Present Tense

The stomach ache the night before. Before the interview, before the pitch, before the conversation you've been putting off for weeks.

Most of us handle it one of two ways. We avoid the thing, or we push through and hope nobody notices. Either way, we never get a proper look at what the feeling is doing to us.

Present Tense is a rehearsal for that feeling. A small room of people who don't know each other sits inside the discomfort on purpose, with nothing riding on it, and pays attention to what the body does when it arrives. So that when it turns up for real, it's something you've met before.

We've been running rooms like this for four years. Two hundred and fifty of them, mostly for people who'd never done anything like it before.

We're not therapists and we're not coaches. What we're good at is holding a room while people do something they'd rather not do. That's the whole skill.

Come if

You know that stomach ache, and you'd rather work on it than read about it.
There's something coming up, or something you keep avoiding, where the feeling gets in the way more than the words do.
You're willing to be uncomfortable for a while, in a room of people you don't know.

The room is held by

Yash and Praveen have run All-In Improv together for four years: more than two hundred and fifty sessions, over two thousand people, most of them first-timers.

Yash Co-Founder, Present Tense

Yash spends a lot of his week in rooms full of business owners. He mentors them as a Director Consultant at BNI, and he co-founded a real estate business, MACJ, which means he has sat through a fair number of the moments this room is about. Four years of running rooms has made him good at the part nobody notices: spotting the person who's gone quiet.

Praveen Co-Founder, Present Tense

Praveen has done improv for eight years and taught it for four. He also runs an AI company, which has put him in front of enough investors and enough co-founder disagreements to have his own list of conversations he's been putting off. He designs what happens in the room.

In the room · Bengaluru

What it looks like.

What actually happens

You're right to ask again. A room that won't explain itself, and asks you to trust it anyway, can also be the room that goes wrong.

The room is built to bring the feeling on, not to talk about it. You get put in situations where you don't know what's coming, there's no script, and you can't control what the other person does. The body handles the rest. In the rooms we've run, people's breathing changed and their hands went cold before they could name what they were feeling.

That feeling is usually the obstacle. Not the words. Most people already know what they want to say.

So you spend the time inside it, with people who are inside it too. Noticing what your body does. Trying things. Going slower. Doing the uncomfortable thing once, then a second time, and noticing that the second time is different.

You're on your feet more than you're seated, working in pairs or small groups. Nobody performs for an audience. Nobody is put on the spot without warning. You can pass on anything, no reason needed. What's said in the room stays in the room.

You leave knowing how your own body reacts when the pressure turns up. That's the part nobody gets to practise.

None of that is a promise about what happens to you. It's what we've seen happen in the room.

In the room

I could sense that my breathing had become shallow. I could feel my hands go cold. I experienced my eyes tearing up. I'm sorry, I should have been even slower. My mind was struggling to be random. As soon as the mind sees a pattern, it just goes: this is what's going to happen. I could sense that my breathing had become shallow. I could feel my hands go cold. I experienced my eyes tearing up. I'm sorry, I should have been even slower. My mind was struggling to be random. As soon as the mind sees a pattern, it just goes: this is what's going to happen.

The standards that we set for ourselves. For the first time I was getting applauded for something I've criticised myself about. What the world has taught me versus who I naturally am. Since I went up there first and I did it - piece of cake. The standards that we set for ourselves. For the first time I was getting applauded for something I've criticised myself about. What the world has taught me versus who I naturally am. Since I went up there first and I did it - piece of cake.

What people have to say about us

These are from our sessions over the last few years.

Questions people asked.

Is this therapy?

No, and it doesn't replace it. Therapy looks at where something came from. This is a rehearsal for a thing you're about to do. Run by facilitators, not clinicians.

What if I freeze, or it doesn't go well for me?

That's allowed. Most people do, at some point. The room is built around what happens next rather than getting it right the first time.

Who is this actually for?

Anyone who knows the stomach ache the night before and would rather work on it than keep working around it.

The rooms so far have had founders, managers, engineers, product managers, a doctor, a lawyer and a photography studio owner. What they had in common was the feeling, not the job.

Isn't this just improv?

Some of the exercises come from improv, which is what we've spent four years doing. Nobody performs, there's no audience, and you won't be asked to be funny. If that was the worry, it's a fair one.

When's the next one?

It'll be announced soon. Join the waitlist and you'll hear first, before it's announced anywhere else.

What do I actually walk out with?

Not a framework, and nothing you'll need to file. A clear read on how your own body reacts when the pressure turns up, and a few things to do about it that you have already put to use once, somewhere it cost you nothing.

Do you work with companies or teams?

Reach out to get more details.