The Shakes
Overcoming Nervousness

I’m waiting in a hallway of a town hall for them to be finished with their presentation of the corporate dinner party. As soon as they are done handing out the awards and giving their speeches they’ll be introducing me to do a short parlor act. I’ve been rehearsing for this show for a few months now. I’ve ran through the entire acts so many times I know it like the back of my hand. Just earlier today I went through the entire act a few times for some of my friends and family members. Each time I did the act I was flawless. Not one thing went wrong so I knew I was ready for this show.

Because of this I can’t understand why I feel so strange. My hands, forehead and even my shirt are soaked in sweat. I take a peak around the corner and see the hall full of about 100 people listening intently to the speaker on the stage. I notice the table that was full of trophies and plaques a few minutes ago is almost empty. I’ll be introduced any minute now. I hide my head back behind the wall I’m leaning against and I suddenly feel a hot flash. I feel like I might even get sick. I see a drinking fountain a few yards away from me and walk over to take a drink. Just then someone pokes their head around the corner and waves me over. This is it. It’s time for me to go up their in front of all these strangers. I grab a ball from my pocket and try to palm it in my right hand because this is where it needs to be for my opening trick. This isn’t an easy task because my hands are so sweaty. I wipe my palms on the pants and try again. I can hold it now but it’s not a very secure palm. I just hope I don’t drop it on the way to the stage.

I make it to the stage and the music begins to play. My first routine is a multiplying balls routine. I do a little manipulation to the one single ball then steal the shell. I’m ready to make the ball multiply for the first time. I just barely pull it off without the ball dropping. As I do the next move where I load another ball into the shell I drop the first ball I produced. Luckily it wasn’t the one with in the shell. During the course of the multiplying balls routine I drop two balls on the floor but luckily the shell wasn’t exposed.

I drop all of the eight balls into my hat except the last one. I turn this one into a white silk then produce a candle from it. I reach under my lapel and pull the match out of the gimmick. It lights as it’s suppose to but when I reach up to light the candle my hands are shaking so bad it takes me a few seconds to get it lit. I produce a second candle and when I try to light it off the first one my hands are shaking again. I try with all my might but for some reason my muscles just won’t allow me to touch the tips of the candles together. I give up on it and move on to vanishing the candles. After they are gone I turn the silk into a cane. Produce a hat and take a little bow as the music does down. My audience gives a round of applause but I don’t feel I’ve really earned it. With the manipulation portion of my act finished I go onto the rest of my show.

The rest of the show is a series of routines that involve audience members to come up and assist me. By the time I got my first volunteer to come up and join me I started to feel a little better. My hands didn’t seem to be shaking as much and I started to feel a little more confident. When this act was over and my volunteer was heading back to his seat while the audience gave us there applaud. I felt completely at ease. The rest of the show went on just as I had hoped it would for the last few months. It ended with a very generous applaud and I received many compliments after the show. They even booked me again for the fallowing year.

Sound familiar to you? Maybe you’ve had a similar experience to the above true story that happened to me years ago. Yours might not have been as drastic as that but most performers get the shakes from time to time. I still get them but I’ve been performing long enough to have a little more confidence in myself now.

That’s the key to overcoming nervousness. Notice I say “overcome” and not “get rid of” it. Even the most advanced performers can get a little nervous. If you don’t believe that then ask your favorite magician if they’ve ever been nervous during or before a show. Most of them will smile at their own embarrassment as they tell the story of their horrifying memory. They smile because looking back we realize how funny some of the things where and how far we’ve come since then. The point is just about everyone goes through this at some point and most of us deal with it a number of times. We now have the confidence in ourselves because we’ve been up in front of an audience and succeeded. We know we can do it because we’ve already proven to ourselves that we can. It’s not about proving it to others. It’s about proving it to your self. But how can someone get that kind of confidence? The simple answer to that question is you have to keep trying until you find what works for you.

