Monday Mailbag #30
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I have a big backlog of mail to get through, so you’ll probably see some reader submitted questions leading off most of the posts this week.
Do you think you would be able to write a post on your blog about how to perform for people and dealing with nerves?
Not a lot of people know I perform magic and I only show tricks to my family every now and again. I can think a few reasons why I don’t perform a lot but I feel like it is a waste of time of me practicing magic when I end up not even showing them to people.
It will be interesting to read of how you would approach this challenge and it may help others on your blog that are in the same situation as me. —CE
First, I don’t really get nervous when I perform, so my insight there is limited, but I’ll give you some basic thoughts in a moment.
Second, you’re absolutely right that it’s a waste of your time to practice magic if you’re not going to show it to people. A lot of people do go this direction, however. “I’m just a scholar of methods.” Blah, blah, blah. I don’t buy that. I think they probably had a couple bad performances where they flopped and it scared them off from showing tricks to regular people. Look, no one has to perform if they don’t want to. But as someone who went from performing rarely to performing almost daily, I can say that you’re denying yourself the best part of magic if you’re not showing it to other people.
So let’s talk about nerves.
In magic you could be nervous about two things, primarily.
You’re nervous about your ability to skillfully execute the sleights/moves.
You’re just generally nervous about speaking/performing in front of others, regardless of the difficulty of the effect.
#1 should never be an issue. There is so much good magic that doesn’t require much technical skill that there’s no reason to ever go out and do something that you’re not sure you can pull off. There is nothing crueler to do to an audience then to perform a trick without confidence in your handling. Making people feel sorry for you when they think that you think you’re doing something that should impress them is a nauseating feeling for people.
#2 is something altogether different. But the good thing about those types of nerves is that you can just choose to ignore them. That’s how I think the world works. Everyone gets the same amount of nerves about things at first. If you take action despite those nerves, then they lessen the next time you’re in that situation. If you indulge the nerves and allow them to prevent you from doing something, then you strengthen the nerves the next time you’re in a similar situation. Nerves, anxiety, stress—these things are all just habits that you either give in to, or you fight. The more you fight, the less powerful they are over time.
My philosophy is to treat everything like a habit (whether it’s true or not). So I don’t say, “I’m lazy,” or, “I’m weak,” or, “I’m a crackhead.” I say, “I’ve gotten in the habit of being lazy,” “I’ve gotten in the habit of being weak,” “I’ve gotten in the habit of being a crackhead.” When you think this way, you never have to get discouraged over what you are. Because you don’t have to see yourself as fundamentally anything. You are just a series of habits. And habits can be broken.
So if you get nervous before performing (and it has nothing to do with your technical ability to pull off the trick) then just choose to fight through it. Same as if you get nervous talking to a girl or asking for a raise. Just ignore the nerves for a few minutes while you do your thing. Now, I’m sure there are techniques you can use to calm your nerves, but I don’t know any of those. The only “technique” I know is that you can feel nervous and still choose to act despite that feeling. You don’t need to get in the habit of deep breathing or positive visualization. The only habit you need is the one of ignoring your nerves.
Eventually you will just become a person who isn’t affected by nerves in these situations. You won’t even think of them. That’s not to say they won’t still be there, they just won’t affect you. It’s like if you had to walk a narrow path with a sheer 1000 foot drop-off on one side along a mountain. The first time, you would be scared. But if you forced yourself to do it, you’d be a little less scared the next time, and then less and less, until one day you wouldn’t think about it at all. That’s not to say the steep drop-off isn’t still there. It just doesn’t affect you anymore because you have a history of staying on the path.
Now, to be completely fair, some of the presentational ideas I’ve talked about in this blog are kind of advanced. And you shouldn’t necessarily try those unless you have a foundation of performing simpler concepts with confidence. That’s just a natural progression that goes with trying anything new. But there’s nothing that should prevent you from asking a friend or family member, “Hey, I’ve got this thing I’ve been working on, but I sort of need an outsider’s perspective to see if it works like it should. Can I try it with you?”
If I’m referencing you in a video or a book release, how do you prefer to be credited? Andy? The Jerx? —SU
I’m not overly particular about it. You can just say, “Andy at The Jerx.” Or you can give more detail if you want to do so for the sake of your audience, e.g., “Andy, the anonymous author of The Jerx magic blog, the greatest writer in the history of magic,” etc. etc., that’s fine too. But my preferred way would probably just be to say, “Andy Jerxmann.” That way people who know the site will realize you’re referring to me, but people who don’t won’t be directed to the site. It’s not that I’m against people spreading the word about this site to other people who they think might like it. I just don’t need general, un-targeted, mentions of this site.
I'm in the process of creating my wonder room and as I was looking at the various things I have round my house it occurred to me that a game I have called "Dropmix" had all sorts of magic possibilities. I don't know if you've heard of Dropmix before? It's made by the people behind guitar hero and is kind of like a DJ/card game where you lay down cards that have part of a songs riff on them (drums, vocals, bass etc) and the game mixes them together. It's really clever and a lot of fun with friends. The fact the little loops of music are on cards made me think there are some magic applications for it. Predicting the weird random song someone creates in an unusual way? A bit like the connect 4 trick. The cards all have the same backs, each type of loop is colour coded as well and I have over 100 of them now. My first thought was using something like R.Paul Wilsons C3 to force the required cards. I figured as you have an interest in music this might be up your street. Here's a brief overview in case you wanted a look (it's only a few minutes long):
This looks very cool. I don’t have the game myself, so I can’t say for certain if/how I’d use it, but it definitely seems like something that has potential.
My advice to anyone incorporating a game into a trick is to find people who actually want to play the game. Then after you play it, you can transition into “trying something else” with it. That’s especially true with this game where you’d want someone to have a good understanding of what the game is and what it does and doesn’t do. The mistake is to just say, “Hey, here’s a cool game. Watch as I show you a magic trick with it.” That’s no good.
Related to that, here’s a post about my friend’s “Board Room” which is the Wonder Room concept in a display of games that can all be used to transition into effects after.
Here is Dropmix on Amazon for anyone who is interested. It looks like the price has come down considerably since its release.
