your scenes. You want good scenework, not a fancy form.

MARK SUTTON

1. What's going on right now and how does it make me feel?

2. The type of relationship that actually matters is not whether the characters are related, married, co-workers, etc. The audience wants to see how the characters affect each other.

3. Scenes begin with a line about the people onstage or about something outside those people like an object. One is not necessarily better than the other, but they are different and be mindful of that.

4. Make sure to bring it back to the relationship between the characters onstage.

Introduction to Eastern Spirituality for Christians and Its Benefits

Dear Christian friends,

From left to right: Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, Laozi

I have been interested in religion for some time now. I probably understand Christianity better than the others I have studied but most recently I have focused my studies on Buddhism, Taoism, and a sprinkling of Hinduism and Confucianism. First off, I think there is nothing in these other religions that has to conflict with your Christian faith (although they might at times depending on your interpretations). I think the spiritual benefits of meditation and studying these other philosophies can be quite enormous so to the best of my knowledge, I will attempt to lay out the connections between Christian theology and Eastern religious beliefs (mostly focused on Buddhism).

In Christianity, Jesus Christ is the son of the one and only God who created the universe. A Hindu could accept this belief fully. To the Hindu, Jesus was an avatar, a human incarnation of Brahman which can be described as the highest or ultimate universal reality. In this sense, a Christian could interpret the concept of Brahman as God. One could say they are the same thing depending on one's interpretation of God or Brahman.

However, a Hindu (or a Buddhist) could also say to you, "Of course, Jesus was God. He got it. He woke up. The truth is YOU are God as well. You just don't know it and don't believe that truth. You're asleep." That is when a Christian could be taken aback and even offended. However, let's analyze that to figure out exact what he might mean by that statement.

Who are you? You say you are a Christian and you believe in the resurrection of Christ and read the Bible and attend church and spread the Good News and pray and so on. But this notion of self that you have when you say, "I believe" or "I love", this "I", self, or ego, what is that?

Buddha just riding the wave

Well, aren't you a child of God, borne out of His Creation which encompasses His Being? His Spirit or essence moves through and with you and, in a fundamental sense, that is really what you are. If it helps, think of the waves moving in the ocean. What is a wave? A wave is a part of the ocean that peaks out with the crest on top and a peak underneath that you can surf on. That wave is you and the ocean and all the energy within it is Brahman or God. That is one interpretation and is one of the key concepts of Buddhism.


Let's shift gears slightly and discuss salvation, or more simply, finding peace and happiness. Jesus told his disciples to leave all worldly possessions behind to join him on their spiritual journey and said that it is harder for a man attached to his abundance of material goods to enter the Kingdom of God than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. This is actually the same teaching of Siddharta Guatama (the "Buddha") who lived between four hundred to six hundred years before Jesus' birth. Let's explore this crucial concept.

If you think about it, we are often very miserable and at unease because of our worldly desires (e.g. good food, cars, nice houses, attractive mates, the hottest new gadget). What can be harmful about this mindset of "not-enough" and "more consumption" is that the cure is not "more stuff". It is very much a mindset and although you may be satiated briefly, you will then want more and move on to the next thing you desire. In fact, the pursuit of more consumption is endless. It's an interesting peculiarity of human psychology.

What, then, is the key to happiness? The ultimate key to happiness is within YOU all along, not "out there somewhere" like we are often inclined to think. You get into Harvard and think that is where you will be happy or get into a romantic relationship with that person with whom you are infatuated and think life will be like in fairy tales. But the truth is that there are people who are rich, have beautiful families, own many fancy homes and vehicles, and are adored by millions around the world and are deeply unhappy.

Kurt Cobain in NYC, five months before his suicide at the age of 27

Personally, this shift in mentally has benefited me well. I have chronic lower back pain, below-average kinesthetic ability, tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt, a very tiny "bedroom" in Bushwick that cannot fit a proper bed, many of my closest college friends who were in my freshman class do not live in NYC, and a whole host of other "problems" I can mention. However, I am relatively healthy, do improv and sketch, have a great family, have ready access to food and water, can access vast amounts of information via the Internet, and live in a fantastic city in a wealthy, diverse country with enormous opportunities. When I think about the important things in life and what I already have, I am able think in perspective more clearly and really appreciate life. Perhaps being grateful precedes being happy and not the other way around.

