Approaching Magic Practice Dominic Reyes

Approaching Magic Practice By Dominic Reyes

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Copyright 2015 Merchant of Magic Ltd All Rights Reserved

About the author

Dominic Reyes, BSc (Hons) Psychology, has been performing magic professionally for over 20 years. He is a member of the Magic Circle and is the founder of magic shop - The Merchant of Magic. Dominic develops magic for the commercial market, consults for TV and film, and is the author of a range of guides on the performance and study of magic. Dominic is based in Hampshire, England.

Why this book is free This book was given to you completely free of charge. A reader asked me why I wasn’t charging for the book. Here’s my reply: 'I don't want to charge. My magic shop already has thousands of products I sell. This isn't a 'product'. I want as many magicians as possible to read it and maybe get a little benefit from it. Even if it's just a tip or tweak to their practice habit. A lot of people that love magic get disheartened by lack of progress. I think many of the people that need some guidance about 'practice' the most, don't focus on it. They spend their 'magic bucks' on new tricks.. Making it free, gives the best shot at them reading it.’ If you find this book useful, and feel that you do want to ‘pay something back’, maybe you could make a small donation to a charity MoM supports. Only if you really want to, and whatever you can afford. You can donate here.

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Important!

“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.”   - World renowned magician, Michael Ammar

 

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Introduction I’m going to make three assumptions about you right now: 1) You’re absolutely crazy about magic and want to make a commitment to improve your skills as a magician. 2) You already own quite a few magic tricks, instructional DVDs or books, but are unsatisfied with how well you perform many of them. 3) You find that you jump from one new magic trick to the next, learning the secret, running through it a few times, performing it a handful of times, then moving on to something else. Did I get a few right? It’s no big surprise really. Most people learning magic can identify with some of those statements. For the majority of magicians, magic is nothing more than an addictive hobby. It involves researching the subject, choosing new tricks, discovering secrets, collecting, socialising, and playing with ‘toys’. It’s addictive because there is an endless amount of information to discover, a feeling of progress, and lots of positive reinforcement from family and friends as you develop skills. That’s plenty to keep anyone happy and occupied for a lifetime… But there is so much more that you can achieve, it only requires a careful look at how you approach learning your magic. Does this sound familiar: when a new magic trick, book, or DVD arrives A large padded envelope has been delivered and you're standing by the front door, staring down at it. You know what’s inside…

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After all, you’ve been excited about this moment right from the second you ordered it. Now it’s finally in your hands. It’s at this point that you find something is missing from the package.. You. The trick needs you to put your own time and hard work into mastering it’s performance. It’s the time you commit to practice that will make the trick magical, and you a skilled magician. There really isn’t any short-cut, you have to make the decision to put in the required work. There are tools you can use. In this book I will share much of what I’ve learned about practising magic over the past 22 years. The tips and advice are intended to give you three things: 1) A feel for what to expect, 2) Ways to organise your practice into a effective program, 3) Practical tips that will make a huge difference to the results of your hard work.

If you have any questions, would like to give me some feedback, or maybe some tips that you feel should also be included, I would love to hear from you. You can reach me at: www.DominicReyes.me Drop by the blog at: http://blog.magicshop.co.uk Best wishes and good luck with your magic, Dominic Reyes 5


Help someone else If you find this advice useful, don’t keep it to yourself. If you know someone who is struggling with their magic practice, or just seems to be stuck in an endless cycle of learning, without actually developing a set of usable tricks they feel are ready to perform, please tell them about this book and send them a link to get a copy.

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The practice drill OK, let’s start off with one of the most valuable tips I can give you about practising your magic. You don’t want to have to wade through the whole book before you start making some practical changes to the way you practise your magic, so this single page will give you a technique you can start right now. If you ignore everything in this book, yet commit to using this practice drill method, I promise you will still be delighted with the results. I use this method with all of the students that have private magic lessons at the magic shop. It’s tried and tested over many years. This really is worth it’s weight in gold: Choose just ONE trick to work on. Put aside everything else. Practise everyday, in small quick sessions. Use a drill principle: running through the complete moves 20 times in the morning and 20 times at night for 20 days. If you can’t do that, just try to do two 10-minute practice drills every day. Short regular sessions are best. After the 20 days of drilling. Film your performance and watch it back with a critical eye. If it still needs work, repeat the drill for another 10 days before filming again.

One trick Two short sessions Every day For 20 days 7


When you practise magic using this drill technique, don’t try to increase your speed, let that happen naturally. Slow is better when you are learning. Speed will come all by itself as you progress through the 20 days of drilling.

If you make an error: Stay relaxed Stop Identify where you went wrong, so you don’t keep reinforcing the same mistake. Start the move or routine again from the beginning.

If you practise magic this way, it will fast-track you as it builds in motor-memory for the trick or move. Setting a practice drill works because it removes the CHOICE from your practice. Choice is your enemy when it comes to getting things done. You need a fixed path, with no option other than the set practice over a set period of time. Using a drill will help keep you on target and consistently working towards a single goal.

Little and often is best The secret is to practise in short bursts, over several weeks and have intervals between each practice session. The last thing you want to do is ‘burn out’, so pacing yourself with a practice program you can maintain is much more likely to be stuck to than a massive full-scale practice binge when you remember to do it.

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In cognitive science there are two forms of learning: • Massed learning – when you practise and rehearse the material over a short space of time (cramming); • Spaced learning – small bursts of practice with lengthy spaces between sessions to allow you to consolidate the material.   Massed learning is very hard to sustain over the long term, and daily life is full of distractions and commitments. By spacing your practice, you give your fingers a chance to rest, your mind can mull over the material you have studied, and you will be less distracted by all your other tasks planned that day.

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The practice drill for a single move You may want to focus on a specific sleight of hand move or technique rather than a full routine. You can choose a group of core techniques that you plan to work on, then create a structured drill practice schedule. Let’s look at the process:

Step 1: Choosing the technique(s) Start by creating a list of core moves that you would like to develop. This should be quite short, as each move will be the subject of a long period of focused work. Scale your list down to 5 or 6 key techniques that you REALLY want to master. For example: • • • • •

The Double Lift The Elmsley Count The Cull The Double Under-Cut The Classic Palm

These will be the foundation for your practice over the next five months of magic training. Once you have a core list, pick one of the techniques to start your training.

Step 2: Creating a timetable Now we have selected a sleight, we can build an effective program to give structure and a set pace to our training. At this point, it’s easy to rush in and start practising every moment you can. For some people this works fine, but it can lead to ‘burn out’ 10


from boredom or impatience to move on to something new. If you find that you struggle to commit to serious practice, and jump from technique to technique without mastering anything, you will find that a structured practice schedule will greatly help you.

I recommend daily practice, in short sessions.

20 repetitions or 10 minutes practice in the morning 20 repetitions or 10 minutes practice in the evening.

Choose the first technique that you will work on, and focus on only that move for the next 20 days. Drill the move SLOWLY 20 times for 10 minutes every morning and 10 minutes every evening. Practice slowly, just focusing on performing the move accurately and smoothly.

Speed Your practice should be SLOW. The goal is to achieve perfect technique rather than speed. If you rush the moves, assuming that faster is better, you will be making small errors, which become reinforced by repetition. Speed is a side-effect of good technique, not part of the technique itself.

Why short practice sessions? This allows time for your brain to consolidate the information you have learned, and for the muscle-memory to become embedded. 11


British “memory champion” Ed Cooke (who can memorise a full deck of playing cards in under two minutes) agrees that short practice sessions are more effective:   Learn in short bursts, testing yourself on the technique over several weeks and making sure that there are sufficient rest intervals between each practice session and the next. “The best thing to do is break up your studying of a subject – 10 minutes, test yourself, then again on day two, then day seven and day 14. The biggest mistake you can make is just to keep practising it over and over to yourself.”

Step 3: Assessment After 20 days, video your performance of the technique and watch it back. Have a critical eye and make note of: • • • •

Mistakes in your technique; Hesitation; Unconscious ‘tells’ that you might not have been aware of; How the flow of your actions look natural.

If you are completely happy with the technique, you can now move on to put it into action. If not, repeat the drill program for another 10 days.

Step 4: Application and rehearsal Once a technique has been drilled, you can’t rest there. You need to keep it fresh and familiar over time. Any move you learn is a waste of time if you don’t have an application for it. You need a magic trick that you WANT to perform that requires the technique.

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As you start rehearsing the full trick, you reinforce your performance of the techniques within it. This keeps your skills active over time. Repeat the practice drill for the WHOLE magic trick, repeating it several times in the morning and again in the evening. This replicates the experience you will have performing the trick professionally. A working magician may perform a trick many times every day, and this constant work builds in a deep understanding of the trick and its performance. Once you are happy with your progress through rehearsal, you are ready to start again at Step 1 with the next technique you wish to master.

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10,000 hours There is a rule for becoming a master of anything. It’s called the 10,000-hour rule. Proposed by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson, the 10,000-hour rule claims you need 10,000 hours of practice to master any skill. That’s around 10 years of consistent magic practice! Have you got time for that? Would you like a quicker way? Let’s look at some ways that you can cut that time down, and still get the same results. The 10,000-hour rule refers to practice through simple repetition. Is it possible to look at your practice technique, and introduce some smart behaviour into your routine that could cut the time needed to master a magic trick?

Practice your magic tricks just before you sleep Sleep is a lovely thing, and it’s very good for you, but it’s also a time when your brain processes the information that it has taken in through your day and sorts it for long-term storage. Information is consolidated during sleep as memories are created and associated with previously stored information. If you study your magic shortly before you go to bed, you should find that you retain much more of the information than if you studied earlier in the day. Bookending your day with your magic practice sessions can greatly boost the effectiveness of your practice.

