Even though extreme slapstick was less practiced by alternative comics there were quite some who took the risk and ventured into the hurting. The likes of Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall, and even Rowan Atkinson in the Blackadder television shows participated in antics that involved physicality in order to elicit amusement from the audience. You should be thankful for the advent of modern technology. Now, you could learn standup comedy much easier than how people did it before the age of videos and the Internet. Take advantage of the current available resources. Now, there is no excuse for any aspiring standup comedian to falter. It may take time to find and access videos from video sharing sites. Learn Standup Comedy: Avoiding Usual Humor Mistakes Standup comedians and public speakers may share the same mistakes. This could be because they stand up on stage and face a huge crowd. Public speakers address the audience, whereas standup comedians make viewers laugh. When you learn standup comedy, it would be ideal if you would also learn about the usual mistakes new standup comedians and public speakers commit. Also take note of your body language, tone impact, and voice inflection as such factors also affect delivery of jokes. Better strategy: Use paper only as one of the tools that would aid in the structuring and formatting of a standup comedy act. Try not to just read the material. Deliver it as if you are speaking naturally, not reading a written memo. Another great tip that can help you give your confidence its needed boost is by going on open mic gatherings. You can prepare your skit, which you can finish in a few minutes. Once you are standing in front of an audience and you already have the floor and the mic, give your best performance. You can do this more frequently once you get the hang of it until you are ready to take this to a different level, to a larger group or to a bigger venue. You will realize that when you voice out what you have written, it won't sound as funny as it seemed to be while you were still reading it. The reason for this is that the manner that you talk is very much different from how you write dialogues and scenes. This doesn't mean that you cannot use the material on a standup act.