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When I try to perform stuff, I often get incredibly shaky hands. Not just like a normal nervous tremor, but serious shakes about a centimeter up and down, and total loss of dexterity in the fingers. I think it's an adrenaline thing. Obviously once it starts, it doesn't stop until I do.

It's sometimes frustrating to have to use techniques that I feel look less deceptive, simply because my hands will not do what they are told (eg. in practice I can usually get a fairly good looking retention vanish working, and can do some fairly deceptive palming and clipping, click passes and such, but when trying to perform, I have to use larger moves, like the french drop, and classic palm, as my hands don't have the fine control they require to do much more - and even those sorts of moves can be a struggle.)

I'm not asking for suggestions to deal with the shakes, as I think the problem will probably treat itself gradually as I get more used to performing (ie. force myself to do more), but the standard answer of practicing more until you can do the magic under any conditions just doesn't work - the conditions of performing are totally different to while practicing in terms of what's happening to my body, and specifically hands.

I've found some rope magic works well, as it doesn't seem to need so much fine control, and recently I've started messing around a bit with thimbles, as they seem to be easier to control than coins and cards with shaky hands. Cups and balls seems to be something that is probably basically doable, due to the nature of the sleights involved, so I've been experimenting with that. Rubber band magic can be a bit hit and miss depending on how bad the shakes are.

Anyone else have similar problems, and found types of close-up magic that are doable, but still look good? I try to avoid using gimmicks as much as possible unless they are completely examinable.

Thanks,
Shakin' Stephen

Previous threads on same or similar topics which might help (or not!) are:

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic9343.p ... king+hands

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic8647.p ... king+hands

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic6792.p ... king+hands

Thanks Mandrake, I've read those, and there's some interesting ideas about dealing with the shakes. I'm pretty sure I can eventually train myself not to shake, but for the mean time I'm just looking for magic that works while shaking, so I can get more experience dealing with it.

It's a lot easier to get yourself to perform stuff if you can be reasonably confident you're not going to end up dropping all the props and ruining the trick before you start . It's a shame, as I really love coin stuff, but it's not practical for me to do it at the moment.

"Here I have an old english penny"
<shakes kick in, and 15 pennies fall from various clips, palms and sleeves>
"Plus a few more appeared by magic!... I'll get me coat"

I've had serious problems with an okito/boston box routine I was showing some people at a magic group. Anything fiddly or metal is very risky.

Oh. Another area I've found that seems to be potentially achievable with shakes is sponge magic.

It's an intriguing topic and I'm sure we'll get some further responses - the other threads just sort of dried up after a while. In my case I don't get shakes but the voice sometimes goes a bit weak and husky. As soon as I feel that coming on I try to slow down a bit and perhaps take a pause and a deep breath where possible but it rarely makes much difference. Sips of water etc help to a certain extent but it's embarrassing to say the least!

Hmm yeah, I know what you mean about embarassing. It's bad when the people notice, and they're trying not to comment, and then I feel like I have to try to make light out of being the great trembolo or shakin' stevens. The other thing is feeling the shaking coming on, and trying to rush through stuff to try to get it done before it gets too bad.

Mostly I don't have too much of a problem with my voice (or maybe it's just that the shaking stops me from noticing ), but I imagine that could feel awkard.

I'm very far from a good public speaker, and it does make me somewhat nervous, but I enjoy situations where I'm put in that position, as after the first minute or two, it always improves - as long as I'm prepared with roughly what to say. The drinking water trick helps a lot with this, and also leaving long pauses between sections - longer than feels appropriate is usually about right in my experience.

make light out of being the great trembolo or shakin' stevens

Or a poor man's Joe Pasquale!

I have no problems with speaking in public and usually do this at least once a week for other purposes where the topic and content can be tricky but is very important. I can usually wing it and throw in suitable ad-libs or change the mood as I go along depending on the reactions and feedback (usually silent!) I get. It's only when I'm doing a bit of magic that this happens. I don’t 'perform' a great deal or very often, just family, friends and anyone daft enough to stand still in the vicinity, but the voice thing usually happens most times. It's awkward if I'm trying to be dark and mysterious yet sound like I've been on helium beforehand - obviously more Mandrake mental control required!

Branching out from the topic slightly, I've wondered if the adrenaline/nerves thing is specifically due to the deception aspect. i.e. when speaking, you're purely trying to communicate, whereas with magic you're doing a mixture of communication and miscommunication as you work, so keeping the congruency between actions and words is harder. It's an extra layer to have to think about in addition to concerns over being "caught". And that's without even considering the physical coordination and technical skills required.