Commit to formal magic practice What do all those kung-fu films teach us? The Zen masters know a thing or two about mastering skills! Instead of just going through the motions as you perform your moves, focus on every detail. Slow your 14


practice down so you can pay attention to the process just as much as the result. Practise in the present, thinking about what you are ACTUALLY doing, not about the past or what you hope for the future. Continually ask yourself how you could adapt or change the process to improve the final result. This is a move away from mindless ‘reps’ as you examine each step of the movement and timing the technique requires.

Know your strengths You can get anywhere you want, with enough hard work and commitment. But some people have an easier journey than others. We can develop skill over time, but you will have a natural talent for some aspects of magic. Perhaps you are a natural actor, maybe your mind is hard-wired for creativity. If you have a talent, find it and use it to your advantage. Channel your time and effort towards magic tricks you already have a natural ability for, build a compatible set of skills to complement it. You will be practising magic that you already have an aptitude for.

Stand of the shoulders of giants Pretty much everything in magic has been done before. New magic is often a variation of previous techniques with a new spin added. The core principles are classic principles – adapted and refined from magicians who worked on designing magic tricks long ago. Read as much as you can, and study the classics from famous magicians. Learn from other magicians’ successes and their mistakes – you can learn faster by avoiding errors that have already occurred.

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As you build up your core knowledge. Seek out new magic tricks that take the principles that you already know, the core sleights from your already mastered material, and build up a working set of material around those moves. It’s possible to do a wide range of different coin magic tricks that secretly all use the same two or three moves. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel every time you add a new magic trick. The 10,000-hour rule isn’t set in stone. You can create short-cuts in your practice by spending time designing a strong practice drill program.

Take just 1% of the time you spend browsing the internet for new magic tricks, and spend it organising your practice regime. By practising smart, you can get to the mastery of any magic technique or trick, much faster than you ever thought possible.

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Take care of your hands If you find that your fingers hurt or your hand aches when you are practising: STOP. Be aware that you are developing the strength and dexterity of the muscles in your hand, whilst still looking after the joints. You REALLY don’t want to develop Repetitive Strain Injury due to your practice, so listen to your body. If your fingers or hands hurt, it’s time to rest them. The drill method of practice should help prevent R.S.I. because it stops binge practice sessions. Many magicians use a good hand-moisturiser to keep them in the best of order. Your hands are the tools of your trade as a magician. Invest in hand care and consider having a manicure from time to time.

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Committing to magic practice Distractions are all too common in the modern world with so many things around us designed to do just that, distract. Magazines, television and the internet are all capable of drawing you in and zapping your focus in a heartbeat. Losing your concentration when trying to get anything done is never a good thing, but, when it comes to magic practice, loss of focus can be enough to make you want to give up altogether.

Tyranny of the new Many magicians constantly feel the need to learn new tricks and techniques to stay up to date. However, it can be this desire to stay at the forefront of what is happening in the world of magic that can be the biggest distraction from your magic practice. We’ve no doubt all experienced the feeling of excitement when a new trick is brought to our attention, we can’t wait to try it out and we drop everything to do so. This is fine if you are looking for something new, but what if you are in the middle of magic practice on another technique or trick? You’ve dropped something before you have mastered it! Often, by the time that you resume your practice on that particular skill it is almost like you have never even looked at it before, such is the power of distraction.   So, with this in mind, what can we do to minimise these distractions and help us to get some quality, focused magic practise done? Let’s take a look at a few pointers:

Make a decision (and stick to it) – Choose just one or two things to be the centre of your magic practice at any one time. These can be 18


either new magic tricks, techniques or a mixture of both. The important thing is to stick with your chosen task and resist the urge to move onto something new before you have completely mastered it. Turn the psychology on its head and use it to your advantage. If there is something new and exciting that you are itching to work on, use that as an incentive. Tell yourself that the sooner you get to grips with ‘A’ the quicker you can move on to ‘B’.   Have a goal – Setting yourself a deadline can also be a great way to incentivise your task. However, it is important that you are not overly hard on yourself if you don’t meet the deadline, providing you have put sufficient work in. Sometimes it can be difficult to judge just how long it will take to learn a new trick.   Be consistent – Choosing a time and a place where you know that distractions will be kept to a minimum builds a routine that will allow you to focus a lot better. Setting this up will help others get used to the idea as well. If your family know that you are going to be using a certain room, at a certain time, on a regular basis, it will be far less likely that you will incur accidental disturbances.   Meditate – Maintaining focus is very much a state of mind and something that can improve with time. Practising meditation can help with focus as can other relaxation techniques. Of course, this is something that is going to differ within each of us, but it proves that with practice the mind can be retrained to concentrate better and work in a more productive fashion.   By using the tips above you will find that your magic practice sessions will soon become far more fruitful, which means that you will learn more in a shorter space of time.

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The Practice Mirror Using a three-panel close-up mirror can be a valuable tool for magicians, especially during the practice drill process.

Most three-section mirrors have a problem: they tend to be housed in a frame, so the mirror doesn’t go right down to the table surface. This can get in the way when performing directly on the table surface or close-up mat, especially with coin magic routines. The good news is that it’s easy to make a perfect close-up magic mirror, that packs flat, covers all the angles and gives you a full view right to the table surface. Here’s what you need: Three square bathroom mirror tiles. These are available very cheaply

from most DIY stores.

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Simply take three mirror wall tiles and tape them together with black duct tape. The tape is flexible,so if you leave a small 3mm gap between each tile as you tape down their edge, they will be able to fold the mirror flat to go in your travel case or car. The mirror looks clean, clear and gives you the most mirror surface possible, right down to your close-up mat. OK, it doesn’t look like a piece of furniture, but your close-up mirror is a private thing, it’s not really for show, but rather for your own private serious practice.  Practising regularly with a close-up mirror can dramatically improve your performance. However, you need to make sure that you don’t close your eyes, or blink when you perform a move. There’s a tendency to avoid noticing when you perform a sleight if you practice exclusively in front of a mirror, so make sure you also drill your practice away from the instant feedback a mirror gives you.

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Filming your performance One of the most useful tools for developing your magic is the video camera. Filming your performance of a magic trick will allow you to critically study every part of your routine. You can understand what your audience actually sees when they watch you. It’s an invaluable learning process and we recommend you seriously consider making this part of your training. When I talk about filming your magic, I don’t mean quickly filming a half-mastered trick and uploading it to YouTube. That’s not going to teach you anything. The only feedback will be flattery or even rude comments, that will do you no good at all. This is not about selfpromotion or feedback from others, it’s about having a cold, hard, and dispassionate look at yourself. It strips away any ego, and shows you what’s actually really there, rather than what you hope to find. That’s where the true value is gained, and it’s priceless. Which magic tricks you choose to film doesn’t really matter, but ideally you should be performing to spectators and not to the camera itself. You want to be able to study how you interact with your audience just as much as how well you can do the moves when nobody is watching.

Once you have some footage, the painful part begins You need to sit down and prepare to take notes as you watch the footage back several times. The first time you watch it, you probably won’t learn much. That first viewing will be spent either feeling uncomfortable about watching yourself, or enjoying the routine and patting yourself on the back for how clever a particular part of it is. The real value comes from the second, third and fourth playback.

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Make a careful note of the following 10 action points: 1) Do you look relaxed and natural? 2) Do you look happy to be there and enjoying performing the magic tricks? 3) What does your body movement say about you, the situation, and the magic you are doing? 4) Are your hand movements natural, relaxed and clear? 5) Is your speech rushed. Is it clear and engaging? Do you vary the tone and pace? 6) Do you make eye-contact with the audience? 7) Do you hesitate when executing a move or sleight? 8) Does anything look awkward or out of place? 9) How is your audience reacting at each point during the magic trick? 10) Are you performing your sleight of hand at the right moments, when the misdirection is the strongest? You should have made quite a few notes after running through this process a few times, and it’s very important that you act on every point you find. Use what you learn from this to eliminate all the weak points and reinforce the actions that are working well for you. Make a conscious effort to be aware of the problems you have identified. When you next perform, you will be much less likely to repeat those problems if you know they are there. Each little adjustment will make your magic far stronger. It’s a better long-term investment than simply adding more and more new magic tricks to your knowledge base. You have a tool at your disposal that

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the greatest magicians throughout history never had. Make use of it and your audience will thank you for it.

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Why your partner isn’t the best judge of your magic ability Graham asked me: ‘My partner is my confidant in my magic. I practise with her, and she knows all… I was wondering if you could point me towards a magic trick that could still blow her mind. Then I would know I can fool anyone…’  This is my reply: If your partner knows all, then I’d class her as a ‘magician’. Don’t spend too much time trying to fool other magicians. What ‘fools’ a magician is no measure of what will entertain someone who hasn't ‘seen behind the curtain’. It’s wonderful that your partner is helping you with your practice, and you can take advantage of this as much as possible. However, I’d warn against judging the quality of your magic performance on her reactions. It would be time better spent to seek out a fresh audience. Volunteer to do an hour of magic at your local community centre, or at a rest home in your town. That will prove to yourself that you can fool anyone. Best of all, it’s at zero risk because you’re an awesome guy and helping out in your community.

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Setting the pace When you practice your magic tricks, you are performing to yourself. You run through the trick at the speed that feels right for you. However, that can often be close to your thinking speed. A person’s inner dialogue or voice is much faster than they naturally talk. Unless you take this into account when you reach the rehearsal stage of your practice, you may find that you perform your magic tricks too fast.

