One thing I learned in that stand up spot to the 80 women was about getting stuck.
Getting stuck in stand up is I think one of the biggest stumbling blocks we face. At my last birthday we had a restaurant room rented and had dinner with about 20 friends. During dinner my friends pushed to do a stand up piece of my material. I wasn’t practiced and tried but got stuck when I lost my place and then had to face the giants in my mind that all pointed in different directions on where to take my speaking next. So I ended up frozen. Since that time I’ve decided I need to know, and have practiced my material so well I won’t have that problem. But being in front of a crowd can do things to you and what I discovered in my recent stand up routine, I did for those women, was to have more material practiced than I needed for my allotted time. As I was delivering the routine I’d hit the end of a sentence and snagged my brain on what the next line was to be. Knowing I can’t just stop or I’ll get lost or frozen, I just picked up with the next part of my monologue and missed a big chunk of material. It worked as a great way to not get stuck. And my monologue didn’t lose its allotted time because I had memorized more than I needed to. I guess that wouldn’t work if you pick up your next line as “Thanks folks you’ve been a great audience” but it’s a potentially useful tool in the stand ups fight to....well stand up.
