Steamrolling and getting steamrolled: Three exercises for both sides

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Steamrolling.

If you've done improv for more than a few months

You've probably heard this term thrown around, maybe in class or in notes even after a scene.

Or you've heard it, most likely, mentioned or used by another improviser that you do scenes with.

And if you've been on the receiving end, like you've been steamrolled, you know exactly how that feels,

really.

You're in a scene and maybe you've got something.

You've got something you want to add it.

in and you can just feel your scene partner just kind of running the whole scene.

You've got that thing, you've got something else.

Oh, I've got something, but you just can't

get it into the scene and you end up as just some kind of prop for that other character.

So that's the experience of steamrolling.

But the thing about it that I kind of think that a lot of improvisers just maybe miss, because it took me a long

time to figure this one out

is that steamrolling really doesn't have a whole lot to do with how much someone talks.

It's not about some kind of word count.

You can be like really loud, a huge character, you can be a talkative character in a scene, and you can still

be a really generous scene partner.

That's not

steamrolling at all.

You can say not a whole lot and still make the whole scene about yourself if you really want to.

So we're looking for a balance here.

And balancing a scene is really what you usually want in most

cases.

This is where everybody is playing a role, everybody is listening.

It comes down to sort of the content, the stuff in that

Who gets to contribute what?

So how do you know that that thing is happening and how do you do that balancing thing?

So you don't steamroll or you don't get steamrolled.

And that's what we're gonna talk about today.

I'm Jendahan and this is Your Improv Brain, where I break down improv concepts.

often through a neurodivergent lens and give you exercises to practice with a seam partner or solo

So, this was a question and a request that I received recently in the YouTube comments.

So here's an episode that's all about steamrolling.

And by the way, you can always ask

For topics to be covered.

You can ask questions in the comments.

You can send an email.

You can reply to any newsletter.

There's lots of ways to reach me.

You'll see it in every description and all the show notes.

So how do you know if you were steamrolling or if somebody steamrolled you?

So after the scene is when you want to do this.

You're asking yourself, like, what was that scene about?

And if the answer is entirely about one character, like if all the action, all the information

If the scene was completely about one person, if you can describe that character in detail and like all the

other characters are drawing a blank

that scene was probably being steamrolled, even if both people talked quite a bit.

So think about these things when you analyze the scene.

Like, did we learn anything about the other character?

For example, did that relationship between the two characters ever get a chance to develop?

What's the deal between those characters?

If you can't answer that, that might be an issue

Like was there anything about the combined dynamic of those characters in the scene, their views or what

they meant to each other

Or was the scene basically sort of all about one character and everyone else was just kind of a witness to

that character?

So scheme rolling can kind of look like not letting what someone says contribute to the scene.

So you might drop a confession that goes nowhere.

Not listening to what the other characters are offering and really kind of digging into those things,

noticing them, finding out more.

about that, say that confession.

That might be an issue.

That might be steamrolling.

Because that person

that has something to say, the scene partners have to notice that they have something to say and they might

be just paying attention.

to themselves or writing the scene themselves.

So steamrolling is a lot about missing offers and not paying attention.

You can watch for similar or related versions of this as well.

Like steamrolling is about controlling the scene or the whole set.

So similar actions are not offering too much or controlling that who, what, where, and all the whys and all

the hows.

And this can happen even with balanced amounts

of talking and energy in a scene.

So that's the pattern that you want to watch about what's happening, not just energy, not just number of

words.

And if honestly when you look back at these scenes and you notice that the other characters tend to be

underdeveloped, that you might not be able to

describe what their deal was or that most of the interesting stuff came from your side, you might be

steamrolling at least a bit, and it's not something to be proud about just

The interesting stuff came from your side.

It's not your show.

So be honest.

Don't necessarily pat yourself on the back by the number of offers you gave.

So the odd big scene is not necessarily steamrolling.

Because sometimes a character is just on fire or somebody is having a really solid night and someone else

might not be, and so you're kind of lending them a hand.