Testing out your practice and performing pace Magicians don’t suffer from this alone. Comedians, MCs and professional speakers all have to train themselves to present their ‘act’ at a slower pace than feels natural to them. A great way to see this in action is to take part in a local magic competition or open mic night for magicians. In these situations, you will often have a time limit. The ‘act’ that you put together will run perfectly during private practice, but you will be shocked at how time changes when you are on stage. Many magicians run through their material at such a pace that they end up having to improvise more material at the end, then lose their timing and get a red light for ‘going over time’.

Slowing down your magic tricks Once you have practised the mechanics of a magic trick, it’s important that you take the time to rehearse the full performance in natural time. Saying the full magic script out loud and building in natural pauses and breaks in the patter. Run through the full presentation at half the speed that feels natural to you. That’s probably close to the speed that you should perform it at in public in order to sound natural and relaxed. 26


The old saying in magic is that the hand is quicker than the eye. This is, in itself, a trick. In reality, speed makes people suspicious. The best sleight of hand is performed slowly and NATURALLY, and that’s just the same with your patter. Talking and moving fast suggests nervousness. Smooth, graceful, easy actions look more professional, and it’s just the same with your speech.

Do this: Invest in a metronome. Perform your favourite magic trick and time it. Now set the metronome to a pace that is half the speed. Practice running at this slower speed. It will feel very unnatural at first but will soon become second nature. When you perform for the public, take a moment to stop. Just breathe and relax your body, now continue at half-speed and notice how much easier it all feels. Your spectators will relax as well, they will appreciate your magic tricks more and you will get a big improvement in the feedback from them.

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Talk to the creator Once you have picked a trick that you are going to practice, don’t just learn from the instructions. Go directly to the source of the trick. Magic is a very small community, and being a magic creator is not a mass market activity. The magicians who develop great tricks tend to be obsessed by magic! Many of them put a huge amount of time and effort into creating an effect, for very little financial reward. They do it because they love inventing tricks, and seeing their creation being used by magicians. They don’t get to be millionaires from their creations, and as a rule tend not to be business-minded.

Why do they do it? They are simply magicians like you and I, who came up with a great idea and want to share it. They LOVE getting feedback from people who are using their tricks. As they tend to also be magicians, they are very easy to contact directly. Shoot an email over to the creator of the trick you are learning. A quick Google search should bring up their website. Let him or her know you are seriously learning their trick.

Avoiding the dangers of magic forum reviews When a new trick is released, within a few days the magic forums become full of ‘user reviews’ of the trick. These early reviews are really just ‘first impressions’ as the reviewers have not had time to learn and perform the trick they are ‘reviewing’. Because of this, they tend to be based largely on the production value of the product and the first impressions of the gimmicks included. Often they are written after just a quick watch of the DVD and a little play with the props. These ‘reviews’ make up much of the feedback a magic creator receives about his or her magic release.

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When an email comes in from someone seriously interested in learning how to perform the trick, it’s a real breath of fresh air to the creator, and they tend to help that person as much as possible. Their advice and guidance is very valuable to you!

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Make notes One of the best things a magician can do is to keep a magic journal. We are going to look at how Evernote can be set up and used by magicians as the ultimate practice diary and journal for everything they need to record as they study, practice their magic tricks and most important of all: PERFORM. Evernote is a free service (with the option of premium features) that allows you to capture anything. You can save your ideas, things you like, things you hear, and things you see. You can sign up for it right now at http://www.evernote.com Your notes can be accessed anywhere – Evernote works with pretty much every computer, phone and mobile device out there. Best of all, you can find things fast – search by keyword, tag or even printed and handwritten text inside images. You can clip copies of webpages, store PDFs and files, make an audio recording, store photos and images. The list of things you can put in Evernote goes on and on. Basically, you can dump in everything you want to keep and remember, and then find it again whenever and wherever you need it. You can store all your notes in a general inbox, or create notebooks, full of notes on different topics.

Evernote ideas for magicians Here are some ideas for notebooks to make in Evernote that magicians will find invaluable: 1) Magic e-books and PDFs  Do you have a load of magic e-books and PDFs stored on your computer? Drop them into Evernote, and you have your digital magic

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tricks library with you, wherever you go. The PDF reader in Evernote is one of the best we have ever seen and its fully searchable. 2) Instructions for your magic tricks  Scan or take a photo of any magic trick’s instruction sheet that comes with your props. This is very handy if you need to contact the manufacturer in the future for refills or parts. It’s great to be able to refer to them using the search if needed. 3) Lists of sets and magic tricks in acts  As you learn more magic tricks. Start building them together into acts and sets that go together. Creating a notebook to list these, is a great way to stay organised and develop your magic into commercial professional routines. It’s also a vital step to add continuity and flow to your magic performances. 4) One-liners  How many jokes have you heard over the years, and wished you remembered? Each time you hear a great line, a joke or even just a professional answer to common questions spectators ask, create a note or record a quick audio clip. It’s amazing how much you forget over the years. This notebook will come in very handy when you are working on presenting your magic tricks and their scripting. 5) Contracts  Scan or photo each of your contracts and booking forms when you take a magic booking. Having a notebook with all your paperwork handy and searchable by date or client name, means you have all the details you need when you are travelling to a gig. It’s all backed up in the cloud, so you don’t have to worry about losing paperwork or your work diary ever again. 6) Previous client lists  Clip company logo’s and details for each of your clients. You now have an invaluable record of your magician’s clients database. 7) Testimonials  Some magicians ask for a quick audio testimonial from clients after a

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booking. Ask them to talk about your magic tricks. You can instantly do this within Evernote. Send any emails from clients into this notebook and scan thank-you letters. Build up a portfolio you can show future clients or use for your marketing. 8) Performing pics  Take some pictures at every gig you do. They get stored, and geotagged at the same time. Evernote is a great way to build up a library of performing pics in one place. Very handy for future marketing and website building. 9) Magic tricks want list  Create a want list as you browse magic shop websites. Clip product pages, reviews and information about the magic tricks you are thinking of learning. 10) Best magic websites  Clip the front page of your favourite magic shop websites, so you have a magic bookmark list always at hand. If you visit a great bricks and mortar magic shop. Take a picture and store its geo-location at the same time. 11) Receipts  Save copes of your order receipts for magic tricks you buy. If you are a working pro, clip all your receipts to the folder. This makes the end of year accounts much easier. 12) Routine ideas  Every time a routine idea pops into your head make a quick note or audio note in Evernote. Collect every idea as you never know what will be valuable later on. Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it! 13) Practice drills for your magic tricks  Create to-do-list notes and practice drills to organise your magic practice. Adding structure to your practice can make all the difference.

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14) Magic tricks inventory  Make a photo or note inventory of all the magic books, DVDs and Props you own. If you ever need to claim on your insurance, this is a great list to have at hand. If you review it in the future, you may rediscover an item you had forgotten about. 15) Business cards  Snap photos of business cards you receive. The images can be text searched and will be with you whenever you need then. Cards from promoters, clients, other magicians and venues can all be sorted in this notebook as your own personal magic business database. If a photographer attends an event, take a picture of their card so you can contact them later to get copies of their photographs. 16) Maps, travel and locations  Visiting a new venue to perform? Clip their website to this notebook and you have all the details you need, when you are on the road. Train times, flights and maps can all be stored here. 17) Conventions and events  Clip news about conventions and events you want to attend. Store copies of tickets and reservations, so you have a backup when needed. 18) Performing diary  This is the most useful notebook of all. After every gig, record an audio note talking about how it went. What went well? What could have been better? What have you discovered from that day’s gig? Keeping a journal like this, will be interesting in the years ahead to look back on, but also invaluable as a learning tool and a way of keeping you focused on improving and developing your magic. 19) Store your promotional material  Flyers, posters, template contracts and booking forms can all be stored in Evernote. Throw in the raw files for your business card design and a backup of your performing website.

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Are you wasting time? Magicians are addicted to learning new moves and techniques. However, practising sleight of hand just for the sake of it can be a sure-fire way to waste your valuable practice time. Recreational practice is not a problem in and of itself, unless that’s all you’re doing. If you decide to commit your valuable practice time to mastering a move, make sure you also have an application for it. Being able to perform 20 different colour changes is no better than mastering a single method, that fits perfectly in the magic trick you want to perform. You only need to learn one method, until you have another magic trick or routine that actually requires a different technique. Don’t waste time building things that you don’t have a use for. Spend your time collecting complete magic tricks, not individual moves.

Unnatural moves Everyone loves to invent. Magicians especially love creating and modifying sleight of hand. A problem can occur when it’s done for no other reason than to publish and name something. At the Merchant of Magic, it’s rare that a day goes by without the team receiving a video clip from a magician who has ‘created’ a new variation. Sometimes these variations are awesome, but mostly they are a traditional classic move with a layer of unnaturalness added. The goal of sleight of hand isn’t to be unique or different, but rather to do something invisibly. Sleight of hand needs to look like ‘nothing at all’. Perfect technique strips away any movement and hand positioning, leaving only normal ‘everyday’ handling or action. If a sleight adds anything unnatural to your movement or hand position, it could be weakening the magic trick rather than improving it.

