The Peak Experience is an apt title.

[Gary Schwartz]

I just came across an Abraham Maslow page. I found this:

Peak experiences

"Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstacy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences." Abraham Maslow

Maslow asked his subjects to think of the most wonderful experience or experiences of their lives--the happiest moments, extatic moments, moments of rapture, perhaps from being in live, or from listening to music or suddenly "being hit" by a book or a painting or from some great creative moment. He found that people undergoing peak experiences felt more integrated, more at one with the world, more in command of their own lives, more spontaneous, less aware of space and time, more perceptive, more self determined, more playful.

Effects of peak experiences:

• The removal of neurotic symptoms
• A tendency to view oneself in a more healthy way
• Change in one's view of other people and of one's relations with them
• Change in one's view of the world
• The release of creativity, spontaneity and expressiveness
• A tendency to remember the experience and to try to duplicate it (where improv methodology comes from)
• A tendency to view life in general as more worthwhile

That sums up the intention of Improvisation and we, as coaches should work for this. The how may vary, but if we keep our eye on what can happen in true improvisation, we'll be on the right track.

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