I just wanted to focus a moment on the importance of magic societies (S.A.M. and I.B.M. and their youth groups) and joining them. Now, I know I have encouraged you all many times before to join a youth group, but I thought that if you saw a reward at the end of it, it might make you more inclined to go to the meetings.

Joining a youth group can open up a world of possibilities for you. Do you truly enjoy magic? Is this something you really want to do? Or, are you just playing around with it?

If you really want to take your magic somewhere, and if at all possible, I really urge you to join an Assembly or Ring. By doing so you will have mentors available to you that will teach you magic, showmanship, and have a vested interest in seeing you succeed. The people involved are there because they DO care and want you to be the best you can.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, "where's the reward she was talking about?" Well, that comes from networking. When you are serious, the magicians take note of that and they want to help you even more.

As you know, my daughter performs publicly and privately. Last night our daughter performed a short trick she was working on for her stage routine that is coming up. Afterwards we were visiting with one of the full-time working magicians. He asked our daughter how long her birthday show is. She said she currently does a 15 minute show (she can add walk around, etc. to make it longer but the "show" is only 15 minutes) and he told her that if she got it up to 40 minutes he would start giving her jobs. Of course, that put a huge smile on her face. Now --- you're probably thinking "ka-ching" --- but she was thinking, "hey, he believes enough in me to refer clients to me and risk his own reputation by referring me".

For now, her focus is on one main goal --- preparing for her upcoming stage performance. Her rehearsals are dedicated to that and only that.

Once she meets that goal and has accomplished it, she will set herself a new goal: she will work on trying to put together a 40 minute birthday show.

Never stop making goals for yourself. Push yourself. It may not be easy, but if you truly love magic and want to succeed at it, it will be worth all the hard work and rehearsals!

Good luck everyone!

Thanks, Kristenl. The ideas of insurance, mentoring, and support of a ring has been ruminating for a few weeks. You helped the penny to fall.

Also, I appreciate your overall image of instruction. I learned as a rookie, green belt Aikido student that without the student there is no teacher; without the teacher there is no student.
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kristenl if you join S.Y.M. do you have access to all the S.A.M. meetings, because mine only has things for the S.A.M.

Kristen, again GREAT advice for the kids. Especially the part about once accomplishing it set new higher goals. I will be talking to Dakota Rose, who has the column on kid magicians in The Linking Ring, about your daughter. If he is interested I will check with you before giving him any contact info.

Rono, thanks for the compliment. I liked your analogy, because you can't have one without the other. Also, if we wish to preserve the art of magic, then we have to be willing to inspire the youth and work with them to see the magic come alive.

Sier, I responded to you via PM. I hope you find the information helpful.

Paddy, thanks for always lending your support to our family and our daughter! It is greatly appreciated. Your friendship has meant a lot over the past few years. I'm not quite sure she is up to the requirements of The Linking Rings yet, but maybe one day. I've been meaning to send you an article, but keep forgetting. It is one I wrote for our Assembly's newsletter on a recent magic swap meet & lecture series we attended. Great fun! Will send it your way later!

Edit: Scratch that Paddy. When I went to send you the article, I see that I already sent you a link to the write up we did for my daughter's website. Although the article is different, it contains much of the same info. I really think you would enjoy the event if you ever get out to California!