First Performance in Two Years - Failure

[kennethcmerrill]

We spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws this year, and I knew they would have a few friends over as well, and since they've enjoyed my magic in years past, I decided to put together a few effects to show if the opportunity arose.

I went back to material I've performed successfully in the past--though I'm pretty rusty now:
Blaine's 3 Card Monte
Poker Player's Picnic (this is a new one for me, but it's so basic I felt pretty confident)
An effect I know as "The Biddle Trick," though I highly doubt that's the real name
And the kicker would be Paul Harris' Galaxy--one of my favorite effects

I practiced as much as I could, and I felt like I could pull it all off, even though I was still getting into stride. After dinner and pie, my father-in-law asked if I was planning to show them something, and he had everyone gather around.

The 3 Card Monte killed as well as it always does. It's one of my favorite routines because the mechanics are relatively simple, and I can really focus on timing and presentation. I was still working through nerves, and it wasn't the greatest I've ever done, but considering it was my first performance for strangers in years, I felt pretty good.

Moving into Poker Player's Picnic, I felt confident, but my overhand shuffle is still in a 9-out-of-10 situation, and on the final reveal, one of the Aces was missing. My presentation is such that I ostentatiously put all of the responsibility on the volunteer to "cut to" the Aces, and so I cleaned up with a sort of "you were so close! But really good job!" remark, and everyone still seemed pretty amazed.

On the Biddle Trick, I peeked the bottom card and attempted a classic force just for the heck of it. My classic forces land about 25% of the time, and so I really just do it for practice and so I have an "out" if something goes wrong. To my surprise, the force took, he chose the 5 of Clubs, and I had a momentary idea of taking an abrupt right turn and doing some mind-reading, but I'm really not practiced with that sort of presentation; so I decided to stick to the plan.

I successfully maneuvered the card into proper position near the top of the deck, told the spectators to watch me count off the top 5 cards and let me know if they saw theirs, but not reveal which one it was. Since this is the trickiest part of the effect, and it's also when all eyes are drilling your hands, I rushed through the count a little too fast. When I asked if they had seen their card, the volunteer said no. I knew this was wrong because I knew what his card was, but suddenly I was stuck. Another spectator asked if I could just run through them again. Unfortunately I was not in a position to run through them again, and I didn't know what to say. In a panic, I tried to load the 5 of Clubs back into proper position--pretty sure I flashed--went through the count again (volunteer apparently having forgotten his card because he still claims he didn't see it), and now I really had no idea how to proceed.

Off track and unprepared, I simply let my hands fall in my lap and said, "You know what guys, I haven't performed magic in a long time, and I messed up, and I think I'll have to stop this one. I better just quit while I'm ahead." The anti-climax was deafening, especially considering how amazingly it had all been going, but I had lost the nerve to even go on to Galaxy, which would have almost certainly been a disaster too. Once I stumble, I tend to stumble more.

I feel like I'm starting all over again with this craft, and I'm not beating myself up about how things went, but it was a big learning experience: Slow down. Move deliberately and confidently, and make sure your audience sees what's going on. And more generic lessons: learn to improvise. I even KNEW what his card was, and I still couldn't think of an out besides, "I give up." I've never been good with improvisation, but I hope as my skills regrow I'll be more imaginative in the moment. Until then, I'll practice forcing a card in every effect, and I'll have a planned "out" with the forced card.

I would love to hear everyone else's most recent "failures" and what you learned! This is what it's all about for me. Stumbling and getting back up.

 

[RealityOne]

I was at a lecture with Darwin Ortiz. About half way through an effect he just stoped and said something like, "I'm not feeling it with this one, I don't think it is going to work. Let's try something else, we can come back to this later."

I was doing a show for around 75 people. I was using a Fiedler's Flyer gimmick for the first time in a performance and I sensed that something wasn't right (which is odd because it is pretty much foolproof). The card that looked like it was selected wasn't the gimmicked card. I simply said, "Just to show it doesn't matter which card you pick, let's do that again and select a different card." Needless to say, I've shifted to using a palm, having the spectator shuffle the deck, returning the palmed and to the deck, a classic force, and my own side steal to palm to get to the same place (well not the same place, because that allows me to have the spectator show the selected card to the audience).

I've probably had hundreds of screw-ups, malfunctions and mistakes. Some you can recover from, others you can't. I try to forget most of them. The secret is rehearsal. Going through the motions and the presentation preferably with a live spectator. Also, using video to tape your rehearsals puts a bit of artificial pressure on you. With rehearsals, the rule is that you can't start over - you finish the effect like you would have to in an actual performance (the exception is where you would have to either do over or end the performance because you screwed up so badly).

When performing various tricks for family and friends, I a great out. If something has gone wrong, I ask them what their card is. I tell them, "that's odd, I thought that was the one card missing from the deck." I look through the deck to see if their card is there a packet at a time. When I see their card, I cut it so it goes to the top of the deck. I then say, "Nope, it isn't here." I then palm off the card as I hand them the deck to look through. I'm positioned to do card under glass, card to pocket, card to mouth, card to wallet, etc.

An effect I know as "The Biddle Trick," though I highly doubt that's the real name.

http://www.geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Biddle_Trick

 

[Lord Magic]

We spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws this year, and I knew they would have a few friends over as well, and since they've enjoyed my magic in years past, I decided to put together a few effects to show if the opportunity arose.

I went back to material I've performed successfully in the past--though I'm pretty rusty now:
Blaine's 3 Card Monte
Poker Player's Picnic (this is a new one for me, but it's so basic I felt pretty confident)
An effect I know as "The Biddle Trick," though I highly doubt that's the real name
And the kicker would be Paul Harris' Galaxy--one of my favorite effects

I practiced as much as I could, and I felt like I could pull it all off, even though I was still getting into stride. After dinner and pie, my father-in-law asked if I was planning to show them something, and he had everyone gather around.