And that's all about trust.

It's about knowing your team and the overall balance of the improv that you're doing together.

So creative decisions or supporting a solution, that's all okay.

So steamrolling is that pattern I was talking about.

It's not a one-off situation.

It's what happens when several things are showing up

together over a period of time, over the entire class series, or over across a whole bunch of sets that

you're doing with

a coach.

If someone consistently isn't listening or isn't reading what the scene needs or maybe has a bit of a savior

complex about saving.

scenes that they think are going badly or saving someone that maybe only they think is like quote-unquote

bad at improv.

So why does steamrolling happen?

So this can happen for a bunch of different reasons, and some of them are more sympathetic than the other

reasons.

So ego is an obvious one.

And sometimes it really is ego.

Like somebody does want the stage time or wants to be the funny one or the star of the scene or saving the show.

But honestly, like what I've seen a lot is ego is not quite as common

as people might think as the cause of steamrolling.

More often steamrolling comes from anxiety.

You're in a scene and you're scared of that scene.

going wrong.

So one person is just generating all this stuff, all this material to try to save it.

Or maybe you're frustrated because you feel like nothing's happening or it's not working or it's not

Funny enough, so you start trying to fix things harder.

And this comes from not trusting the scene or trusting the improv or trusting your scene partner to find

something.

So then this person who's steamrolling might try to take over and control the situation.

Sometimes it might be a status thing that you're not aware of.

You might be defaulting to making things big or big declarative moves because like you think passive or

reactive moves are

kind of vulnerable.

You might be taking control of the scene.

That can feel like the safe thing to do, especially if you've been in scenes

before where you've kind of felt lost, you don't know where they're going, or something like that.

And so all of these are coming from a place of wanting the scene to go well.

So the intention is often fine.

But kind of the result isn't what we're after in a lot of improv, which we're looking for a balanced scene.

We're looking for discovery and not writing the scene.

And there's also some brain processing reasons, which we'll get into now how about.

So if your ADHD

You might be a little bit more prone to scheme rolling for a couple of reasons.

And none of them, by the way, mean that you're bad, you're not a bad person, you're not bad at improv.

You're not selfish.

So one of these things is verbal processing.

This can maybe be a big one.

So some ADHD brains, mine included, and other neurotypes as well, process things by talking.

So you're literally figuring out what is going on by saying things out loud.

Like in regular conversation, this can look like talking a lot or going on tangents.

That was something I did a ton in this show before I started using notes and scripts.

So in a scene, this can look like generating a ton of content.

Really, really fast because your brain is like working something out in real time.

It just happens to be like

through your mouth.

And the problem is that all of that processing takes time, right?

And your scene partner might be waiting for like a gap, a breath or something that you're just not letting

happen.

So impulse control can also play a part in this.

Like you get an idea, and that idea is coming out of your mouth right when it happens, and it doesn't matter

like say if your scene partner is about to say something, or if that's even what the

even needs in the moment, but the idea felt good and your brain just kinda went there and it came out.

Then we can think about the dopamine, right?

So there's dopamine getting laughs.

And driving the scene or being in control of what's happening on the stage.

All of this stuff can have that sort of hit.

It's engagement

It's stimulation and ADHD brains are constantly seeking that.

So you might not intend to improv this way, but it might be a pattern that ends up happening without

even realizing it.

Like you're just in a flow.

You're on that improv high and your brain is wired to do that thing.

And now let's think about our nervous systems, the nervous system perspective.

So steamrolling can also be a fight response.

So when the scene feels like really uncertain or it might be stalled or it might otherwise be in trouble,

your system is reading that as a like a low-level threat.

And one way that your nervous system might respond to that is by mobilizing and activating, like really

taking action and generating stuff and feeling

That space and fixing things.

And since this is an automated reaction, it might be happening.

However, we can watch for this

And on the other side of this, if you tend to say get steamrolled a lot, there could be something like a freeze

or a shutdown component in what's going on.