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The busy fool principle Despite what we were all told at school, how hard you work is, sadly, not a direct indication of your likeliness to succeed. Hard work only leads to success if it’s focused in the right direction. This is done by creating and working towards clearly defined goals. If we take earning a living from magic as an example, any magician can get a full diary of gigs if their fee is low enough. A magician can easily do 4 gigs every week for a fee of £100 each. That magician works really hard and feels successful as they have as much work as they can handle. However, another magician can have a larger income by charging £500 per gig, but only landing a single booking each week. In just the same way, many truly obsessed magicians practice night and day learning moves and sleights, but have not set a goal to build a magic act. They work like a ‘busy fool’ building their knowledge without any goals to make the effort pay off for them.

The Emperor’s new clothes The Emperor: ‘The collar’s always around the neck, the sleeves always come off the shoulders, the waist always goes around the middle! When will they invent something original?’ – The Emperor’s New Clothes (1987)   So many moves are published that are nothing more than pipe dreams, invented by magicians who never actually perform them. The moves get attention from other magicians who also learn them, without any real intent to perform them either. The inventor gets plenty of praise, and the students congratulate each other on their skills mastering these obscure moves. There are countless online discussion groups built around discussing, reviewing 35


and often arguing over these techniques, their originality and development. There are even online magic shops that specifically repackage this behaviour into a fashionable lifestyle culture. It’s a fun pastime, sold as ‘training magicians’. In reality, it may not be doing that at all.

Technique over entertainment Which would you rather watch? Five different variations of the classic pass (that should all look the same anyway) OR Five different presentations for an invisible deck? Which would teach and entertain you most? I don’t actually need to write any more on this to get the point across...   Practice versus the average magician Let’s face it. Practising magic is boring for most people. Some magicians love it, and the work itself is part of the reward and becomes a passion, but most people feel they have better things to do with their time than sit down and drill sleight of hand. The fun part is discovering a new trick, or discussing how a trick works. Most magic forums are full of 99% discussion of new tricks, reviews, reverse engineering, marketing, and arguments about which trick is the best. You have to dig very deeply to find the 1% of useful discussion about practice and rehearsal. We can moan about this as much as we like, but it’s simple maths:

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the average magician is only prepared to spend an average amount of time working on their technique. This means that half of the remaining magicians are even less prepared to practice than them!   The result: A lot of terrible performances! The Merchant of Magic was established as a magic shop to:

 

• • • •

Help people fall in love with magic; Guide beginners to practice; Help magicians design an act; Encourage magicians to perform.

If you have ever visited the shop, or called the team by phone, you’ll already know that the team often recommends the use of gimmicks over sleight of hand, for the majority of beginners. The sleight of hand guides and tutorials are also recommended by the shop, but the focus is on quality act creation, not an artificial ideal of purity in magic. After all, that’s how ‘he who must not be named’ would probably run a magic shop. Using gimmicks doesn’t make you some kind of ‘mud blood’. In fact, it puts you in excellent company with magicians like David Copperfield, Dante, Devant, and Dai Vernon, and pretty much every other famous magician. The greatest magicians throughout history have always been partial to using gimmicks.   Come on Dominic, it’s not as simple as that…   

Maybe. I’m definitely polarising the issue to a large extent. Few magicians choose only sleight of hand, and refuse to use gimmicks. Most magicians study sleight of hand, and also buy self-working tricks or gimmicks.

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My point isn’t that you should choose to abandon sleight of hand, filling your act with gimmicked props alone. You shouldn’t choose between sleight of hand or gimmicks at all.

I’m warning that it’s very easy to get wrapped up in ‘technique’ being sold to you as the path to being a fabulous magician. It’s hard to spot because it’s not being sold to you by magic dealers, it often comes from other magicians who are also caught up in the same trap of assuming competent sleight of hand defines the quality of a magician. I recommend that you ignore advice based on the assumption that sleight of hand is always better. There are excellent techniques, and there are terrible techniques. In just the same way, there are amazing gimmicks, and dreadful gimmicks. Forget about the method of a trick you are thinking about learning. Look at the effect, the presentation, and what actually happens from the point of view of the spectator. If those elements are awesome, then you should learn it, regardless of the mechanics involved.

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How long does it take? The first thing you need to do to learn magic tricks proficiently is get a good practice routine set out. Some of the magic tricks you should learn will need you to practice individual sleights and moves separately before rolling them all into one routine, which can then be drilled. Other magic tricks will require you to practice the whole routine from start to finish as they only work when performed in a flowing manner. Remember the 10,000-hour rule. This is a good guide for how long one must practice to learn magic tricks inside out and upside down. This amount of practice will shape you into a technical and very skilled magician. Unfortunately, it won’t make you an amazing entertainer. This is something to keep in mind when performing professionally; entertainment is paramount. In order to learn magic tricks to a professional level requires far more skills than sleight of hand. More experienced magicians will already have developed their performing style and have knowledge that they can apply to each new trick that they take on. How long it takes to learn a magic trick, really depends on your previous experience, just as much as the amount of time you can commit to learning.

The secret to learn magic tricks faster The secret isn’t sitting alone running through a magic trick 10,000 times. It’s about practising the moves, rehearsing the presentation and then getting out and performing it as much as possible. Professional magicians may perform some of their magic tricks 20-30 times per night. That’s a LOT of repetition. If you are not doing magic commercially, you still need to drill a new trick as much as possible, so you can master it.

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Learn magic tricks that are good for beginners I won’t give you actual names of magic tricks to learn as everyone is different, but I can guide you by telling you what to look for in a good magic trick when you begin your journey. In general, you should learn magic tricks that are short in execution and routine, long-winded routines can become boring for spectators. It can take a lot of your attention to remember all the processes involved in a long routine; this will definitely show in your performance, which is not good. Try to learn magic tricks that can be described in one sentence. For example, ‘I selected a card and it appeared on the other side of the window!’. If you find magic tricks to learn that are easily explained then your audiences will talk about your performance to others, this is a good thing. It is best to learn magic tricks that are not too far out of your comfort zone. Push what you do, but as far as practising magic that you intend to show people, it is best to learn magic tricks that are not too advanced. Performing magic tricks above your technical abilities will show when you perform them to people, and they may see through your technique; this will ultimately end up ruining the magic. Don’t try to learn magic too fast. Slow down, master the basics first. By all means practice magic tricks that are out of your comfort zone as this is the only way to push forward. However, you should resist showing people these magic tricks until you have perfected them and can perform them with patter flawlessly.

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Why you need hard work more than natural talent When we see famous magicians performing, it’s easy to think that they must have been born with an extra set of powers that we don’t possess. Somehow, these magicians have skills that far exceed those that we could ever hope to have. We run ourselves down because we think we need to have been born with some form of special natural ability. It’s totally understandable, as it makes sense to us about how the world works, and reassures us that our own shortcomings have roots outside of our control. We simply weren’t born with the same chances as everyone else. It’s self-destructive and makes magicians give up learning magic. We just say ‘what’s the point of even trying?’.

Talent may be a myth and self-defeating Research shows us that talent is highly over-rated as the cause of success. Natural talent does exist, but it’s a very bad indicator of future outcomes. Natural talent has a far smaller influence on our ability to master a skill than we imagine. The greatest achievements can come from consistent, focused magic practice over time. Our culture makes us feel embarrassed about attributing success to hard work. Instead, we should be inspired by magicians that put in effort. We should focus on the journey they have taken to learn and master their skills.

Do this: When you watch other magicians perform, think about the hours of work they have put in to get the performance to that standard. Focus on the effort rather than the success of the magician.

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Set your own practice goals so you commit to consistent work. View ‘talented’ magicians as ‘dedicated magicians’. Use their performance as proof that YOU can perform to that standard as well. Decide that having those skills is important enough to you, for you to commit to the work required. Practice your magic every day using a proven drill or program to give structure to your practice.

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Performance vs. practice   Sam asked the team at the Merchant of Magic: ‘I’ve been into magic for a while now, and when I was young I could perform magic to people without worrying if I was going to mess up the trick. I’m 21 now and, for some reason, I feel the need to practice the trick to perfection before I can perform it to anyone, even family. Is this a good or bad thing?’ Here is what Ben Williams said in reply, hopefully if you have the same issues this advice will help you out too! When we mature our brains develop much more of a realisation of consequence. When you were younger, you probably didn’t think about any consequence of performing a magic trick, partially as a result of this fact. It is not a bad thing to practice an effect to perfection before performing it. The problem would be if you are not performing the trick because of fear it is not good enough, not that you don’t know it inside out. When going to perform we all have fears at the last minute, such as the trick you feel like doing is just not going to fly or get the reactions you imagine. The real truth is that you just don’t know how your magic is going to go down and in all reality it most likely is going to get a much better reaction than you imagine.

Magic practice I truly think that practice is not a bad thing at all, but you should be able to realise when you have practised something enough. Take a punt on performing it, this is where your skills will become honed. You can practice a move in front of a mirror until it looks invisible, but if you go to pieces in front of someone when performing then no amount of practice at home will get you past that. My advice would be to practice some easy tricks that you can do without a hitch. Even 43


if they are self-working, get two of those tricks, one to begin a set with, and one to end it. Sandwich those magic tricks around a new trick that you want to perform, but haven’t road-tested yet. This way, if it goes wrong, it doesn’t matter.

