Learn 3 card tricks and perform for friends

“I hadn't thought about that in a long time until today. I go for a walk every morning in a nearby park, and a buddy of mine had invited me to lunch, so I had him meet me in the park beforehand for a walk. But in reality I wanted to show him a few of the tricks I had learned. I've put together about a dozen tricks that I've practiced and become pretty decent with, or so I thought. Most of them are beginner level self working tricks, but as I've fallen deeper down the rabbit hole there's a few with some basic sleight of hand that I've practiced and become proficient at (The Smiling Mule, Jazz Aces). We walk by a pavilion, I sit down and ask him if he wants to see a few tricks and he says sure. Now, I've done some of these tricks for my nieces and my older parents, but this is the first time I'm doing them in front of someone not family. I choked. Hard. I don't know why. I wasn't nervous, in fact I was pretty confident. I intentionally started off with the easiest tricks, the self working ones, though I had began to incorporate some false shuffles into them to make them a little less obvious, but nothing particularly challenging. But time after time, I would do the reveal and it would be the wrong card. It's felt like my hands or the deck betrayed me. A few times I knew what I did wrong, but there were a few others that I have no idea. It was mind boggling how bad I was. I managed to get a few tricks right (Out of this world, Sloppy shuffle, Turn down Triumph, C3, Smiling Mule) but all the others just seemed to go wrong. I don't know, I just needed to share with some people who may have had a similar experience. I really just wanted to learn some card tricks to impress my friends, but after months of watching Youtube videos and practicing in front of a mirror I choked as soon as I finally had an audience that wasn't 9 years old.”

“How did it go? Kind of okay. * I messed up the force for Another Quick Coincidence, so went straight into A Tipsy Trick. Fumbled my way through the patter but finished it. * Then I do Another Quick Coincidence, and I forget to tell her to not look at the card (which lessens the impact of the first reveal, I think) and when I asked her to insert it into the deck, she pushed it almost completely in (need to change that in my patter) * In the Two Card Monte, she flipped over her hand to confirm if she'd got the test "right" at an, what would have been, an importune moment, but since I had left the Ace of Spades on the bottom, she only flashed that as I scrambled to get her to turn hand back and "not cheat" Overall, my friend's reaction were positive but slightly muted and not the brainfreeze kind of reactions that are amazing to watch. She said she liked how the "hypnosis-thing" was a good connection. What I learnt / what am I going to do different for next time? * Give the routine more breathing space, in terms of them registering my patter ("the deck is going to straighten itself out") but also letting the reveals breathe. I felt like I rushed through some of them. * Fix my patter to make some of the instructions more specific.”