So when someone starts just kind of dominating the scene, kind of controlling it, your system might

deactivate.

You're gonna

potentially shut down.

And you might lose like access to your ideas or even your voice in this kind of situation because this is also

a very automated response to overwhelm

And your feeling here could be something like getting pushed out, or it might be just not knowing what to do

in this particular situation.

So this can feel like your brain going blank.

Or you might feel like something in you is just rejecting the scene altogether, like I I don't want to be here

anymore.

And you like all you're thinking about right now maybe is like walking off or how much you want to be tagged

out or something.

So your brain is going into kind of a

protection mode in this.

And this can end up perpetuating the issue and making the whole thing even worse.

Or it can feel that way.

Like you're heightening, you're shut down.

It doesn't feel good.

Alright, so you're being steamrolled.

What now?

Good question, you.

Both sides of this are going to require some honesty.

And this episode

Is brought to you by some tough medicine.

All right.

So if you feel like everyone is just steamrolling you, it might be time to just kind of look at the situation,

look at your deal, right?

Which might not be what you want to hear.

And I know that this can sound like the BS thing that people often say to us.

So I'm gonna be specific about what I mean here.

So it can be useful for your improv.

So, and you can always just throw everything away.

Like that's always valid too.

So ask yourself two separate questions.

Do I think this is happening or is this happening?

Because these are two different situations in our scene work.

If you think that it's happening, but you're not sure, it's great to just talk to a coach or a teacher that you

trust.

And the best thing to do whenever possible is to get that outside perspective because sometimes the

feeling of being steamrolled is actually covering for something else.

There might be something in your own work that you're just insecure about, perhaps.

And the they steamrolled me comes from the explanation that keeps you from having to look at that.

thing and that's human please trust me we all do versions of this thing especially in improv this thing is so

hard to do so you know it's a very honest

human thing that's happening here.

And sometimes the person doing what feels like steamrolling to you thinks the same thing about you, but

they think that they're picking up on the slack, right?

Because they're

they think that you're not contributing enough.

So both people here can walk away from the same scene with like completely different stories in their

brains about

what happened.

So the first step here is just be really honest on both sides and figure out what's actually happening here.

And if you've talked to a coach and it's genuinely happening

That's a coach or teacher issue to address.

And this is really important in general because you don't want to note your fellow performers about

something like steamrolling.

And there's other things that you can do that I'll get into shortly, but almost always you want to leave this

kind of note to someone else, to a third party.

So the coach or the teacher or even some other teammate that's not experiencing this perhaps, they can see

it from the outside.

They can diagnose what's

actually going on and they can make those suggestions without it becoming like a personal conflict

between two teammates, which is not fun.

And this is common with something as loaded emotionally

As steamrolling.

Like this is really the kind of improv feedback where nervous systems get really activated like right away

before the words or anything else sort of

s like sinks in.

So I I talk uh a lot about this in the episode just right before this on notes and I'll put a link in the

description.

It might be worth checking out if that topic is of interest to you.

But things like defense and shame and rejection sensitivity, the conversation can become really

unproductive really fast if

So it really helps to have someone from the outside kind of helping you out with that.

But what do you do if you don't have a coach?

Or what if that discussion

hasn't happened yet.

Well, there's some things that you can do when scheme rolling is actually happening

a l like in the moment.

So let's get to the exercises.

And after the exercises I have some homework for the steamrollers in the room as well

So here's an exercise you can do with a scene partner.

If you're in the scene and someone is running the whole thing, you have options to choose from.

So here's a few and a few ways to practice

First of all, this first one I'm gonna call the direct redirect.

So one thing your character can do at any point is ask a pointed question, and that question is going to force

your scene partner to acknowledge that you exist and your character has a perspective.

So these are some good questions in improv that can add something to the scene.

So they're the good question.

These are things like, aren't you gonna ask me why I'm holding this cat?