The 3 Card Monte killed as well as it always does. It's one of my favorite routines because the mechanics are relatively simple, and I can really focus on timing and presentation. I was still working through nerves, and it wasn't the greatest I've ever done, but considering it was my first performance for strangers in years, I felt pretty good.

Moving into Poker Player's Picnic, I felt confident, but my overhand shuffle is still in a 9-out-of-10 situation, and on the final reveal, one of the Aces was missing. My presentation is such that I ostentatiously put all of the responsibility on the volunteer to "cut to" the Aces, and so I cleaned up with a sort of "you were so close! But really good job!" remark, and everyone still seemed pretty amazed.

On the Biddle Trick, I peeked the bottom card and attempted a classic force just for the heck of it. My classic forces land about 25% of the time, and so I really just do it for practice and so I have an "out" if something goes wrong. To my surprise, the force took, he chose the 5 of Clubs, and I had a momentary idea of taking an abrupt right turn and doing some mind-reading, but I'm really not practiced with that sort of presentation; so I decided to stick to the plan.

I successfully maneuvered the card into proper position near the top of the deck, told the spectators to watch me count off the top 5 cards and let me know if they saw theirs, but not reveal which one it was. Since this is the trickiest part of the effect, and it's also when all eyes are drilling your hands, I rushed through the count a little too fast. When I asked if they had seen their card, the volunteer said no. I knew this was wrong because I knew what his card was, but suddenly I was stuck. Another spectator asked if I could just run through them again. Unfortunately I was not in a position to run through them again, and I didn't know what to say. In a panic, I tried to load the 5 of Clubs back into proper position--pretty sure I flashed--went through the count again (volunteer apparently having forgotten his card because he still claims he didn't see it), and now I really had no idea how to proceed.

Off track and unprepared, I simply let my hands fall in my lap and said, "You know what guys, I haven't performed magic in a long time, and I messed up, and I think I'll have to stop this one. I better just quit while I'm ahead." The anti-climax was deafening, especially considering how amazingly it had all been going, but I had lost the nerve to even go on to Galaxy, which would have almost certainly been a disaster too. Once I stumble, I tend to stumble more.

I feel like I'm starting all over again with this craft, and I'm not beating myself up about how things went, but it was a big learning experience: Slow down. Move deliberately and confidently, and make sure your audience sees what's going on. And more generic lessons: learn to improvise. I even KNEW what his card was, and I still couldn't think of an out besides, "I give up." I've never been good with improvisation, but I hope as my skills regrow I'll be more imaginative in the moment. Until then, I'll practice forcing a card in every effect, and I'll have a planned "out" with the forced card.

I would love to hear everyone else's most recent "failures" and what you learned! This is what it's all about for me. Stumbling and getting back up.

Yo! Relax mate!
How could I possibly mess up?
The above line is mate, every DAY!
When I perform a lot of close-up stuff that is. See, I give magic a lot of priority and practice it every day. But today (school-fete today, enjoyed a lot there) I just happened to have a coin and then went up to a few friends, and in that excuse showed their parents too, a few tricks. And in front of my friends, 2 or 3 separate groups, some tricks bombed.
Now I admit that did not help me. But you learn things from failures. Or else you can't call any fail a true fail. Because
F-First
A-Attempt
I-In
L-Learning
See? And that can happen only when you learn something from it. Bombing things will go less and less as one practices more. And I will honestly admit that I loved the reactions I got and that's why performed a trick when I shouldn't have and it bombed. But alright! After all, it is my friends, they know me and therefore it is easy for them to catch me out. But better friends than the audience in full-fledged performances, right?

And for you, better this audience than someone who might want to hire you, right? Or the audience in a performance that's very important for you? Things have this strange habit of always turning out for the greater good, dunno why. Everything fits in somehow, which is why even if I could change the past, I wouldn't.
Read Harry Potter books for elaboration on that

**shouts out to J.K. Rowling for the money he is supposed to get for promoting Harry Potter books. Dead silence at the other end**

 

[Al e Cat Dabra]

The important thing, brother, is that you put yourself out there in a performing situation. Doing that and learning from mistakes is part of the natural evolution of a performing artist. Every one of us has messed up multiple times. The greatest champions and masters from all fields have gone through similar trials on the way to getting where they are. I say that this experience was a success for you, not a failure, because as a result, you have learned, progressed and will get better. The nervousness will eventually diminish or go away completely with experience performing in front of people. You have the courage to do that, and it WILL pay off.

 

[kennethcmerrill]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm going to try and refine the same routine and really get it down pat for the next S.A.M. meeting on December 18. Obviously that's a different audience all together, but I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[DavidL11229]

The most instructive thing on my Richard Turner DVDs is one effect where he just gets it wrong. He acknowledges it went wrong and does it over and everyone was still suitably impressed. It helps if you are Richard Turner, but the point is people will forgive something going wrong if you still pull off some others. With family and friends it likely would have taken little away from the performance as a whole if you had just said "well then pick another card" and started over.

 

[kennethcmerrill]

The most instructive thing on my Richard Turner DVDs is one effect where he just gets it wrong. He acknowledges it went wrong and does it over and everyone was still suitably impressed. It helps if you are Richard Turner, but the point is people will forgive something going wrong if you still pull off some others. With family and friends it likely would have taken little away from the performance as a whole if you had just said "well then pick another card" and started over.

I'll try this next time! Thanks for the thought.