Success or Failure?

[RebelZero]

Which do you think is better for building confidence? I've been practicing card magic off and on for about 2 years. I'm pretty average as far as it goes. I have pretty bad stage fright, though. I find it difficult to perform for people and have all the usual problems that go with it: sweaty, shaky hands, forgetting my patter, muffing easy sleights.

Lately, I've been forcing myself to perform more in the hopes of overcoming this. Sometimes I succeed, but last night I melted down. I messed up 4 tricks in a row, all for the same people. Fell flat on my face and just had to shrug and say, "Sorry. My bad."

Do you think success or failure is more important in overcoming stage fright? When I pull one off, I feel great, but when I fail I think I may start to worry about it less.

Opinions?

 

[RealityOne]

Both. Success gives you confidence that you won't mess up, failure makes you realize that messing up isn't the end of the world. Both will calm your nerves.

My advice is to get some self-working effects -- check out Scarne on Card Tricks or Roberto Giobbi's Card College Light, Lighter or Lightest or the Fulves "self-working" books -- and perform them. That way you can get over your performance anxiety without worrying about doing difficult sleights. But keep practicing the difficult sleights, so you can incorporate them into your performances when you are ready.

 

[CalvinTan]

We were all in the same boat when we started. The stage fright will go away once you have gained confidence in your tricks. The only way to gain confidence is to keep practicing and performing for people.

I used to get really nervous when I knew I had to pull a top change off in front of people. I used to think that there was no way I could pull it off without anyone noticing. After getting away with it for awhile, I started to gain confidence and that in turn will caused me to be more relaxed and smoother in my sleights.

Just keep practicing until you have perfected the various sleights you need to do. Then keep performing for people and soon you'll be more comfortable.

 

[Aaron.Williams]

I've seen a lot of threads on this topic and I've given them all the same advice that helps me get over stage fright. Of course, before you approach someone, you have a set image in your head that shows how you want it to go. Pretty much all you have to do is just imagine that they will love it. No matter what. Don't freak out about sleights, they only know you messed up it you act like you messed up. Just do this every time and your nervousness will go away for the most part. But trust me, everyone gets nervous every once in a while.

 

[Luis Vega]

Both. Success gives you confidence that you won't mess up, failure makes you realize that messing up isn't the end of the world. Both will calm your nerves.

My advice is to get some self-working effects -- check out Scarne on Card Tricks or Roberto Giobbi's Card College Light, Lighter or Lightest or the Fulves "self-working" books -- and perform them. That way you can get over your performance anxiety without worrying about doing difficult sleights. But keep practicing the difficult sleights, so you can incorporate them into your performances when you are ready.

Nuff said...+1

 

[mehar]

Like Calvin said, we've all been in the same boat before. Even though I've been performing for 3 years, a few months ago I messed up 5 tricks.. in a row. The best thing you can do there is just apologize and go for a walk to calm your nerves.

One way to get over stage-fright, especially if it's close-up, is to just go up to a guy who's waiting for his wife to get out of the shoe store. These bored people want something to see, won't care if you mess up, and will help you get over your nerves. At first you'll feel freaked out about walking up to a stranger and ''bothering'' them, but trust me, they won't mind and it's going to help you a lot.

I hope this helped,

Mehar

 

[RickEverhart]

The way to improve upon this is literally take the same effect or set of effects and perform them repeatedly throughout a day, week, etc. The moves and patter will become ingrained and it becomes a normal flowing process. I notice this when I am performing strolling magic. I will take an effect and perform it about 20 times that evening and by gosh by the end of the night, you have it down backwards, forwards, sideways, and know the ins outs, every possible way to screw it up and how to get out of it.

Everyone has screw ups but learn from them. Even Del Ray's final show went horribly wrong when none of his electronics for his act worked.

We've all been there with the sweaty shaky hands. I used to be horrible. My hand would literally drip with perspiration and clam the cards up so bad. It only gets better from here my friend. Keep the positive attitude, put in the time and effort, and I promise you it will be worth it.

 

[inedhowetrust89]

Both. Success gives you confidence that you won't mess up, failure makes you realize that messing up isn't the end of the world. Both will calm your nerves.

My advice is to get some self-working effects -- check out Scarne on Card Tricks or Roberto Giobbi's Card College Light, Lighter or Lightest or the Fulves "self-working" books -- and perform them. That way you can get over your performance anxiety without worrying about doing difficult sleights. But keep practicing the difficult sleights, so you can incorporate them into your performances when you are ready.

same with me^^

 

[RebelZero]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'm definitely going to start implementing some of it. So far, this is what resonates most with me:

"The way to improve upon this is literally take the same effect or set of effects and perform them repeatedly throughout a day, week, etc. The moves and patter will become ingrained and it becomes a normal flowing process. I notice this when I am performing strolling magic. I will take an effect and perform it about 20 times that evening and by gosh by the end of the night, you have it down backwards, forwards, sideways, and know the ins outs, every possible way to screw it up and how to get out of it."

I've sifted through all the effects I've learned or tried to learn and narrowed the list down to ten solid tricks which I'm going to perform exhaustively until I can do them standing on my head. I think I'll pick two a week and do them until the people around me want to punch me in the face.

These are the tricks:
1. Any Card at Any Number (Matthew Mello version)
2. The Biddle Trick
3. Classic Color Change
4. Deckquivoque
5. Elevation
6. Heat
7. Lie Detector
8. Twisting the Aces (Houchin version)
9. Two Card Monte
10. Ultimate Transpo

 

[RikAllen]

These are the tricks:
1. Any Card at Any Number (Matthew Mello version)
2. The Biddle Trick
3. Classic Color Change
4. Deckquivoque
5. Elevation
6. Heat
7. Lie Detector
8. Twisting the Aces (Houchin version)
9. Two Card Monte
10. Ultimate Transpo

Two a week sounds good, just make sure they compliment each other well so you can practice them together. This is also a good excercise in routining, pick two and create similar presentational hooks to link them together (Gambling, Prediction/mind reading, tricks that elephants showed you...) so that after you've perfected these tricks you'll also have worked on linking tricks together, which will be good for the long term.

 

[Steerpike]

Which do you think is better for building confidence?

The question you should be asking is what attitude you should approach it from. Success and failure are just part of the learning process. Failures are simply negative energy that you have to redirect.