"I used to be a corporate trainer, but I'm a stay-at-home mom now, and I have to be reminded of how to interact with grown-ups," Miller said during a recent session in Orange Park in which participants applied definitions to nonsensical words such as "colacey" ("two little girls who like to wear little skirts together") and "canapooah" ("when shampoo gets in your eyes and your eyes start to water") and "tidleepoo" ("a kind of candy made only in Switzerland, and at high altitudes").

In other words, they had to improvise.

"I'm not used to making up words, and I can probably be a better mom for doing so," Miller said.

Actually, said Melissa McNichol, she's becoming a little too good at it.

"I stay at home with my kids, too," said McNichol, whose children are 3 and 7. "It's really helped me because my daughter is always asking me to tell her stories, and it helps me to make up these stories.

"Unfortunately, she believes me. She believes I grew up with the princesses, and that I know them personally, and that I have a deep connection with them. I'm going to have to break the news to them at some point," McNichol said with a laugh.

But being able to persuade and evoke is all part of the art of improv, said Jessie Shternshus, who teaches the classes. Through her company, The Improv Effect, she not only does improv shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art and The Comedy Zone, she also teaches businesses and individuals how to use techniques that improvisational performers use to bolster their communication and listening skills in everyday life.

Most of all, she teaches them how to have fun while doing it.

"Improv is the art of making things up on the spot. It's what we do every day, said Shternshus, 34. "It helps creativity, to be able to sell something on the spot and make people believe it. It helps with presentation skills, and it helps you to read your audience and be able to sell something on the spot if necessary."

Shternshus' idea to offer improv classes in the community is an improvisational career move itself.

Originally from Tallahassee, she earned a degree in theater from the University of South Florida and spent much of the late 1990s in New York City, where she did work on "Sesame Street," and for CBS, Paramount Pictures and MTV. But, she said, she never strayed too far from her love of improv - and teaching.

"I'd always wanted to be a teacher, and I've been doing improv since I was 10 or 11, so it's ironic that I've come back to teaching by putting it and improv together," Shternshus said.

Ultimately, Shternshus decided she wanted to be closer to her family in Tallahassee. She chose to move to Jacksonville, she said, because she wouldn't be far from her family, and it would provide more opportunity for her to continue doing improv.

Offering classes to individuals, however, is especially fulfilling for her.

"A lot of the theory of improv is closely related to the theory of communicating in life," she said. "So if you can do improv and learn how to do that in a fun way and an interactive way ... and you're laughing while you're doing it, it's good. This is what I love."

At Shternshus' recent class, there was no shortage of laughter.

During one exercise, titled "Get off the bench," two participants pretended to sit on a bench, and one had to do something to force the other to leave. Their antics ranged from one person sitting down and digging in their nose, to another shaking dandruff or something from her hair, to Shternshus sauntering over and offering to give a massage for $10.

Then there was the exercise in which participants had to pretend to be a certain character, and then submit to interviews from everyone else. Risa Grant, a creative services coordinator for Shands Healthcare in Gainesville, decided she wanted to be a 4-year-old named Anna.

When asked what her mother's and father's names were, she said, "Mom and Dad." When asked how long it would take for her to walk a mile, she said she didn't know what a mile was, but, "if I put on my Dora the Explorer shoes, I bet I can do it in two seconds."

"Believe it or not, I don't have any kids or grandkids," said Grant. "This is just something I wanted to do for fun, just to sort of stretch my limits and to have the freedom to do something new."

And Carol Waters sparked hysterical laughter when she got up and pirouetted to show how her character, a ballerina named Tina, made the transition to that after being an arm-wrestling champ in high school.

"I have no idea what made me pick the character I picked," said Waters, who works as a stress management consultant. "I've never taken ballet lessons in my life, so it seemed like a fun thing to do.

"The reason I came to improv was to get more comfortable in front of groups. It helps me to improvise when I need to ... it's just a more relaxed way of looking at life, and laughter helps."

Genoia Boucher and Catherine Land, two friends who had the class in stitches as they pretended to be angry over one's refusal to eat the other's taco lasagna ("If you don't eat it I'm gonna shove it down your throat!") also had their reasons for turning to improv.

"I'm going through a lot of transitions in my life ... I've always been told, though my whole life, to sit down and not do that. This is so freeing, and it's great," Boucher said.

Said Land: "I'm just here for comic relief. It's been a tough two years financially, and the stress was getting to me ... just to have an hour and a half each week when I can just laugh is good.

"My face hurts when I go home, I've laughed so hard."

For more information on The Improv Effect and classes, call (904) 401-9485 or go to www.improveffect.com .