theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Extremely Nervous

Mith

Mith

Jan 2, 2011
21
0
Puerto Rico
Hey guys, well this is actually my first time posting, anyhow, ive been a street magician for over a year now, and ive performed many times at school, streets, offices, but i can never get rid of getting EXTREMELY shaky whenever i start performing again. I use a lot of false cuts in my moves such as Helix 190 and many sleight of hands, so i have to be very careful one the handling, because if the cards fall of, or i loose the order of the deck or anything, and the shaking just makes me do my presentation slower, and my fingers just dont respond as well. Thus my performance isnt as smooth. Then everybody always asks me why i get so shaky, and it just makes me feel worse. ive never been able to solve this problem...can anybody help me?...
 
my hands been shaky recently but I think it's just because of the winter weather
 
Okay, first of all, I suggest practicing more. I know that sounds quite patronizing, but it's true. If you repeat the same movement around 1,500 times (that's the figure I understand it to be, though that may be wrong) you get it ingrained into your muscle memory. This is the point where your body does it automatically and without thinking. This is where you want your false shuffles and flourishes to ideally be. If it's at this point, you should be able to rely on it, regardless of whether you're under pressure or not. Not only will it improve and become smoother, but you should feel more confident and less nervous knowing that you can perform your flourishes spot on every time. It's also sensible to practice them slowly but smoothly - if you practice them jerkily and fast, then it'll get ingrained as a jerky movement and be tricky to smooth out.

The other option, of course, is to perform more simple stuff. Do your flourishes, but use tricks that don't rely on keeping the deck in a certain order. You should hopefully gain confidence and the nerves'll go away, and when that happens, you can phase your harder tricks back in.

Just a few suggestions, feel free to take 'em or leave 'em. Hope I could help :)
 
i totally agree with randomwrath, i don't really get the shakes that much anymore, but i get scared asking people if they want to see a magic trick, then i get annoyed when i get back home and regret that i didn't do a magic trick :s. but enough about me xP, what i'd do, is perform to one person, mabye your mum, or a friend and keep building up, the more you perform and practice infront of people, less likely you will shake, and in the future, you're probably going to laugh that you even got nervous! :D
 
Thanks a lot for your help. and I have one last question, How do i deal with overcoming the fear of failure?... i mean it sounds silly, but its something inevitable that comes to mind...
 
Mith said:
Hey guys, well this is actually my first time posting, anyhow, ive been a street magician for over a year now, and ive performed many times at school, streets, offices, but i can never get rid of getting EXTREMELY shaky whenever i start performing again. I use a lot of false cuts in my moves such as Helix 190 and many sleight of hands, so i have to be very careful one the handling, because if the cards fall of, or i loose the order of the deck or anything, and the shaking just makes me do my presentation slower, and my fingers just dont respond as well. Thus my performance isnt as smooth. Then everybody always asks me why i get so shaky, and it just makes me feel worse. ive never been able to solve this problem...can anybody help me?...
Click to expand...

Well everyone gets nervous so don't be embarrased or anything. But there are ways to get over it. One way is to practice more and gain some confidence. Then when you go up to perform for somone, imagine that they're gonna love it. No matter how intimidating they look. :)
 
Dont get too worried about being nervous. If you go into a show thinking "omg im so nervous" then you really are going to be nervous, and thats no fun at all. Just remember why your doing what your doing- because you love it and its fun. The whole nervous thing will wear off with time. EVERYONE goes through it.
Have a great day and keep it real,
-Dakota
 
Again, I'd say use really easy tricks, so that you're not worried about failing. It also means you can focus more on your presentation and patter, to really get the most out of your performances. 'S a good way of building your confidence. Also, as long as you have a good time, it doesn't matter if someone catches you out occasionally, or you go slightly wrong one time. It's all a learning curve, and if you make a mistake once, you won't do it again.
 
Magic is a performance art. Nervousness is natural to our human body. Just turn it into positive nervousness to encourage you to succeed.
 
In Tommy Wonder's The Books of Wonder Volume 1, he speaks of something he calls the Pavlov Effect. The amount of times magicians use the word 'Psychology' in completely the wrong context annoys me, so rather than going into it i'll simply say if you want to know who Pavlov is Google it, you may find it interesting and absolutely nothing to do with magic.

Anyway, Tommy says that before you practise you should get yourself in a happy mood. Whatever makes you happy; a piece of music, thinking about a certain person etc, just put yourself in the right frame of mind and then practise. That way you'll link happy feelings with card manipulation and magic and when you perform you'll automatically feel happy. The happiness may help alleviate the nerves. Its a form of NLP in a removed kind of way.

Try it, it might work. Furthermore i'd suggest that if you consider some of your moves too knuckle busting or risky in front of people, don't do them. A simple in the hands false cut will fool many spectators, there's no need to go mad with things.
 
Another way is to think of it like this. If you screw up the effect, it's not the end of the world and most people will tend to completely forget that you screwed it up, because they don't have any idea what you are doing.

But like most have said, Start with the easy self working stuff and then build yourself up to the knuckle busting stuff if you want to.

The other thing is that being nervous is normal human thing. Pretty much ANYBODY who does anything that involves being the public eye get's nervous. No matter how many times they do it. The ones that don't look like they are nervous, are usually like that because they have prepared themselves for it over and over again.
 
I will top off all this great advice with a little tip! you should learn cardistry/flourishing. Once you learn how to manipulate a deck of cards in an unreal way it is extremely easy to attract attention. you won't even have to learn how to approach people because when you do cardistry in public people will always approach you asking you to entertain them. It works!! many strangers have asked me to do a trick in public randomly just because I was practicing my cardistry.
 
Problem: Shaky hands, Nervous, Fear of Failure

Solution:
Warm up your hands get blood flowing. Nothing like cold finger tips to give your routine speed bumps. Do this regardless of weather.

So you're nervous. It's fine. Stage fright is natural. Can you perform fine in front of your family, mirror, friends? If you can't, practice more. If you can, then its an approach issue. Can you perform fine if its one person? What about 2 people? Is there a certain number 8+ that gets you a little shaky? If you perform magic fine and it IS an approach issue, then this has nothing to do at all about cards. Sounds awkward, but awkwardness is what you're fighting. Approach random people and make a point to meet a new person everyday. Soon being with people, strangers or not, crowds or small groups will not be a problem, and the only thing left will be how well your performance skills will be (no nervousness to cripple you then). It will also help you gain a stronger more charismatic personality that is great for performing and will help you build stronger relationships. (Because that's what magic is about right?)

Being afraid of failure should be eliminated by your practice, and your ability to accommodate a set. If you KNOW you can do the trick, there should be no reason to fail, leaving only the people as your variables. If you DO mess up, knowing how to make a joke or how to incorporate things on the fly will help save face, as well as making your "failure" a piece of comic relief. No ones perfect. Chill out. Enjoy magic.
 
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