There are other topics we can discuss like the nature of consciousness, morality, meditation, spiritual experiences, death, etc. but I wanted to highlight what I think are the core concepts in Eastern spiritual teachings as I currently understand them. I may write about other related topics later based on interest.

Sincerely,
Lester

What Makes a Good Improviser?

Del Close (cofounder of ImprovOlympic) was an
influential improv instructor who helped develop
what long-form improv is today.

I have been studying and performing
improv since August 2013. I have been fortunate enough to have had great teachers, coaches, classmates, and partners in New York City. Like many people, I started at The Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB), but I have also ventured out to The Annoyance, The Magnet, and The People's Improv Theater (PIT). I have thoroughly enjoyed this journey, although it has been a slow one. At least for me, my development as an improviser has been very gradual, but I am quite certain I enjoyed every moment of it. Improvising scenes rejuvenated my interest in performing and has even given me significant peace of mind with what happens onstage and in life.

I often contemplate on how to improve as an improviser. Here are some thoughts on my research into what makes someone a good improviser. I find that these are good to reflect upon when there are often different philosophies on what makes improvised scenes work.


WHEN YOU ARE IN A SCENE:

1. Listen. Listen to your scene partner. Listen to yourself. Listen. Listen. Listen. This is probably the best skill you'll develop as an improviser. Pay attention to the words, the inflections, facial expressions, posture, body language. Be aware of everything that's going on in your scene, including your own self. Eye contact is great for this.

2. Be present. That sounds like meditation instruction because improv is arguably a form of meditation. Don't think so much about what is going to happen two minutes from now and where you think the scene will go. That's when you can get too caught up in your own head and get weighed down with useless thoughts.

3. Be active. Show, don't tell. Do object work. Talking heads can be fun to watch but don't forget that you can be doing the activity instead of talking about it.

4. Commit hard. You are making up scenes so make what you do and say believable by committing hard to whatever you do. Good acting will often go a long way in improv.

5. Make strong choices. Strong emotional, character choices can help you a long way here. There is no "wrong" choice so don't be afraid to make one.

6. Give and receive gifts. Christina (Gausas) phrased this well when she told me that your gift is only a gift if your scene partner receives it. Too often, gifts are dropped by not listening or not accepting them.

7. Agree. No one likes it when a scene partner denies the reality you help to establish. Agreeing will help move your scenes along a lot more smoothly. Argument scenes between characters can work as long as the improvisers are in agreement about what is going on in the scene. That said, beginners should usually avoid argument scenes since they often still need to practice agreement.

8. Have fun. This may be the best advice. After all, why else would you be doing any of this?


MORE GENERALLY:

1. Find good teachers. A good teacher will inspire you and can lead you in a good path for you to develop. Reputation can help but you will ultimately have to find out for yourself which teachers' teachings resonate with you.

2. Be nice. It is somewhat of a small community and it is full of great, kind people. Let's keep the vibes positive. Improvising is so much more enjoyable when we all like each other's company.

3. Practice a lot. There's the 10,000-Hour Rule. You'll get there if you practice 20 hours a week every week of the year for ten years.

4. Learn as much as you can. Know how to just play yourself. Know how to play characters very different from yourself. Can you do a 30-minute scene in one location with only one scene partner? How about a one-hour form with group games, walk-ons, tag-outs, edits, split-scenes, call-backs, and time-dashes? Can you play organic? Premise-based? You can always have preferences and what works best for you, but I think having some range at least initially can help you. Also, the more you try, then the more you know what you do enjoy and don't.

5. Live life. We each have our own unique life experiences from which we can draw. The knowledge we acquire from them fuel our improvisations and help us find our own voices as artists.

Cures For Emotionally Unintelligent Men

In Asian culture, an emotional man is considered weak or feminine.  Anger may be acceptable if he is defending his pride and/or asserting his authority or power but he should not be overly enthusiastic, sad, or even loving.  To some degree, this notion of masculinity permeates almost all cultures, including America's.  This is problematic but there are ways we can fix this.  If you are a man (especially if you are introverted and conservative), you will likely benefit from the following recommendations.

