Friday, March 26, 2010

Improv for Commandos

For the Commando Kid, there is nothing more crucial than quick thinking for doing more, and doing it more often.

If a Commando Mom notices, for example, that the cat's whiskers are only one inch long on the left, who's she going to ask about that, and what quick response will the Commando come up with to handle the situation without losing safety-scissor clearance?

Luckily, the Commando already has many skills that can be further developed using simple games, much like those used by Improvisational Theatre troupes. Those unfamiliar with these improv games might at times think the young trooper is simply being repetitive, or trying to distract and conquer.

The Commando Kid actually is learning valuable skills, however, that he or she will use later to dodge a barrage of parental questioning with quick retorts, or to measure just how much attention Commando Mom is paying as a way to ascertain how much he or she can get away with on any particular day.

Yes, someday, the Commando Kid will become a Commando Teen, and improv will become a way of life as a battle skill to carry out daily evasive maneuvers.

The Commando already has a natural affinity toward these games, which are based on audience suggestion(in this case Commando Mom or an older Zen sibling). The games are meant to be played repetitively to sharpen the Commando Kid mind, and are just a little different each time they are played, keeping  a Commando Mom slightly off guard, or at least keeping her guessing. (That’s precisely why adults revisit them at Comedy Improv shows—to recapture the pleasure of being the kid in the game.)*

A few favorite Improv games, played Commando style:


What Are You Doing?**
The most classic and earliest-learned game. The Commando Kid asks a simple series of questions to Mom, who, until she learns the game, keeps trying to respond with a logical answer. Really, the Commando knows that to play this game properly, Mom must respond by saying she is doing something totally different from what she is actually doing, thus learning to think on her feet, while trying to count the number of cups of flour she’s supposed to be putting into her banana bread batter.

Wrong:Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: Making banana bread
Commando: oh. Mom?
Mom: What?
Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: (mildly annoyed) Making banana bread.
Commando: oh. Mom?
Mom: (steam rising from ears) Making banana bread!
Right:
Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: Making banana bread.
Commando: oh. Mom?
Mom: What?
Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: Walking on a flying trapeze while hopping on one foot and tying my shoe with one hand.
Commando: oh. Mom?
Mom: What?
Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: Fighting off a wild bear with both hands tied behind my back, while playing a tiny piano with my left earlobe.
Commando: oh. Mom?.....

Big Booty
The Commando picks a silly, very annoying phrase (such as ‘Number one big booty’), and chants it repeatedly and with a sarcastic attitude, until Mom loses all track of what she was trying to do and puts the clean frying pan away in the freezer and pours cat food into the coffee maker filter.

Gibberish
The Commando Kid gets a suggestion from his older sister, the family cat, or a Lucky Charms commercial, to ask Mom to take him to the circus, which won’t be to town for three months, but he really has to go to the bathroom, giving the circus question much more urgency and making it impossible for him to form an intelligent sentence that contains and words with the letter p, such as peanut.

While doing the potty dance, he tries to explain to Mom what he wants, using only pantomime and gibberish words that don’t contain the letter p.

When Mom doesn’t understand, he storms out of the room crying and letter p’s in his pants, turning it into a game of 20 questions and dirty laundry.

Rhymes
Everything that Mom says is responded to by the Commando Kid with a rhyme. Commando Moms usually can’t resist these games, and inadvertently (wink wink) encourage its continuation by peppering in certain words for a Commando Kid’s off-color rhyming pleasure, eliciting Commando squeals of delight.

Mom: Hi Jane.
Commando: Hi airplane.
Mom: What would you like to eat?
Commando: I wanna’ eat some great big feet.
Mom: Have you seen my great big foot scoop?...
or, alternately
Mom: I need a big foot shopping cart....

In some war games, everyone wins.

*Just ask master of improv, Jill Bernard, who teaches adults how to bring out the kid in their audience by playing the game.
**Thanks to Commando Kid Ami for the suggestion to include “What Are You Doing?”

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Fun for Commandos Everywhere

Please take a moment to visit  Poetry4Kids, the Web site of children's poet Kenn Nesbitt, where the delightfully wacky book My Hippo has the Hiccups is currently available as a free e-book through April in honor of national poetry month. Kenn also has a newly released collection, The Tighty-Whitey Spider. Commando Kids eat this stuff up!*

*No books were actually eaten in the making of this post 

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Commandos on the Road

Recipe for a successful Commando road trip. Add to smallish, 2002 vintage, four-door sedan full of necessary rations, camouflage, and battle plans for storming Seattle's playgrounds:
  • 1 busy Commando kid, bottled into a booster seat
  • 2 toy Army trucks that make a lot of noise every time you push a certain button—keep them just out of mom’s reach
  • 3 CDs of favorite marching orders—but insist on playing the one song about fire trucks and police cars over and over and over
  • 4 different flavors of rations—none of them will be what you wanted. Insist mom stop at the next truck stop for the licorice that you meant to ask for
  • 5 stops to move your legs, and five fights to keep from getting strapped back in that seat
  • 6 different road games, such as: counting trucks (80 seems to be the upper limit); the alphabet game (it’s hard to find V); I spy; who can kick mommy’s chair the most (Commando always wins); do I have to stop this car and give you a timeout? (mom always wins); who can be quiet the longest (it’s a draw if you start kicking the seat again)…
  • 7 markers fallen on the floor, including the one you MUST have to finish your picture of the policeman
  • 8 steps in the directions to help mommy find the black marker behind her seat without looking
  • 9 toy army men launching kamikaze automobile missions out the window of the car
  • 10 times an hour asking “Are we there yet?”
Mix all ingredients, and add one tall frosty mug of Corona for Mom at the end of the five-hour car ride. Spend the next two days securing control of foreign territory—play pirates at the playground, take advantage of the kindness of grandma, dig holes to China at the beach—and repeat for the car ride home. You and Mom will both arrive home in your fatigues.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Field Maneuvers

A Commando Guide to Visiting Foreign Bases

Commandos frequently accompany their commander on field maneuvers and are ever-ready for new adventures. Whether this is because their company is so pleasurable or whether the babysitters have gotten to know them a little too well is a question for the ages—1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

In any case, when MOM has a meeting, party, or other field op, the Commando serves as an active duty—very active—sidekick more often then not.

Such maneuvers are rife with opportunities to put field drills to practice and to hone the Commando’s skills at doing more and doing it more often. There are snacks in abundance and new stairs to scale and foxholes to hide in, but MOM will be ready to thwart special missions, so covert ops are necessary.

Following are some tips for getting the most out of such field trips:

Scope out allies. This doesn’t apply just to other kids, but also to Commando-friendly adults at parties and meetings. The Commando doesn’t even have to find them, because these adults will find the Commando, and immediately offer special rations and gear. Be nice to these adults!

Perform a reconnaissance mission upon arrival. Every base is laid out differently. The most interesting rooms often are downstairs, and the best for planning special missions or finding hidden caches are those that are dark or farthest from the adults.

Store rations. The snack table will be full of raw vegetables and dip at one end, and cookies, pop, and juice at the other. While the adults head for the vegetable end, the Commando has the opportunity to take aim for the cookie end.

Push MOM’s limits. Go ahead and do what you want. Run up and down the stairs like an elephant brigade, eat all the cookies, play with the antique rifle in the hobby shop. She can’t stop you repeatedly and look good in front of her friends at the same time. If she tries, move closer to your adult ally and make doe eyes. Soon, MOM will give in, and she may even become your sidekick as you work the room, following you around trying to explain your maneuvers.