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I've had it in the past as well. It is very similar after I've been at the gym, especially if I've been lifting heavy weights. Just the adrenaline shooting through the body.

It is very hard to control. I usually start with a self-worker or a very sleight easy effect. I've also tried various breathing techniques which I've read about to help calm myself. I also learnt to relax a lot more and give a bit of patter before I've even lifted the cards out of case.

I also get the shakes sometimes. I have found though, that my hands start shaking when I try to go faster. If I am trying to do a fast paced routine it becomes a problem for me, so I have found that slowing down stops the shaking. It is a weird thing because it can happen even if you are not that nervous. It is definately the noticing of the shaking though, that keeps you shaking. My solution for me is to slow down, I'm sure it's different for everyone though...

David Stone discusses this to an extent in his Real Secrets of Magic book ( which incidentally, is a very good read )

He says that stage fright never disappears, and that its something that you learn to live with and manage. Its good to know that someone as successful as him still suffers from the shakes etc

There are various techniques to help manage it, but as a few have said above once you're into your routine and your confidence builds the shaking will invariably stop!

Thanks for all your replies; they've been really helpful!

I did an impromptu performance today for two of the people I work with and made sure to start of with a semi-self-working effect. Their reaction was brilliant, because I have a feeling they didn't expect me to be much good. They were really interested in seeing more, so that made me feel a bit more confident and I was still shaking but not a huge amount.

I did two or three more effects that were all linked to each other in some way and I discovered something interesting: I'm a lot calmer when I pretend that I'm not "performing", but rather just "showing" them something as part of a normal conversation. It's a psychological trigger, I suppose.

Great thread.
This is one of the reasons why my opening effect is based upon the silent treatment by John Allen.
All I do flip the pages, force a card, flip, and flip
All the audience does is laugh and laugh
Every time I flip a page, I get less nervous
This also lets the audience know I am a comedy magician
By the time I am done, I am ready for my 2nd effect, hold it buster.

You could start with an effect where your hands shaking would add to it? Like some kind of mind read, and put your hands either side of the specs head and make them shake, then do the big reveal. It lets you do the "shake until you cant shake any more" bit, in an effect!

Well said Spooney! In other words follow what many performers have done.
Use what you have, adapt it to what you need.

That's why Laurel & Hardy utilised the fat and the thin. Another comic had a stutter; it went into his performing personna. Robert Morton ( another old comic) had difficulty in remembering some of his jokes. He brought on stage , with him, his Big Joke Book.
My friend, the late Val Andrews once told me he was making a tape of the Dante story but to open it, he needed a recording of Dante's Overture music but only had an old 78rpm record which was badly scratched. On the way home via Tube he suddenly let out a yell, startling the other passengers.
The idea was--adapt it. So the tape begins with something like,' In an old attic a gramophone played a familiar tune on a scratched 78 record etc.'

USE what you have. Make it work for you.

Allen Tipton

queen of clubs wrote:Help with the shakes

Put DOWN the Vodka