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Here's another place I've noticed improvisation: basketball. I would compare my high-school basketball experience to blues or rock-based improv. We had set plays (chord progressions) that we all knew, but everyone was encouraged to break off when the time was right and go to the hoop (solo). I remember our coach stressing creativity and the ability to improvise. When you are driving to the basket, flying through the air, you are not doing a planned activity, you are reacting instinctively, and it wouldnt surprise me if you used the same part of your brain doing a layup in traffic as improvising a musical solo. I play on an intramural team here at UMF, and our style is a looser, more improvised one than what i experienced in high school. We dont practice set plays, so we are restriced only by the rules of basketball (no traveling, no going out of bounds, etc). As a result we our offense can be hectic at times, and stagnant at others. Idealy, and occasionaly, though, everyone on the court is in sync, setting screens, moving without the basketball, making good passes, and when everyone is on the same page like this, the game is fun to play, exciting to watch, and similar in many ways to an improvised musical performance.

blogging on this bloggold:
first off, i love the idea of comparing basketball to music. i think this was a really interest comparison. one thing that it did bring up to me, however, is the ability to compare improvised music to any aspect of life. it seems to me that as long as there are some rules and some room to do anything other that the rules you have improvision. this, then seems to say that life is all improvised. this is a very free will sort of way to look at life, and i dont' know if i completely follow it. (at this point, i am not talking just about basketball). i feel like improvision should at least sometimes be intellectualized so that the improviser knows and intends to go outside the borders of the rules. i think intent is crucial!
... but maybe not 100% necessary???
i think that maybe improvision with intent could be thought of as a different animal that improvision without intent. intent directs action, and without it you fall into chaos. but it is still a chaos without intent.
i'm not entirely sure where i'm going with this, so obviously i need to think about it more.
hopefully i've started a conversation somewhere!