It's not the end of the world There is nothing wrong with a trick not working; it is only your ego that is harmed. If you can brush that off, then there is nothing left to worry about. If a mistake doesn’t matter to you then how can a spectator be bothered by it or harass you? Sure, you may feel for a moment like you have egg on your face; or that you have not done yourself justice. However, if you let those feelings pass and look at it from a different perspective, that of it being a positive experience to learn from then you will only get better and better. Learn from your mistakes, remember a mistake is only a mistake if you refuse to learn from it, if you learn a valuable lesson then how can it be anything other than a positive experience? A friend of mine, Justin Flom said he will ALWAYS offer magic up to his friends and people he meets, he always has something prepared and will always try new things on his friends. True friends would not care if anything went wrong, they may laugh at you for a moment but if they are real friends it won’t change anything, just laugh with them. It is true; it can feel horrible if you are trying to make an impact with your magic and then it goes wrong. If the secret is revealed or just does not work at all, the illusion you are trying to create falls to the floor like a backdrop curtain revealing all that is behind it. But in truth nothing is that bad, yeah an effect won’t have worked, an illusion is destroyed but did anyone get hurt? Was anything illegal done? Did anyone lose their life savings? No! So in the grand scheme of things nothing has happened. Just brush yourself off and forget how it made you feel and make sure you get to the bottom of why it went wrong. Then work on the issue so that you do not make a mistake by repeating it.

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Think like Dr. Pepper, what is the worst that could happen? Take a deep breath, clear your mind of any negative thought. Just rock up with an opening line that gets the ball rolling so you cannot simply back out, and you will have a great time. I used to turn up at gigs worried sick that it would be terrible and after every gig I would leave and feel amazing as it was never as bad as I had imagined!

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Are you spending too much of your ‘practice time’ learning new magic tricks?  Ragedy asked me: ‘I have a question. I’ve spent lots of money on books and marketed effects. What should I do with them all? Should I ignore them? Can I make time to play with the tricks I’ve bought and read all the books I have, or is this all a waste of time? Is it OK to just show something for the fun of it and keep some tricks for the serious practice time? Some of the things I have are just fun and I like showing my close friends these effects. There are some though I feel fit my persona more and these are the effects I practice hard at. What do think? Am I on the right track?’

Yes, it’s fine to spend some of your time learning new magic tricks. But I think you should set a goal to choose a range of magic tricks that you will build into a performing act. That should be your focus. Watch the DVDs and read the books. Play with magic and learn all you can, but do it with focus towards a GOAL.

Spend 50% of your time researching and learning new magic tricks. Spend the other 50% developing your core set of tricks and practising their performance.

Learning new magic tricks is not ‘practice’, it’s just research. It needs to be done, so you can build a strong act, but it’s not something that should take up more than half of your magic time. Equally, it’s fine to have a range of fun tricks you perform. However, make sure that you are building a core set of tricks that will make up a performing act. 46


How long does it take to practice a magic trick? Stephen asked me: ‘I want to develop my first magic act. How long should I aim to practice a magic trick before it’s ready to be performed?’  That question has a very simple answer: it depends. There is no set time scale for any magic trick to be ready. The time it will take you to get the trick to a performance standard is different for each magician and each trick. However, my good friend Steve Shufton told me some simple advice that I would like to pass on to you now. Whilst writing the instructions for the mind-reading magic trick PS I Love You, Steve wanted to include a section about how long the magic trick will take to learn. He explained that the more experience you have in magic, the more you will understand the value of practice. PS I Love You is very simple to learn. You could start performing the magic trick in just 15 minutes. Many beginners will learn the trick and do just that, but in doing so, they are making a huge mistake. Experienced performers understand that the success of a magic performance has little to do with the simplicity of the method. The strength of the trick comes from the performance, and that comes from the skill and effort of the magician. Do this: Don’t assume that a magic trick that is easy to learn should take less time to become performance ready. Use the extra time you gain from a simple method to work on the presentation. Don’t rush out and perform a new trick right away. Take your time…

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How many magic tricks do I need to learn? Patrick asked me: ‘How many magic tricks should I learn? For some time now I have been learning a lot of new magic tricks, mainly because I like the trick. Just lately, I feel like I have been learning too much. I know how to do a lot of different tricks, but in reality I don’t know how to perform them really well. How many do you perform really well, whether at a gig or just socially to family and friends, and how many is the right amount you should perform? I have a list of tricks I would like to do set out in “sets” because one day I would like to do magic for a living. These are the sets: Group 1:  – Bag 4 Life  – Copper Silver Transpo (Pat Page Coin Magic)  – Forced Card Mind Read/Business Sandwich (JD4) Group 2:  – Two In The Hand (Spongeballs/Coins)  – Card Change  – Card To Mouth Group 3:  – Off The Cuff  – Coin Through Handkerchief  – Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere (Goshman) Group 4:  – Linking Bands 

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– Ace Shake  – Vital Statistics I also have a list of impromptu tricks I like and would like to show people separate from the sets: – Magnetic Coins (Bamboozlers 1) – Gemini Twins – Smiling Queen – Linking Paper Clips And Band. – Ring Thing – Napkin Rose – Chicken Impression – Static-charge Match. (Scamschool:Smoke) – 242 Poker Deal (Talk About Tricks DVD) Then there is a list of bar bets/betchas I like: – Rubber Band Release (M. Wilson) – The Next Card I Turn Over – Bent Match Toss – Impossible Knot Do As I Do (rope) – Fingers, Nose Do As I Do – Arm Twist Do As I Do – Cork Penetration – Tricky 5’s (Bar Bets DVD) – Heist 3 (Scamschool: Fire) Is this too many to know? I am really struggling with this as I don’t like to leave any of these tricks out. I don’t know if that’s normal, but since I have put effort into learning the trick it’s hard for me to stop wanting to keep any of these tricks. What are your thoughts on this?’

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I replied: It’s good that you have put in this work to plan out both your learning and performing material. You raise a lot of issues:

• • • • • •

How many tricks should I learn? How many tricks should I perform? Knowing a lot of magic tricks, but not performing them well Leaving magic tricks out Maintaining working material Putting effort into learning tricks

Let’s work through some of these:

Magic research So many magicians don’t do this. Taking the time to look beyond the desire to learn more and more magic tricks is a vital stage to developing a professional approach to your magic. There’s nothing wrong with continuing to learn as much as you can about magic. The more you find out, the more little bits and bobs can piece together to give you new ideas and presentations for your magic. Learning new magic is RESEARCH.

Research is not magic practice A pitfall that many magicians can fall into is thinking that research is practice. Studying new magic tricks and keeping up-to-date with the latest developments in the field is important, but it should only take up a proportion of your time. The key is to split your ‘magic time’ into three parts: Stage 1) Research 50


Study and read magic books, watch magicians perform, talk on magic forums, and attend conventions. Share ideas and learn new magic secrets. There is no need ever to stop doing this; it’s all part of the fun of magic, and will keep you fresh and at the cutting edge of what’s possible. However, don’t stop there! Use the research section of your time to find out the types of magic and the specific tricks you want to take with you to the next stage. It’s at this point that you are spot on to make a list like the one above. Watch out for this: Spending all your free time searching for new tricks, chatting about magic, and watching magicians perform. The aim of research is to find the small selection of magic that you will master. Stage 2) Practice Through research, you build a feel for the magic tricks that would suit you, fit your style, and work well together. Slowly building up a list of magic that you will master and perform. As you acquire tricks that you know suit you, you begin to work on them through consistent structured practice. There is only so much time in each day, so the research you have done should have narrowed down the tricks that make it to this stage. Watch out for this: Resist the temptation to spend time practising every magic trick or move you discover, jumping from trick to trick without mastering any. Without a plan or set goals you will just spend years learning bits and bobs without building up a set of core tricks that are performance ready. Stage 3) Performance The whole point of magic is for it to be seen by an audience. Your research time and structured practice should result in you having a range of magic tricks that are performance ready. A few at first, but slowly growing as you continue to research, select, and practise tricks to build your working sets. Performance is the end goal, but it is also a form of research and practise. Through performance we learn new 51


aspects of presentation and technique, we reinforce our practice and maintain our skills. Watch out for this: Without structured research your performance will be limited because you need to discover the perfect tricks to build an entertaining act. Without practice, your performance will be terrible as you will not have the skills to entertain your audience. Performance is the last stage in the process because it is the product of the earlier stages. Resist the urge to perform a magic trick before you have taken it through the first two stages fully.

Why these stages stop magic problems Here at the magic shop, we get questions from magicians every day. Almost every one of these magic problems seem to stem from the magician either getting stuck or fixated in one of the stages for too long, or as a result of the magician skipping a stage. • The magician skips the magic practice stage and rushes into performing too quickly • The magician skips the research stage and just buys and performs the latest greatest releases with no constant theme or direction • The magician skips the research stage and reinvents a poor version of an established method • The magician skips the practice stage and fails to master the mechanics of a technique • etc. etc.

Patrick’s problem Patrick, you have built a plan of the material you want to perform, which is the goal of the research stage. Now you can focus your practice time on the material in that list. That will help you to move forward. It’s fine to continue the research as well, but only as a small

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proportion of your time. The bulk of your time should now be spent drilling, practising and rehearsing the material on your list. It’s fine to learn more tricks, just don’t spend ‘practice time’ on them unless you decide that your core list needs to be changed by adding the new trick or using it to replace a trick from the list that is not working for you.   Moving forward Your list is the core of your work as you move forward from this point. This is my suggested plan for moving forward from this point, and the way I apply structure to how I develop my working material: 1) You practice the material, which keeps it developing and your skills sharp; 2)You perform the material, which keeps it fresh and also helps you research how it can be improved or tweaked; 3) You continue to learn new magic tricks as research only, to see how they could change or adapt your list.   How many magic tricks should be on the list? It depends. Your list looks fine, and the quantity seems great. You have several sets to rotate, with a range of additional tricks that you can add when needed. The size of your list depends on how much practice or performance time you can give it. Magic tricks are like plants. Plants need to be watered, or they wither and die. If you don’t often perform, your list will need to be smaller because you won't be able to keep it ‘watered’ with performance. A small list of tricks often performed, is far better than a large list of tricks that are half forgotten. Size doesn’t matter; it’s how often you get to use it that counts.

