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I think you hit the nail on the head with that last comment Sivor. I have never been able to sink my teeth into theory which I can't go out and field test straight away. Pretty much in every aspect of what I do (I'm basically a teacher of all kinda of stuff) I will try and present my students with solutions which they can immediately put into practise.
Of course I'm not saying that this is the onlyway to improve - of course it isn't. But while you're working on more long term skills you can be field testing concepts like the "question", or complmentary body language and just observing the results you get with different people.
One other issue I'd like people to share their experiences on:
If you're out there, in front of a live audience, and maybe you're trying out a new effect, or a new kind of patter...maybe a misdirection concept, or a whole new presentation. Do you find that you become more nervous/adrenalised or less nervous?
I can imagine that being on "unfamiliar ground" in front of a live audience would make some performers nervous, and I defintely used to feel that way myself when I was trying to incorprate new sleights into my routine. I was defintely buzzing the first time I did the invisible pass in front of an audience! However, now I take a more objective view of the performance. "How did that bit of misdirection work?" "How did they react to that?" "Someone spotted something, what went wrong? Angles? Technique?". Hell, if I completely screw up, or I end up in front of someone who says "hey you did a double lift there/false shuffle/whatever" I take it as an opportunity to engage a bit with the person (provided their not being aggressive with their remarks, which I have rarely had to deal with, maybe because I work so hard to get the audience on my side) and figure out what they're wise to, give them a chance to maybe show off a little if they know a bit, then hit them with something completely out of the blue. Any well executed monte tends to do the trick!
Anyway, my point is that there is no such thing as a "bad experience". If you screw up, allow yourself to step back and ask yourself the question "why did that happen?". Learn from the experience and do better next time. If you're out there with a new technique, be it sleight, gimmick or something I've written about in this thread, then think of the whole thing as an experiment. Take some pressure off yourself!
There is no such thing as a bad experience, so long as you treat every experience as an opportunity for learning and improvement.
I'd be interested to hear other's opinions on this aspect of performing.
Cheers,
David
Last edited by Shodan : 11-02-2005 at 06:05 AM.
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