First, take good acting and improv classes.  This is probably the fastest way to force yourself to improve your emotional intelligence by working with others as a team.  As a stage performer, you really have to be able to be in tune with the emotions of yourself, your scene partners, and your audience.  Good beginning courses will be hard and you may have to work on improving your listening and emotional connecting skills for years to become very good.  One amazing exercise is staring at your partner's eyes for several minutes straight and emotionally syncing and reacting.  I have seen people cry from doing this and my jaw dropped the first time I saw it.

Second, get to know strangers well.  Go out and meet new people and get to know them on a personal level fairly quickly.  This may take some of you some time to get good at.  Try to find out an interesting personal fact about the new person and think about what type of person she is, why that fact is important to her, and how she feels about it.

Third, volunteer or attend events about causes you believe in.  This will help you get in touch with your passions and values while meeting like-minded individuals.  Bonding over shared beliefs can lead to strong emotional connections that can lead to friendships.

Fourth, meet emotionally intelligent geniuses.  Every once in a while, I meet individuals who are exceptionally emotionally intelligent.  They probably were born with a great deal of natural talent but the really good ones will always try to improve their skills.  Learn from them since they have mastered something you are trying to improve at.  If they are really good, they can help articulate your own emotions in a social interaction better than you can; it is amazing.

Finally, openly care for someone as best as you can.  One of the most difficult things I have ever done was trying to make a romantic relationship work with someone very different from myself.  The relationship ended but I learned so much about the importance of listening, forgiveness, selflessness, giving, caring, understanding, empathy, vulnerability, acceptance and overall emotional awareness and control.  This can be very painful but will change your life for the better as long as you have a positive attitude.

10 Fast Workouts For Busy People

There are times when life gets busy and skipping workouts can become more frequent.  Never fear.  Here are some routines I use when I am very short on time and still want to give my body a full workout.

1. Olympic weightlifting- Go to the gym and focus on improving your snatch on one day and then your clean & jerk on another.  Your workout can definitely be less than 30 minutes.

2. Farmer's walk- Hold a heavy weight in each hand (or use an apparatus like a trap bar) and walk.  This will work your entire body and is one of the best total body movements for athleticism and a lean physique.  A good session can be less than 15 minutes.

3. Twenty-rep squats- This is an even shorter workout but it is psychologically very demanding.  Do some warmup sets on the back squat and put on a weight that would normally challenge you if did ten reps without pausing in between reps.  Now, try to do twenty reps with that weight by breathing when you stand in between each rep.  Take as long as you need but keep the weight on your back and really push yourself.  This should take less than 20 minutes even with a warmup.

4. Rest-pause- This is a technique where you perform as many repetitions on an exercise with a challenging weight until your form breaks down (aka technical failure), rest for 12-15 deep breaths, perform additional reps until technical failure with the same weight, rest for 12-15 deep breaths, and do a third set until technical failure.  Do this with a pressing exercise (e.g. dips) followed by a pulling exercise (e.g. chinups).  This can take less than 10 minutes for a good upper body workout.

5. High Intensity Training- I used this for at least a year and this is the method of choice for some bodybuilders like Dorian Yates, Sergio Oliva, and Mike Mentzer.  Select two body parts and do two exercises for each for the day and do only one working set per exercise.  This set will be done very slowly during both the concentric and eccentric portions with a slight pause in the fully contracted portion of the exercise.  Let the eccentric and concentric portions take four seconds each.  The set is done when you cannot lift the weight anymore (aka muscular failure).  If done correctly, the single working set of the exercise is very difficult since you have to put as much effort as you can into that one set.  A workout can be less than 15 minutes.

6. Bodyweight Tabata- Do speed squats for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, do burpees for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, do mountain climbers for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, do speed skips for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, and repeat the cycle once more.  Make sure to make each 20 second interval fast and intense.  This is not a great muscle-building routine but it will keep you somewhat in shape in such a small amount of time.  This will take 8 minutes total.