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Why most people enjoy watching magic, but only a few go on to become magicians  

I think this has a lot to do with the four stages of learning required to become a magician. Let’s look at this process through the Conscious Competence Ladder developed by Noel Burch in the 1970s. It has been attributed to Abraham Maslow, although it doesn't appear in his major works.

1) Unconscious incompetence

Remember what it was like before you became interested in magic. Maybe you were just like the majority of people that watch magic on TV? You enjoyed seeing the show, being entertained, and fooled by a magician. Have you ever watched a Cirque du Soleil show? It’s a wonderful experience, seeing the incredible feats that the acrobats achieve. Most people love to watch it, but don’t have any desire to understand the practice process that the acrobats go through, or the construction and specifications of the springs, trampolines and wires that they use to perform their show. That’s how the vast majority of people view magic. They don’t really want to understand how the magic tricks are done.   2) Conscious incompetence Because you are reading this blog, I assume that you are a bit different from the people I have described above. You wanted more from the magic tricks and magicians you watched. At first you didn’t have any technical knowledge of how any magic tricks were performed, but the desire to explore and understand the secret of magic was inside you.  54


  This thirst for more information often leads people to seek out the skills they know they don’t yet possess. You discovered that you have a drive to investigate and learn magic. At this stage, most people will spend a great deal of time theorising about how magic tricks are done. They conduct searches online like ‘How did David Blaine push a needle through his arm?’ or ‘How did Dynamo put a phone inside a bottle?’. They have the desire to learn magic, but lack enough knowledge to perform it themselves.   

Maybe you stumbled onto a magic shop website or discovered an introductory book on magic in your local book shop? Perhaps you met someone who was already performing magic, and he or she showed you a few beginners tricks? The main difference is that you became aware that there were skills that you could learn yourself. You understood that YOU could also do the magic that you saw other magicians perform. You began the process of becoming a magician.

3) Conscious competence I’m going to take a guess and say that you are now at this stage in the process of becoming a magician. You’re in good company as most people remain at this stage their whole lives. The majority of magicians know a great deal about magic, yet they remain in a state of conscious competence. They consume as much information about magic as they can. They learn basic card magic technique, and build up a range of self-working magic tricks and basic sleight of hand that they practice on a regular basis. However, they never really feel that they have mastered any of them to the point that they are automatic.   

Do you find that performing a magic trick requires all your concentration and effort? Although you can perform quite well whilst practising alone, do you tend to freeze when it comes to performing to other people? Do the mechanics of your magic tricks take up all your attention and effort? 55


If you find yourself identifying with these questions, I have some good news for you. You are right on the verge of the final stage of becoming a magician. You have the knowledge and technique, but need the experience and practice to make the mechanics fully automatic. To push past this, you simply need to narrow down your material, focus on a small range of techniques and tricks, so that you can practice them over and over again. Your magic practice should be structured, consistent, and involve both solitary repetition and live performance practice. The aim is to reach total familiarity with the mechanics so that you can move beyond conscious awareness of mechanical process. You can’t do this if you are constantly jumping from one new magic trick to the next. You have to commit to a limited amount of material that you can repeat over and over until it’s mastered.   4) Unconscious competence Most professional magicians have a small set of magic tricks that they call their ‘working material’. This has been practised and repeated to the extent that it has become second nature. The magician is so familiar with the mechanics that they can be performed whilst executing another task, such as delivering a patter line, or reacting to a spectator’s comments. This is the ultimate goal of a magician’s magic practice. How many magic tricks do you know that have been mastered to this extent? Perhaps none? Maybe just a handful? The ultimate goal in magic practice is to build up a range of magic tricks that you have unconscious competence over. The best way to do this is one trick at a time. Why not choose just one of your favourite magic tricks, and make the commitment to focus all your attention on it until it reaches this stage of mastery? I guarantee that you will find this transforms both your magic and your performance skills beyond anything you ever dreamed possible.

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Audiences are smarter than you think  I’m sure that this doesn’t apply to you directly, but it’s an observation that I sometimes see amongst magicians. As people start to learn magic and develop their skills, they can develop a strange view about what the public understands about magic, and what will fool them.

The more magicians study magic, the more they grow to think that the public is stupid.  Have you ever heard a magician say: “Nobody ever catches me when I do this...” “Your spectators will not notice this...”

Become aware of these sayings, and you will start to hear them more and more as you talk to magicians. You will also start to see them mentioned in magic trick instructions (usually during a weak point in a magic trick’s method). I have no idea why this happens, it could just be human nature. As magicians gain experience and knowledge, it’s easy for them to develop a feeling of self-importance, and an overly-relaxed attitude about the observational skills of other people. One of the biggest pitfalls to becoming a successful magician is fooling yourself that your audiences don’t have the intelligence or attention to detail to spot parts of the mechanics used in magic tricks. The temptation is to ignore the small details. It’s as if magicians feel that they have superhuman perception that ‘normal people’ don't have. Trust me, if you can spot the discrepancy or error in a magic trick that 57


you have recorded in performance and watched back, some of your spectators will also notice it. They may not point it out, or they may become distracted by the flow of the trick and move on, but they HAVE noticed it. On the whole, people are very clever. A group can have intelligence that is greater than the individuals that make up that group. Assume your audience is highly-educated, clever and very hard to fool. Find the weak points in the method of every magic trick you perform, and work on changing them to remove the faults. It doesn’t matter how small, or hard to spot, a fault in a magic trick may be. If there are clues to the secret of a magic trick, someone WILL spot them eventually and call you out. Your goal is to tweak each magic trick to reduce that chance as much as possible. Anything less than that is taking a short-cut and compromising your potential to perform the trick as best as you possibly can.

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Keeping your magic fresh  A few months ago, I updated my Macbook to the latest model. I started it up, went through the welcome set-up and was confronted by a brand new, factory default desktop that was full of possibilities. There was no clutter, no random documents that I had forgotten about and no bloatware apps hanging around. Everything was fast, new and tidy. It felt like a fresh start, full of the productivity of possibilities. Now, it’s a few months on, and things have changed. My documents folder is stuffed full of half-written blog posts. There are stacks of apps that I probably will never use. The laptop has lost it’s new and shiny glow, becoming just my office for coffee-shop workdays. Just like getting a new computer, buying a new car, or moving house. That feeling of starting again and staying fresh never lasts. We get used to things very quickly, and the excitement that ‘new’ gives us is fleeting. The same thing happens with magic. Each new magic trick feels like a new world of possibility. It’s the focus of all your attention, and you can’t wait to perform it as much as possible. However, over the process of practice, rehearsal and performance things change. Familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt. It usually just produces boredom. Boredom leads to cutting corners, and pulling back the energy that you communicated to your audience when you performed the magic trick originally. How can we stop this from happening?

Things that have to stay the same still change Take a look at one of the favourite magic tricks you have purchased. Chances are you are performing it in a similar manner to the way it was performed in the instructional DVD that came with the props, or

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how the magician who published it, tends to perform it. It’s the established routine that most magicians use. However, over time you may have added your own expression to the presentation. Your own one-liners, timing, back-story and moves. Adaptations sometimes happen slowly as fellow magicians suggest changes or additions, or spectators show you the ‘impact moments’ in performance, when an adjustment would improve their reactions. The performance changes slowly over time. There’s a name for this:

Performance drift Have you ever noticed how people that sell newspapers on the streets have strange ways of shouting out the name of the newspaper? Or how market stall owners shout out about their wares in a garbled way. It’s an example of performance drift taken to the extreme. They have said the sentence so many times that it has started to degrade, and they don’t notice it themselves. In just the same way, our own performance and presentation of a magic trick degrades. It’s just part of nature. Familiarity and repetition slowly introduce tiny errors or short-cuts in our presentation and patter. It’s a very slow process, so often goes unnoticed because we run on autopilot and have become bored with the magic trick.

Reset the Matrix Every now and then, take time to go back to the beginning and start again with the magic tricks you perform. Strip away all the experience that you have acquired and look at the magic trick with the fresh eyes of a magic beginner. Identify all the changes that you have introduced through performance and assess each one on its own merits. A great way to do this is to keep a video diary of your performance. Over time, you can watch an 60


early performance and a recent one and see what has become stronger, and what has suffered from performance drift. Strip away all the baggage that has been added to your presentation and reset the magic trick to it’s core moves. Once you have stripped away your additions, add only the strongest changes and adaptations to create a fresh routine that is the best it can be. If you try this out, I know you will be surprised by how much it changes your presentation for the better. You may love each and every magic trick that you have built up to be of a performance standard, but part of the process of staying fresh as a magician is to see past the love you have for a favourite magic trick, and strip away everything you have build up. Once you do that, you can recreate it again, using just the best parts. This process will allow your magic to evolve over time without the atrophy that time applies. ‘Falling out of love is very enlightening. For a short while, you see the world with new eyes.’ – Iris Murdoch

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Setting goals There is a common reason that many beginners lose interest in practising to become a magician. They become disappointed in their progress, which makes them feel like a failure. Through the tuition that my team provides at the magic shop, I noticed that the best way to push magicians past the ‘quitting point’, is to teach them about setting practice goals for their magic. First, I want to explain why setting a goal is so important to your development as a magician. Let’s start with a question:

Do you do it? Do you set yourself defined goals for your development as a magician? Most people don’t plan the future, preferring to work on their existing material, and building up their magic knowledge over time in a random, undirected fashion. Most magicians start training with a distant, undefined aim of becoming a skilled magician some time in the future. That’s fine if you simply want to dabble at magic training, but if you want to get the most out of your practice time, then setting a goal can be a very powerful aid to your development. A goal gives you an aim, and a direction of focus. It is an expression of your WILL to make something you want really happen. Goals provide direction. Without choosing a goal, you run the risk of never setting your sights on what you actually want from your magic practice. A goal is a conscious decision to make something YOU want happen. Without goals, it’s easy to work hard yet end up making nothing happen at all. Lack of direction may lead you to be forever jumping from one unfinished magic trick to the next, endlessly failing to commit to true mastery of any magic skills until all you experience

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is a sense of disappointment, failure, and loss of interest in the practice. The good news is that it is easy to avoid this situation. To avoid feeling like you are not making the progress you deserve, let’s look at some easy steps for setting – and most importantly achieving – your goals as a magician.