Or you might go with a statement like, you haven't asked me how I feel about any of this.

This is an in-seen move that can help rebalance the dynamic by making your presence and your unheard

perspective, unheard yet.

part of what's going on.

And you can do it while maintaining whatever energy is right for your character

Now, this won't necessarily work.

It's not a guarantee.

It depends on your scene partner, but it's a tool.

It's something that you can try from inside the scene.

So here's the exercise you can use to practice this skill.

Two players up, player one will initiate, and then every line that follows has to start with the phrase, I

care about that because.

And then you add your perspective, whatever it is.

This is kind of like the you haven't asked me how I feel about any of this thing, right?

You're adding that perspective in every line.

Now you can switch this line to whatever you want, like, oh wow, I find that really interesting because, or

any similar phrase that's going to work for your class.

And by the way, you can also throw in a confession into your response, like, because I was the one who spent

our inheritance on competitive olive eating.

Or whatever, and that can help as well.

Because confessions are always like this tool to consider in scenes when you just want to shift that

dynamic or revive something that's stalling out.

So they can that's sort of that's a one-two punch of sort of getting yourself into the scene.

So what you're practicing in in this one is listening, of course.

Because it's harder to sort of just brush past whatever the SIEM partner just said.

You're practicing addressing what

was just said in this exercise.

So you can't ignore your scene partner.

You have to acknowledge and address their words and justify what they said.

matters to your character before continuing on and you're also practicing curiosity and I'll get more on

that later.

Another way you can practice this with a scene partner.

There's another exercise.

It's called getting your voice in.

So getting your voice in is useful for someone who might be just talking too much.

perhaps verbally processing more than trying to control the scene.

So they might not be trying to control it, but you're having a hard time getting your word in.

So you just want to do that.

And it's important to note that you're not like fighting for position in the scene.

You're not trying to push your scene partner.

Because if you push back against their pushing, you know what, that just back and forth pushing is not gonna

go well most of the time

So you don't want to kind of make it into some kind of status battle.

So here we're just getting our words in, maybe speaking with a little bit more certainty.

you're kind of resetting your posture and reminding your SEAM partner that you're still there.

In this case, in the special case, you can interrupt

Right?

You can push a little in that regard.

You might be matching their energy to just kind of snap the scene into a more balanced dynamic.

This is like a one-time move.

So two players up for this, they're gonna start the scene regularly.

And you can use a premise that's already set up if you want, if that makes this a little bit easier.

So player one at some point during the scene.

is going to say, Oh wow, tell me more.

And player two at that point is going to start a monologue about whatever the thing is.

So they're going to use that phrase as their cue to start a monologue.

Now player one is going to interrupt them, and this interrupt can take anything.

It could use a motion to heighten, it can raise the stakes.

It can redirect.

It could be about the who, the what, the where, or something else.

The point is to just get in there and interrupt and shift.

So that's going to happen after the monologue's gone on a little bit, and they're going to find that spot,

that good spot to interrupt and just make that shift.

So that's what you're practicing, interrupting, which is not something that we ever want to make a regular

practice.

We don't want a whole scene of interrupting, but this is a one-time tool that we might

sometimes need for a variety of cases.

You might need to refocus the scene or you might need to snap someone who's just going on too long.

So, solo exercise.

This is another option, and it is quite challenging, but it works really well as a solo exercise.

And this exercise is to make a shift

to your character.

Now I'm gonna start off by saying this shift has to work with your character.

It has to be true for them, it has to be believable, or the scene is gonna end up just being confusing to the

audience.

So what you're going to do is to start a monologue as your character.

Set yourself up with a character and a high-level scenario if you want.

That makes it a little bit easier.

Or if you want that extra challenge, you can

Start from nothing.

But what you want before you start this monologue is to preset like a bold interchange.

for your character.

This can be an emotion if you want or it can be something else.

And I'll give you a couple of examples here.

You could go from love

to hate.

Like you love this item.

It's just the best thing in the world.