If you reread my storey above you’ll notice that the moment I started to do what I felt more comfortable doing I stopped feeling nervous. In my case it was the manipulation portion of the show that gave me trouble. I now know better then to open with a manipulation act because it isn’t my strong point. I don’t have the confidence in myself when doing that kind of act. If I really wanted to I could go out and try to build my confidence in that area but I come to realize that it’s not my style. In a way I have done that because I have performed manipulation acts since then without getting too nervous. But I’ve found what works for me so I no longer do manipulation acts. It just doesn’t fit me anymore. Someone else might feel more comfortable doing that manipulation act then an interactive act. It all depends on the individual.

I’m the best (Your name) performer in the world!
The above statement is what my mind says about myself when I feel the nervousness build up inside of me. It doesn’t state that I think I’m better then anyone else. I’m not even comparing myself to anyone else. I just need to feel that no one in the world can do what I do better then I can. No one can do the “Ron Jaxon” show but me. And I’m *** good at it!

This is the kind of mindset that will help you overcome that nervousness. Thinking about this isn’t really enough. You have to really believe it’s true. Some people have a hard time thinking of themselves this way because they feel they’re putting others down in the process. They feel it’s wrong to think that highly of them selves. But there’s nothing wrong with having this kind of self-confidence. In fact it’s actually quite healthy. If you can honestly feel this about yourself then you can literally accomplish anything.

Think of a performer you admire. Someone well known in the magic worlds that you’ve seen perform a number of times (live or on TV). As you watch them perform do you get the feeling that they have every bit of confidence in themselves? Can you even picture them nervous? Chances are it would be hard to imagine that because they never show nervousness. All they show is what they do best. Which is, of course, their act. They know they can do their act and they also know that no one can do their act better then they can. Some audience members might like someone else’s act better then theirs but that someone else could never do their act better then they can. Know without a doubt that you have the ability to give your spectators the experience you’ve planned for them.

This all sounds too easy doesn’t it? In truth it’s not easy at all. It’ll take some people, such as myself, years to reach this kind of self-confidence and I still struggle with it from time to time. I’ve performed on stage for a few hundred people and had no trouble at all. Yet I recently performed for a group of about 50 fourth grade kids and got the shakes. It’s a constant struggle for some of us but it can be overcome. Don’t let one experience hold you back. Use them to improve.

If you’re really having a hard time with this then here are a few other suggestions.

· Do what you know you can do.
Always start your show with something you’ve done many times before. Something you know you can do well and have succeeded with before.

· Keep it simple
Don’t start your show with things that require a lot of skill to pull off. I know that might seem like a short cut but if you try to open a show with something that’s very hard to pull off then it’ll add to the nervousness. My story above in a perfect example. As an inexperienced performer at the time I should have never opened a show with something so involved as the multiplying ball. If I had started the show with something that was a little easier for me then I might have been able to find my rhythm and timing and more importantly my confidence during that opening sequence and overcame my nervousness. You need to give yourself time to do that.

· Move on from mistakes
The fear of making a mistake is what usually brings on the nervousness. Even when we aren’t nervous a mistake can bring the nervousness on in full force. The best thing to do when a mistake occurs is to move on to something you know you are confident enough not to make another mistake on. Quite often audience members will forget about the mistake and maybe even think it was a planned one.

· An extreme solution
This is a possible thing to try for those who have a very serious problem with nervousness. Why not build on your nervousness? Believe it or not this can actually help you overcome your nervousness. Just flat out tell your audience that you are nervous. Maybe even do an act based on it. I even know one guy who made a little gimmick that makes it look like he pee’d his pants. The simple fact that you tell them you’re nervous will make them wonder if it’s just part of the act. By the time they stop wondering you might not even be nervous anymore. Why not, we magicians are known for being “honest liars”.

On 2007-03-05 19:17, Andy the cardician wrote:
Part of the fear comes from insecurity. I therefore never perform a new trick without adequate practice. That certainly helps.

Andy

On 2006-05-09 15:23, Jaxon wrote:

· An extreme solution
This is a possible thing to try for those who have a very serious problem with nervousness. Why not build on your nervousness? Believe it or not this can actually help you overcome your nervousness. Just flat out tell your audience that you are nervous. Maybe even do an act based on it. I even know one guy who made a little gimmick that makes it look like he pee’d his pants. The simple fact that you tell them you’re nervous will make them wonder if it’s just part of the act. By the time they stop wondering you might not even be nervous anymore. Why not, we magicians are known for being “honest liars”.