Just little steps at first I highly recommend that you start off with a small goal. Choosing something too big can make it seem impossible and unrealistic. Feeling that you have set an impossible goal for yourself can lead to you giving up way before you reach it. Even a journey of a thousand miles starts with just a single step. I know it’s tempting to say something like “I’m going to master sleight of hand with cards!” Just remember that a card expert is made one trick at a time. Instead, why not start with a smaller goal, like mastering the Elmsley Count, or building a working Three Shells And A Pea routine, and then add to it once you have achieved it?

Don’t overcomplicate the issue Be careful you don’t confuse the issue by only looking at the distant future. There are actually two main kinds of goals: short-term and long-term. Long-term goals are the bigger picture. It may be something that you want to achieve in a few years time. Long-term goals can often be broken down into a series of short-term goals that eventually complete the long-term goal. The secret of success is to define a longterm goal, then break it into a series of short-term goals that will lead you to the long-term win. That way, you don’t overcomplicate the path to achieving what you want. For example, a long-term goal might be: master sleight of hand with playing cards. That’s a very 63


complex goal as it has so many parts needed to achieve it. Keep your magic practice simple, and take things in stages: “My first goal is to master a convincing double lift technique”. As soon as that goal has been reached, move on to the next short-term goal: “I will learn to classic palm playing cards”. Choose a long-term goal, and write it on a piece of paper. Now start listing the short-term goals that are needed to complete the long-term goal.

Be realistic Pay attention to your own strengths as a magician, and face your limitations at the same time. If you are a very serious person, a longterm goal of becoming a comedy magician may not be realistic. You may find it much easier to be successful as a serious mentalist or cardcheating expert. It’s great to dream, but be realistic in the dreams that you decide to put into practice. Understanding your own natural abilities and finding goals that compliment them is an important part of the development process.

Don’t be a dog that chases parked cars Are you picking goals based upon what you want, or what other people think you should do? Make sure that the goal you decide to work towards is really what you want to make happen. I studied to become a Clinical Psychologist. Everyone told me I would be great at it. I went to university and began working towards that goal. It was only after several years training that I came to realise that it wasn’t MY choice of the future I wanted. I loved magic, and wanted that to be my life. I made the commitment to find work as a magician and build a magic business. By selecting my dreams – and not those of my friends and family – I achieved that goal, and feel so lucky to wake up each day to do something I love.

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Remind yourself regularly Setting a goal is just the beginning. It’s easy to spend an evening making lists of your short-term goals, then putting that list away forever. Once you have defined and set a goal, make sure that you find ways to remind yourself regularly about it. Carry a list of your shortterm goals in your wallet or bag, make it your screen saver, the home screen of your smartphone, even write it on your bedroom wall! Make sure you are reminded of your goal every single day. Some magicians write their goals on a playing card and keep that in their pocket wherever they go. Each evening and morning when they unload their pockets, they find the playing card and get reminded of their goals.

Keep the list moving Short-term goals often come together to form a long-term goal. Make a list of your goals, and group them together. Break your long-term goals into achievable short-term goals and place them in an order that you can work on them to complete the larger objective. The long-term goal may be to learn the Cups And Balls to a performance standard. The short-term goals would be the individual steps needed to make that happen, including buying a Cups And Balls set, mastering loading and stealing, mastering the misdirection, perfecting an interesting presentation, developing the timing etc. etc.

Make it happen when it needs to do so It doesn’t matter how many goals you set, where you write them down, or how often you think about them. Unless you pick ONE short-term goal and start working on it, it’s all for nothing. Look at your list of goals and decide which is the most important to you. 65


Remember that the longer a goal stays un-actioned on your list, the more time it will take to achieve it. Setting a goal is really about setting a deadline. Without a time limit, there is no motivation to work on the steps needed to achieve your goal.

Get help by asking the right questions Nobody can do everything themselves. Find help from people that can move you closer to your goals. By defining each step as a goal, it becomes easy to know exactly which questions to get answered, or what form of help you need. I often get asked “Which magic trick should I learn next?” That question is not very useful because it has no goal attached to it. Asking “I want to be known as a mind-reader, which trick should I work on next?” allows me to understand the goal behind the question, and the advice I give is much more valuable because it has a direction towards the goal behind it.

One year from now I maintain that taking the time to sit down and list your goals is one of the most positive steps you can make to becoming a successful magician. It applies to all aspects of magic, from learning new tricks, right through to marketing your services. As you put this into practice, and see the result is having on your focus, and the speed of your progress, you will never look back!

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Staying motivated Magic tricks can be hard work. The process of studying, practising and performing magic tricks can be a lot to take on. More often than not, it can result in hitting a brick wall and losing the motivation to carry on and persist. Here's some advice from professional magician and magic creator Ben Williams: If it is no longer enjoyable then why continue the process of learning, practising and then performing your magic tricks?  

There are a few reasons why you may feel like this and we can identify these reasons and what to do to overcome them so that you can once again happily go about performing your magic tricks to your family and friends.   

Sean asked me: ‘I’ve been doing magic tricks since I was seven, but I feel as if I’m not going anywhere. I have put too much money and devotion into learning my magic tricks and I was wondering if you could recommend anything to help me get better?’   It may feel as if you have hit a bit of a rut with your magic tricks, we have a few suggestions to help get yourself out of that rut and keep it fresh:   1) Remember Firstly, try to remember what made you begin learning magic tricks in the first place. Remind yourself of the feeling of amazement and excitement when you first saw a magic trick that seemed impossible. Hold onto this feeling and use it as motivation, it is a positive feeling that can help re-vitalise your hunger for this art form. Maybe dig out some old DVDs or video clips of some magic tricks that once inspired

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you and re-watch them, try to capture that spark that was once ignited. Change your emotions when you think of magic tricks to that of excitement and ambition, as opposed to frustration and helplessness. This is stage one – reclaiming your passion.   2) Feel Next you may find that the magic tricks you are performing don’t feel right or suit your style. This can result in nervous and uncomfortable performances. This is a common issue, but it is important that, once you have identified that you are experiencing this issue, you address it. Ask yourself honestly what magic tricks you would like to perform then you can focus your attention on that area of study. However, it is also important to be realistic with your goals and to make sure your goals are achievable. There is no point trying to attempt advanced gambling sleights if you have not learned the basics first. If you are focused and patient, then results will come. Look at your own strengths and weaknesses, what makes you comfortable and what makes you uncomfortable. When you are honest with yourself about this, you will be able to make positive changes and improvements to technique and confidence will come. This is stage two – being honest with yourself in order to set achievable goals.   3) Play Once you have re-invigorated your passion for your magic tricks and identified what magic tricks you want to study, it is time to put this into practice. You should feel sparky, willing to persist and have a more positive overall mind set towards your magic tricks, so now is the time to look at your practice regime. If you have a practice routine that is fun and enjoyable for your magic tricks, it can make a world of difference. If you find that you are struggling with a certain magic trick or sleight then it is important to return to the book or DVD where you originally learned it. Re-watch the tutorial to see if there are any obvious 68


mistakes you are perpetuating, sometimes all it takes is a finger tip to be in the wrong place and this can make a certain move or magic trick impossible. If you are sure you are performing the sleights correctly then it is just a matter of practice. Your practice sessions do not have to be long and laboured, in fact they should be the opposite, quick bursts of a few minutes practice regularly. Do two to five minutes of practice in the morning and a couple of times throughout the evening rather than extended periods of practice. If you have a deck of cards by your bed, near the TV, in the kitchen, wherever you may find yourself regularly, then whenever you have a moment of downtime you can pick up the deck and do a quick two-minute practice run. This will help to keep your practice sessions vibrant and will ultimately be better for learning and remembering the motor skills involved in performing your magic tricks. This is stage three – keeping your practice sessions fresh.   

If you follow these three steps, then you should be well on your way out of the rut you are experiencing! All that is left to do is to find a willing spectator and perform! Also remember, spending loads of money on magic will not automatically make you a good magician. It is great to have knowledge, but the great magician inside of you needs focus and drive to flourish. Being focused and driven is easy when you have fun and enjoy what you are doing.

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The practice plateau As magicians, we need to commit to a routine of magic practice, both to develop new material, and also to stay sharp and fresh with our working acts. However, sometimes we can be practising as hard as ever but seem to be treading water and making no progress.

