talkmagic.co.uk

It's not often I pluck up the courage to try out the hours and days and weeks of practice I have put in. Today everything I tried, failed and that's fine. I'm c*** (not the best). I can handle that. But it's hard to be motivated to continue to practice when you are ridiculed. I actually dropped half the cards on the floor. I get really nervous and my hands shake really badly, which is obviously terrible for close up card magic. I have no idea why I'm telling you this. I suppose I just want sympathy.

Tempest wrote: suppose I just want sympathy.

never!

heh just kidding. performing magic is just like any performing art. people get nervous, but eventually get over it through experience. luckily i had friends that were also in magic, so i practiced with them

How old are you? Where do you do your magic when you get a chance? At school? Or where?

Tell us about your history or something about yourself. Then I think we can advise you better. I personally would like to get a better picture of you in my mind before offering counsel.

How long have you been doing magic? Do you attempt difficult sleight of hand or do you prefer the simple stuff? Just give us a bit more info so we can all get a better picture of you.

Don't bother answering that last post. I have checked you out. With regard to nervousness the best way to overcome that is to do what you fear to do and get a record of successful experiences behind you.

For the moment I would eschew difficult sleight of hand with cards. Do the easy stuff. Some of the greatest tricks in card magic are self working tricks which require no skill whatsoever. Once you start to get great reactions with easy tricks you will build up the confidence to try something harder.

For now learn 3 easy tricks with cards. However make sure they are effective tricks. There are many to choose from. I would suggest Poker Player's Picnic from Royal Road to Card Magic plus Do as I Do from the same book. You will need two packs of cards for this. I can't think of any more off the top of my head but there are plenty to choose from.

Now when you have learned these 3 easy tricks find someone to show the tricks too. When you have done that find another audience. And then another. Keep on finding audiences for those 3 tricks. Sooner or later you will get so much praise and glory your confidence will gain tremendously.

I would recommend some kind of sucker trick. There are many of them. One of the best and easiest is 3 and a half of clubs which you can buy from a magic dealer. The reason I recommend a sucker trick is that if your audiences tend to ridicule you this will be a great way of putting them in their place.

If you do easy tricks which are devoid of technical difficulty it will stop you shaking and dropping the cards.

I have no more energy left to advise. Work on the above for now and let us know how you get on.

Excellent advice Mark. If he follows it he will be alright. I could not add anything more. Regards
Al

A nice, polite, very useful post from Mark Lewis. I'm in the same boat, and suffer very badly fro shaking hands whenever I try and perform (except when drunk, but that brings its own problems) I have found though that self workers do provide you qith confidence through experience and allow you to progress little by little into more complicated tricks. In the same way that bad performances make you wanna give up, good performances boost your ego and drive and confidence ten times more.

If you're comfortable with the glide, I would suggest designed for laughter from royal road, it's a nice sucker trick, simple to do, and always gets good reactions.

I'm probably less experienced than you though so I am just following on from Mr Lewis

Whenever I'm performing a new trick for the first few times, my hands got the shakes, and badly. Though they seem to disappear after I get more 'in tune' with the presentation of the effect. If that makes any sense.

The first magic book I ever bought was Scarne on Card Tricks. It has over 150 card effects not involving sleight of hand. Some of the effects are very good, and I still use a few of the ideas I learned today. I feel that I could not have started with a better book. Not worrying about the moves and sleights of my effects gave me confidence and allowed me to work on presentation.

The book is not very expensive, so I would recomend picking it up. Even if you are not a begginer, you can still learn a lot from this book. You will be able to overcome you nervousness by performing the effects in this book often.

Even after you build up your confidence, you can still use this book as a reference and for ideas (add a few sleights to some of the effects and you can have a briliant routine). This book is also a great teacher of patter, as it gives examples of patter for every effect in the book.

Regarless of what level you are at, if you are nervous about performing or even just want a few new ideas, I would recomend picking up this book.

Solid advice from Mr Lewis, you can't go wrong with some of the self-workers in Royal Road. They are there for you to perform whilst learning the harder stuff and to gain your confidence.

Obviously make sure you know the effect inside out before you perform it and try it out on your family and close friends first, ones who'll be more forgivig as they know you are learning. Once you start to pull off some successful tricks and receive a great reponse, your confidence will boost no end.

Hugards "Encyclopedia of Card Tricks" has some nice self-workers as does Mark Wilson's book.

Solid advice from Mr Lewis, you can't go wrong with some of the self-workers in Royal Road. They are there for you to perform whilst learning the harder stuff and to gain your confidence.

Obviously make sure you know the effect inside out before you perform it and try it out on your family and close friends first, ones who'll be more forgivig as they know you are learning. Once you start to pull off some successful tricks and receive a great reponse, your confidence will boost no end.

Hugards "Encyclopedia of Card Tricks" has some nice self-workers as does Mark Wilson's book.

I'd say forget about sleights and such things at the moment and warm yourself up. Learn some self workers and get some really good patter to go with them...it will give you more confidence in front of people.

Thanks so much guys. I didn't expect any replies. I'm practising my glide just now. I err away from self-workers in case someone figures it out and it feels like I'm not really doing anything but you guys are the pros so I'll follow your advice.
I was watching a well known Scottish magician duo performing recently and it pleased me to see that one of them was visibly nervous as well.

Nothing wrong with a couple of self - workers to get the condfidence up!

The Key Card! IMMENSE!

Tempest wrote:I was watching a well known Scottish magician duo performing recently and it pleased me to see that one of them was visibly nervous as well.

You at Reading Festival?