7. Prowler push/Sled drag- I have not done these since my football days and it can be hard to find a facility that provides either of these but they provide some of the best workouts you can imagine.  You can be pretty wiped out after 10 minutes.

8. Hill sprints- Find a hill.  Then, sprint up and walk down it.  Keep doing this until your lungs and legs feel like they are on fire but not until you vomit.  This can also be less than 12 minutes.

9. Kettlebell swings- Take a fairly heavy kettlebell and do swings, snatches, cleans, and/or presses with it for 10 minutes.

10. Turkish get up- Grab a dumbbell, kettlebell, or even a barbell.  Lie down with the weight in the air held by one hand.  Now get up onto your feet with the weight still held high above you the whole time and then go back to lying down afterwards to repeat with the other hand.  Do this for 10 minutes with a difficult weight.

There are so many other things you can do that I have not tried as extensively: Escalated Density Training (EDT), HIIT, circuits, barbell complexes, tire flips, keg toss.  Most people do not need to spend hours every day to be in good shape.  Strong people make things work, even when time is limited.

Are You Racist If You Only Date Within Your Ethnic Group?

The overwhelming majority of Korean parents strongly prefer their children to marry other Koreans.  This percentage will certainly drop if the parents were born in America or if they themselves married non-Koreans but these individuals are statistically rare among Koreans born before 1970.  The familial pressure can be intense so most of the children end up dating exclusively within their ethnic group.  For those who really immerse themselves within the Korean community, dating a non-Korean will often lead to social exile for that would be a form of betrayal to the Korean people.  If you really want to add some spice, get gay-married to a black person.

This social phenomenon is present not only among other Asians, but also blacks, whites, Hispanics, Arabs, and others.  Is this a form of racism?  Of course the answer is, it depends.

As much as I care about older Koreans (especially my family), there is a certain amount of racism in their attitudes about dating and marriage.  Many believe the purity of Korean heritage is special and that it would be contaminated by having children with non-Koreans.  They may not think that Koreans are better than other ethnic groups, but certainly better for their children to reproduce with.  That is at least a bit racist.

The good news is that this mentality has changed significantly in America and is continuing to change.  Korean parents are becoming much more accepting of exogamy and their primary concerns are about whether the family will be happy with having a non-Korean and still trying to maintain their family traditions.  I am not entirely sure how this change occurred but I would credit it mostly to being in a more ethnically diverse nation.  Perhaps the racism they experienced as immigrant minorities in America made them realize that treating and judging people purely based on what they look like is unjust so they reflected on how they have been prejudiced about non-Koreans.  Maybe they befriended non-Koreans and realized some of them are good people too.

However, it is a bit more difficult to consider the Korean children as having racist sentiments for only dating Koreans.  Yes, some may definitely have the same views their parents do about interracial dating but more often than not, they feel they have an obligation to their parents to not date people of other ethnicities.  They will almost certainly feel attraction to people who are not Korean but will think that it would be burdensome and to some degree disrespectful to put that pressure on their families.

Fortunately, this is changing as well.  Statistically, Asian-Americans out-marry at higher rates than any other racial demographic in America.  This is likely due to the fact that Asians are less than 6% of the US population.  We (not just Asians) are genetically programmed to effectively make more copies of our genes and that requires a certain amount of environmental adaptability.  The parents may be upset at first but what are they going to do?  Nag?  They will do that anyways.  Your kids will be their grandkids so that's a quarter of their genes floating around in each of these new bodies.

We have made great progress in mitigating racism in America.  The American government no longer kills Native Americans, sanctions slavery and segregation of African-Americans, and forces Japanese-Americans into internment camps.  We now have black, Hispanic, and Asian American government officials and a biracial President.  Our iconic celebrities include multiracial Americans like Whitney Houston, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Depp, Oprah Winfrey, Muhammad Ali, and Beyonce Knowles.  Even if you are a multi-billionaire, you will be called out and condemned for racist statements (e.g. Donald Sterling).  Eliminating negative prejudices about interracial dating will help us form a more tolerant, happy, and peaceful United States.