I know that there are plenty of other "first time" posts around, but this is just another one of it.
Yesterday there was a welcome meeting (that is, no tricks explained) at the local magic club and I decided to go even if I am going to change country (once again) before summer. I decided to go. When I finally got an answer from them, in the afternoon they told me to bring a trick to perform for the members. I almost panicked out of it, but then I decided "what the hell? Even if I mess up, they are magicians and no secret will be revealed". And so I went and just did it, unfortunately with almost no preparations since I had no time (of course I picked something I knew).
How did it go?
The bad: I messed up, as in I got the card next to the chosen one. This was due to the fact that I was performing for the first time and someway improvising in French, which is a language I am far from comfortable with. So I literally didn't see the chosen card laying there in front of my eyes, but I managed to get away with a joke.
The good: I did it. And apart for the final mess-up, I did it good. In the afternoon I had come up with a good idea to improve the trick and it worked perfectly. Also (and this really surprised me), they were completely off as for the method. In other words, I fooled an audience of magicians with a (partially) self-working trick thanks to my little mathematical improvement. And I wasn't even trying
Also the atmosphere was really relaxed. So relaxed, in fact that some of the members messed up their performance big time, including the one who had been my "subject".The excellent: the presentation worked flawlessly, better than I expected. I got a lot of good laughs, notwithstanding the language barrier, and I pinned the patter perfectly to the audience. I am really proud of this since I am a big fan of "simple moves, good presentation" and I feel terribly sad when I see even extremely skilled magicians doing boring routines.
In the end, when with the other newcomer (a 16 year old girl with excellent card skills) we were going away to leave the members have the rest of their meeting I got a heartwarming "are you going already"? So although it's not official, it's likely that in a few months I will be doing my "test" with a real public to get the admission to the club.
I must say, I'd never had done it if it hadn't been for TM and I can now proudly change my signature from ?? to AH