I think it's probably quite normal to have some degree of difficulty while saying (or implying) one thing and doing another, probably people with no difficulty have either learned not to think about it, or just naturally don't think too much about this kind of thing. Over analysers are probably at a disadvantage.

Maybe I've over analysed this...

i have the exact same problem even with tricks that i know like the back of my hand. An even bigger problem for me is not only do i get the shakes, my hands also get clammy and sweaty wich makes handling the cards twice as difficult and in turn makes me more nervous.

sauruman wrote:i have the exact same problem even with tricks that i know like the back of my hand. An even bigger problem for me is not only do i get the shakes, my hands also get clammy and sweaty wich makes handling the cards twice as difficult and in turn makes me more nervous.

Yes, I have that problem too. Many people say that they need their hands to be a bit moist in order to palm things, but I find that often mine are too moist. It starts off by the lines in my palms looking shinier than normal, then after a few minutes I can't palm much. It's obviously worse in warm weather, and particularly bad with small hard items like coins. Sometimes it's bad, sometimes not so bad.

The only real solution I've found is to wash my hands fairly regularly in cool water using soap, which seems to stop the moisture for 5 or 10 minutes. When I'm looking for the right moment to do a bit of "impromptu" magic, I often have to disappear to the toilet a few times first. Sometimes just wiping the moisure off on my clothes is enough to get stuff to work for a while, but there's only so often you can do that without getting funny looks

Something I've tried with some success is the manipulation lotion available here http://www.cards4magic.co.uk/acatalog/F ... owder.html
Wash and dry hands first, then apply a couple of drops and rub into the palms and fingers. It makes the hands a bit moist, but seems to slow down the sweat moisture somewhat - possibly something to do with the minty freshness. I haven't used this much though, as I'm a bit iffy about carrying a small bottle of vivid green liquid around with me in pubs.

If it's any consolation, many people apparently find their hands getting dryer as they get older.

oooh. i hate the sweaty hands. i also have very warm hands. i do some coin magic and i hand it off to my friend, who then hands it back after he messes around with coin stuff too. i get the coin back and its pretty cold.

and the sweat makes it hard to do coin roll and many other slights which drives me crazy

and with shaky hands, i think when i first started i was a very big shaker. 1: i wasnt confident with my magic 2: my public speaking sucks 3: nerves. =shakey hands. as i practced more and got used to performing tricks to people, i got less nervous but my speaking still sucks

Sweaty hands can sometimes work to your advantage! My hands are always dry and find it very hard to perform an Erdnase Colour Change without licking my hand first!

trickyricky wrote:Sweaty hands can sometimes work to your advantage! My hands are always dry and find it very hard to perform an Erdnase Colour Change without licking my hand first!

By the way, one little tip I discovered if you have dry hands (which I sometimes get, sometimes not ) is that if you cup your hand over your mouth and breathe out your hand will get sticky enough to do an ECC without your having to worry about getting the card damp and warping it and so in .

Kati

Just a thought for people with over dry hands, maybe you could try some psychology to treat it. Nervous people are often advised to imagine their audience naked or something similar, maybe the reverse could work for you guys.

Just imagine your audience are a bunch of nutters sharpening axes in case your trick goes wrong - that might get the adrenaline going enough to moisten the hands a bit Or maybe not...

Rather than start a brand new thread, I thought I'll just tag on my own problem (and plea for some help) here.

I've read through the threads about shaking hands, performance anxiety, nerves, etc. but I think my problem may be a little deeper.

So far I've only been performing for friends - close friends; but even so, my hands shake terribly. Not only that, my mind goes totally blank: I forget my patter, I can't think straight and do what needs to be done next, and my voice just get progressively softer and softer and softer till it's just incoherent mumbling.

I think it may be nerves or panic, and even though I have practiced the routine to bits, done it with full patter to the mirror till I can almost do it with my eyes closed, the moment my mind goes blank, everything is forgotten.

And invariably, the trick fails. I tried doing something simple first, self-working tricks, but even those were not able to get me up on my feet properly. It's embarrassing, no, shameful, and I feel bad for my friends who have to try and console me when I screw things up.

I don't know if more practice is the solution since I suspect my case might be closer to a full-blown panic attack scenario (exaggerating here). And even though they are friends who usually won't rub it in your face even if you manage to forget your pants, I feel that I really shouldn't be doing such bad magic in front of them until I get over this problem.

So... I don't know. Help?

i get the shakes too, today i was performing the cig through coin and at just the point during the last switch the gimmicked coin fell out of my sleeve and from there everything went downhill i couldnt even perform a simple DL trick it was horrible because you start getting paranoid as well