How New Zealand has changed me. Or has it?

I performed my first how in New Zealand this week with the Wellington Improvisation Troupe.  I described it as my improv "nightmare", and here's why: I always get extremely nervous before performing in a new situation, and once I do it once I become much more relaxed subsequent times.  This show was in a new venue, with new people (who had accents I'm still having some trouble always understanding), with a newly devised musical format, and in a country halfway across the world from my usual stomping grounds.  To say the least, I was terrified and there were points throughout the day leading up to the show where I seriously considered just not going. I also had a feeling that I needed to prove myself to WIT, since I swooped into the group only a few weeks ago and took the fast track to membership.  I felt like I needed to prove to them I wasn't lying about my improv because they were wonderful enough to trust my experience was and let me skip the basic courses.  But I sucked up my fear and hit that show hard and I ended up having a fantastic time. 
The show was a great base line for me to measure my experience and improvements.  Coming off that show, here's how I felt: a bit rusty but once I shook that off I felt like I did a good job.  I made strong emotional choices that drove scenes forward.  I felt free to be myself and to really play.  I expressed this to my boyfriend who watched the show.  He and I came up with several reasons as to why I felt so free and good about what I was doing.  To me, this has been a fresh start despite improvising for almost 7 years.

Why do I feel so good about improv in New Zealand?

My thoughts on sucking

We've all suffered and failed in improv.  We've had that moment while on stage where something comes out of your mouth and you just cringe as you're saying it.  You feel the audience becoming uncomfortable, or you hear in the silence people shifting in their seats, keeping themselves conformable while they politely wait for the blackout.  Or you've heard the table in the back, tipsy and giggling and not paying a lick of attention (to which I think, "why would you pay $10 to chat in the back of an improv show?  Why didn't you go to the bar instead?"), and realizing it's your job to keep these chatty Kathys entertained.  Which they clearly aren't.  We've all had that moment in class when we just fucking bomb.  When we don't even do the same exercise as we're supposed to be doing.  My first day in my college improv group involved me playing the game "Yes, And", which turned into "No, but...".  HOW does that even work?

But we have ALL done it.  We have all been there.  And most of us are still trucking.  We're still taking classes and performing and we haven't given up.  There have been times where I've gone home and cried and cried because I felt like I could never be good, that I fucked up in class and everyone else was great, and audiences hated me.  How did I overcome that?