I read about people on these forums that buy a trick because it's self working. I read about people who go out and perform a trick the same day they get it. Even if a trick is self working, it still requires practice, but not many people realize this.

Gimmicks are sometimes even harder to use then actual sleight of hand. Gimmicks can malfunction or break in the middle of a trick, and sometimes it's not preventable. Sometimes, however, it is. A few ways to make sure gimmicks won't break or malfunction are:
-Keep them in a safe place when not using them
-Don't encourage nosey spectators to look at an easily breakable gimmick (aka Bendy Pen)
-If the gimmick requires refills, always keep extras on you

Now onto the real stuff: Practice makes perfection. Don't ever fall for anything short of perfect. When performing a Coin trick with 'extra' coins, make sure they don't clink together. I've seen many magicians who say 'Oh, they won't notice'. Guess what? They do! Everything you perform should be done perfectly before you go out and perform.

For instane, Color Changes. If you could really magically change a card with a wave of your hand, why would you cover it up and rub it awkwardly? Think about this when performing the Erdnase/Houdini Color Change. Try and make it so you look like your just waving your hand over the card a few times and it changes. A good practice tip is this: Practice your color changes using two of the exact same cards. When you can finally see NO CHANGE between the cards when the change occurs, you're ready to practice using different cards.

The point of this essay is to make you think: magic is convincing people that an illusion is real. If an I can make coins appear out of thin air, why must I make these awkward movements? If I can change a person in a second, why must I hide them in this curtain? Why must I do this and that? These re questions the spectators will think too. If you do an obvious thumb count, the spectator will notice, and will take notice throughout the entire performance.

Next time you're about to perform a new trick for someone, think about these:
1) Can I do this with my eyes closed?
2) Can I teach this to a lay man PERFECTLY?
3) Have I practiced this to perfection?
If you say no to ANY of these, go home and practice!

Anyways, go practice!

i'm not sure you can do ALL tricks with eyes closed. but maybe you can. anyways, this is very important. everyone's made mistakes in their beginning magichood where they bust out a trick and expose it by messingup

I didn't literally mean 'with your eyes closed.'

It's an expression It basically means you should be able to do it flawlessly under any conditions.

some things I did agree with some things I didnt. I think most new magicans dont pratice enough but when you say teach it to a layman perfectly your crazy. you go find a layman and teach him to do the pass perfectly.

I usually have a giant case of nerves when performing magic. I literally shake when I do a trick. But, this weekend, something strange happened. I was performing for a group of about 4 people. The usual thing happened; I started shaking and got really nervous. I screwed up on an unlikely trick to blow: the Biddle trick. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a new trick, I had practiced it a lot. A whole lot. I had my patter down perfect, I had the moves down perfect, in fact I had no idea why I messed up. I thought I had done it flawlessly. But I had screwed up. I waited, then tried it on someone else. A very strange thing happened. That time, I wasn't nervous at all. In fact, I ended up doing about ten magic tricks, and wasn't nervous in any of them. I don't know why, I guess I overcame my fear of failure by, well, failing. Any comments?

It was probably your fear of the worst happening. ANd once you realized that it wasnt the end of the world, you werent afraid of it anymore. GOod for you I hope that it helps you out in the long run.

Its true that failiure can sometimes be the best medicine. I used to shake too. But don't let failiure just be a "shmeh, it happens" sort of deal.

Find out why it happened and fix it so that it never does again. That's the sort of thing that should be going on.

And as for teaching stuff to a layman...weren't we all laypeople once upon a time?

Once again, this wasn't mean literally. This means: Do you know the things that make it seem like real magic? Can you perform them well enough to tell someone what you're doing, yet they never catch you?

Usually when you can teach something very well, you can perform it well also.

as a true layperson, i think we would've believed in special abilities from magicians. i'm saying that if the effect is strong enough, you can fool a spectator into thinking that you DO have special powers. there'd be no explanation on how to do it then.

You are done practicing when they pry your cold, empty, TT from you dead hand. Practice should always continue. When you are the worlds' greatest at a trick, design a new twist on it and practice that.

I'd like to see you try

Bullet Catch

Shooting Through a Woman

And especially this http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=33

Ha,ha, ha, I laughed so hard when you said this....

-Trix

I would like to see you try the bullet catch period. The real thing.

The trick you can do with your eyes closed. Example that one sold in SOC, bullet catch 22.. that can be done eyes closed.
The stunt, well that shouldnt be done period.

I guess you just dont get the 'saying.'

Actually, I'm sure that'd be pretty easy to do. The only thing I'd worry about is missing.

Actually, I was just kidding. I wouldn't add the stunt into my repertoire because it's A) to easy to figure out, B) Been exposed to many times on tv, and C) simply because it's to dang, dangerous...

I get what he's saying, I was just messing around.


lol yeah.....missing.....and the authorities! There was one magician that did the trick wrong and he was in deep crap....The Masked Magician did an episode where he had a girl stand in front of a target of hay and then shot an arrow right through her (and she was fine afterwards ) and the method was really clever....it looked like it was really going through her...

-Trix

There are certain effects that I practice with my eyes closed. Almost exclusively with cards mind you.

It allows me to feel each step in the effect. To feel what I am doing, rather than see what I am doing. It allows me the ability to concentrate more on my patter and proper eye contact with my audience, and helped with misdirection.

My hands would remember the motions, and it aided in fluidity as it removed the thinking from the handling, and turned it into habit.

I found this the most usefull when starting out to practice false cuts, and card control. I would memorize a card, close my eyes, and "lose" it in the deck. I would then shuffle and cut for several minutes. Stop, and turn the card over to see if I did manage to lose it.