And then you slowly realize actually, oh my

I hate this thing, it's awful for my life.

What was I actually thinking?

You could start from a place of fear about someone or something in your life.

And then over the course of the monologue, you could become courageous about that thing.

Or you could go from apathy, I don't care about this thing at all, to being super curious about this thing.

So the key here is to practice making this believable for your character to be able to make that shift within

a scene.

And over time, over multiple monologues, see how quick you can make that shift while still keeping it

believable for your character.

So you can start off by shifting slowly across maybe a five-minute monologue, and then you can start

challenging yourself with doing it much more suddenly, like in the middle of your monologue.

So this is a really good skill to have in your pocket to shift scenes that are not working and to give your

character a point of view.

Maybe you didn't have one and you want to give your character one.

So this skill goes well beyond just helping potential steamrolling scenes.

So what about if you are the steamroller?

First of all, don't beat yourself up that you're learning it's gonna happen at some point.

And you generally

can't learn to stop doing something until you've done it and then you've recognized it and you've

understood what it feels like from the inside.

So you need to start just building that awareness to be able to catch something.

and not do it.

So that awareness is the whole thing.

So if you're reading this or you're listening to this and you're thinking, oh

That might be me.

That's actually a really good sign because you're paying attention to yourself and your own practice and

this episode, I guess.

So here's your homework, and this needs to be some kind of a habit.

So after your scenes, multiple, after every scene, ask yourself some questions.

Did the other characters get to be someone in this scene?

Can you describe who they were?

Can you describe what they cared about?

What was their deal?

Did you learn anything about them during the scene?

Or was all the interesting content coming from one character, yours?

So if the scene wasn't a character-driven scene, did your scene partner get to like highlight something?

Or did they get moments that pulled the focus in key spots within the scene?

Like it didn't have to be a lot, but in those key spots, did they get something?

Did they get to add interest to what was happening in the scene?

And if you can't answer those questions for the other characters

that scene might have been a bit of a steamroll.

So I'll put all of these in a page on improvupdate.

com.

I'll put a link.

in the description for you.

And here's a practice focus that you can take with you to the next class or jam or show that you do, especially

if you've had a tough time answering those questions that I just posed.

Curiosity

So make it your job to find out something about your scene partner's character that you didn't initiate.

that you didn't add to the scene.

Ask them a question.

Like one of the good types of questions in improv.

Like base that question based on something that you heard from them already.

Ask them, oh, I want to learn more about that thing that you said.

And then actually let the answer change whatever happens next.

Let what they give you shape where the scene goes.

Because that curiosity, that's gonna fix the steamrolling.

Because you're gonna be shifting your focus

From something like, what am I bringing to this scene?

And you're letting yourself be genuinely interested in the answer your scene partner gives you.

And that's when the scene is probably gonna open up

It's much harder or even impossible to be the steamroller if you're genuinely curious about the other

people in the scene.

So after your next practice or your show, write down every scene that you did

Maybe if you're, you know, in a practice session, you can write it down while you're practicing.

But for each one, try to describe your scene partner's character in just a couple sentences.

What did that character want?

What was their perspective?

What did they contribute to the scene?

Things like that.

And if you can't do this for your scenes, that's when you want to start.

Bringing the curiosity in and let that be your focus for the next few sessions

So you might have got some tough love in this episode.

Congratulations if that's the case

Steamrolling is one of those topics where everyone wants to talk about the people doing it to them and very

few people want to look

about whether or not they're doing it themselves in the scene.

So this one takes a lot of honesty and it takes a lot of improv guts.

So the short version, watch the content of your scenes.

Look for those patterns.

Be honest about your own role in the scene, but most of all, be curious.

Be curious about your seeing partner and stay curious about your own patterns.

That's the work.

That's the homework to do.

I'm Jen deHaan and this is your improv brain.

You can find an improv newsletter at my site

improvupdate.

com and you get a whole bunch more stuff there about improv.

Bye for now