Fear, or Nerve?

[TheMisdirectingHand]

I was at school performing some Street Magic today, I was doing fine. Afterwards, I had about 10 effects waiting in my mind, but the group of two I was performing to turned into a group of... twenty. My mind went blank. After I got home, I decided to keep a list of all the effects I have in my arsenal. So, do you guys think I was too scared, or too nervous, to the point that my mind went blank?

[Mark]

I blame it on the nerves, combined with the fact that you had ten effects in mind and probably had to think really hard to see if it would all work out fine once more and more people joined the group. In performance arts, thinking too much often results in failures.

From experience I can tell that a good way to get over it is by having a repertoire of very solid tricks which would all work completely surrounded and basically can't go wrong, just for in such cases.

And don't think too much in advance. It may help to have one big routine with tricks following each other up so you don't have to think what's coming next once you're able to dream it.

Hope that helps! Although it's a bad experience, I'm kind of happy that you had it because it could only turn you into a better magician afterall.

[la0o9]

I think you were nervous, if you think really hard about it, you might even remember yourself shaking a bit while talking( may be), i think you should just have 2 tricks in mind when you go and perform, if the crowd expands, just go with the flow and take something random out of your arsenal or ask if they want to see a particular trick( doubt that someone can actually answer, but a bit of showmanship like that works sometimes i think)