It’s in your head Sometimes we can create our own problems within a magic trick, or with part of the practice. These ‘problems’ may be tiny errors, or adjustments that we become completely focused on, and in our minds they become huge road blocks. We may obsess over the timing of a sleight, or the exact placement of an object on our close-up mats. These fixations can become all-consuming and much of our practice time becomes devoted to working on them, to the detriment of the rest of the routine. It’s important to examine your whole practice program, making sure that you don’t fixate on aspects that may not be a good use of your time. To help prevent this, we recommend that you drill the WHOLE routine repeatedly, rather than working on single moves one at a time. The aim is to develop the complete routine together as a single performance, rather than as modules that combine to create the magic trick.

Unreal practice When you have a boring or repetitive task to do, everything becomes a distraction. It’s easy to spot distractions like TV, music, Facebook etc., but those are not the most dangerous because they are so noticeable.

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The most dangerous distractions are those that feel like real work! You may be devoting many hours each day to your magic, but how are you really spending the time? Watching magic DVDs, reading magic magazines, sorting out and cataloguing your magic props is not practising.

Research on the internet is not practising.  Reading this book is not practising. 

Make sure that you set aside a dedicated practice time, planned out in advance. This practice time should be work on a specific magic trick, with no other distractions. By doing this, you will find that you need to spend far less time on your magic as the work is applied where it really counts.

Getting help from a magic teacher Just about every sporting professional makes use of a coach. Coaching isn’t a luxury, or just a way to motivate the student to practice. Coaching allows a third-party, who is detached from the learning process, to examine the whole practice program from an emotional distance. The coach cuts through all the distractions and imaginary problems that can suck up practice time. By using a third party to oversee your magic practice, you stay on track over time and work towards ONE goal, avoiding distractions. If you find yourself making no progress in your magic practice, it may help to book a single session of personal magic tuition. This session isn’t to learn more magic tricks (you probably already know enough). The goal of the coaching session is to look at your current progress, 71


oversee your practice program and identify problems that you may not notice yourself as you are too close to the process. Find a magic coach that you can trust to give you professional tuition. Ask them to watch your current material and give you HONEST feedback. If you can’t afford a professional magic coach, you can ask a trusted friend or your partner to help you stay focused on the practice program you set yourself. The important thing is that you have someone independent to keep you on track.

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Practising coin magic   My main passion in magic is work with coins, so I’ve included this short chapter to cover some tips to help speed up your coin practice work. It’s a sad fact that so many magic beginners are put off from trying to learn coin magic. They find the learning curve at the beginning far too hard. Most magic coin tricks that don’t rely on gimmicked coins force you to face up to a big scary monster called ‘sleight of hand’. With so many magic tricks available that have special devices (called gimmicks), it’s never been easier to bury your head in the sand and pretend that sleight of hand doesn’t exist. What’s wrong with that? Well, it means you have to be a consumer of other people’s magic. Mastering at least some of those core moves is an incredibly valuable way to use your practice time. Being able to perform a few killer tricks, just with the coins in your pocket means: • Freedom from being dependent on expensive props and gimmicks; • You can perform at a moments notice, wherever you are; • The ability to borrow objects (the coins) from a spectator and create magic with them; • You gain a set of utility moves that allow you to create your own unique routines; • You gain balance within your act. Here are a few quick tips that will help you speed up the learning process: Choose the right coins

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If you are in the UK, then a good coin to start with is the UK 2p coin. It is easy to palm. The small and sharply-defined edge makes it easy to grip. For a larger coin, go for the UK £2 coin as it has a good size and edge. The downside with the £2 coin is its thickness and weight, which can slow down progress. The 2 Euro coin is also a good choice, and for magicians in the US, the half-dollar is the most popular choice.

Commit to practice everywhere One of the best features of coin magic is that it can be performed just about anywhere. In fact, you can practice moving a coin in and out of a range of palms and concealments, without even having to take your hand out of your jacket or coat pocket.

Start right away with the Classic Palm It’s one of the hardest to master, but it’s also the king of all coin moves. The sooner you start work on the Classic Palm the better.

Palm – Pass – Vanish The ideal first set of sleights to focus on would be one from each of the categories of coin magic. We suggest choosing the Classic Palm, then a good pass, such as the Shuttle Pass, and finally a decent vanish like the Retention Of Vision Vanish. By choosing just one move from each of these categories of sleights, you work on just three sleights at a time. Because each is from a different category of sleights, you can combine them together to create a number of full routines.

Transfers and transitions

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It’s also important to work on how you get into and out of each move. Once a coin has been vanished, you will want to move it over to another concealment, and this transfer needs to be undetectable. In the example of the Retention Of Vision Vanish, the coin will be in a specific position after the vanish has taken place. Practice how you go into Classic Palm from that position.

Use a cyclical One Coin Routine for practice There are several cyclical One Coin Routines in print that use the core moves and run through a series of productions and vanishes. David Roth teaches some excellent one coin work in his books and DVDs. Once you have a few moves, choose a routine that you can drill, and practice it every day. The routine repeats endlessly, so there is no sense of a start or ending. These routines tend to cause people to practice much more as there is an automatic flow into running through it ‘just one more time’.

Slow motion as you go through the moves Fast is not deceptive in sleight of hand. It’s confusing and suspicious. In practice, it’s also the quickest way to make very little progress. Your goal is to teach your fingers the movements and touch needed for each move. The slower you go, when running through the moves, the more you can check that each movement is perfect. Don’t make any deliberate effort to speed up. Speed will happen over time on its own.

When to use a mirror and when not to Mirror work in coin magic IS needed to check that your angles are correct and that a placement is exactly where it should be. However, once you have that move perfected in front of a mirror, you will need 75


to start practising without one. There is a danger that you will become dependent on the visual feedback the mirror gives you, and will not have confidence that a sleight looked correct unless you are able to see the move happen yourself. Make sure you practice in front of a mirror at first. Once you have the placement and angles, it’s time to practice it ‘blind’.

Don't hide the action Most coin work requires you to hold a coin at the fingertips and manipulate it. A common mistake that beginners face, is that they tend to put too many fingers in the way. The fingers that are not holding the coin could hide all the actions. This might look fine from their viewpoint (behind the trick), but for the spectators, it’s confusing and suspicious. Any unused fingers need to be out the way of the action. If your hands are palm down, whenever possible, the palms should be visible to show there is nothing hiding in your hands. Your fingers should be just a little apart. A hand that looks as if it could conceal something is often thought to BE concealing something, even though you may know it’s totally innocent.

Watch your eyes are not giving it away It’s so hard to stop the truth from showing in your eyes. Especially if, you are used to only practising in front of a mirror. Many beginners find that they half-close their eyes when performing a sleight. It’s almost as if they don’t want to see that the move has happened. As though if they can’t see it, the spectators won’t be able to see it either. Moving away from mirror practice to rehearsal will help remove this tendency.

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Words to avoid I want to talk to you about language. The words you use when you perform your magic tricks and how you can improve them to get a better reaction from your audience. It’s specifically about using the wrong words.

What are the wrong words? Every word that you use, when you perform a magic trick, counts. It sets the stage for the magic, defines your character, moves the action forward and ensures the spectator understands what should happen, and what did actually happen. It also signals to the spectator, how they should react to the trick. Any words that don’t perform these actions are clutter and should be removed from your script as much as possible.

Magicians’ instructions As magicians, we are so used to reading about magic tricks, going through the instructions and talking with other magicians, that we forget our spectators are not the same. They aren’t immersed in the language of magic. Approach a spectator, pull out your Bicycle playing cards and tell them: “Say ‘stop’ as I riffle through the deck.” What on earth is a ‘riffle’? The spectator never uses that word, and probably has no inclination to do so. Swap it for something like this: “As I go through the playing cards, say ‘stop’ at any time.” That’s a much better line. It doesn’t assume any previous knowledge of magic from the audience. 77


Asking a spectator to: “Cut the top half of the deck, please.” Again, what exactly is a ‘cut’ and what’s the ‘top half of the deck’? It’s clear to us as magicians, but these assumptions of prior knowledge in your patter cause the spectator to pause for just a moment, to check internally that they understand what you are asking of them. Simplifying the language you use in your instructions will improve the pace and flow of your magic and the clarity of the trick for the spectator.

Call a spade a spade As much as possible, check that you are not referring to items by their magic names. Let’s say the magician is about to perform some card tricks. He asks the spectator to sign a card and wrap the playing cards up in a silk: “Please pick up the Sharpie, sign the front of the deck and then wrap it up in the silk.” For just a second, these questions jump into the spectators mind: 1) What’s a ‘Sharpie’? – Oh, he meant the pen! 2) ‘Sign’? – He wants me to write on the playing card? 3) ‘Front of the deck’? – Is that the top card? But where on the card? 4) What is a ‘Silk’? – Does he mean that piece of cloth on the table?   The spectator now has four questions to process, and confusion can jump in at any step.

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Introducing a magic trick “OK, here’s a bit of magic for you.” Using the word ‘bit’, makes the trick sound like something less that awesome. It’s dismissive and almost apologetic. Instead, say something like: “Here’s something very strange for you.” or: “Let me show you something I think you will really like.”

Another common mistake is to use the word effect. “Let me show you this magic effect.” Nobody, other than magicians, calls magic tricks ‘effects’. Save that, for when you are talking to other magicians. Instead, refer to the trick as ‘magic’ or ‘a magic trick’.

Patronising “Please, sign your name here. Brilliant!” “Please take a card, great job!” Brilliant, Fantastic, Amazing, Great! It’s so tempting to add this as some kind of little reward for the spectator after every action they perform. “You put the lid back on the pen! AWESOME!!!” This is simply clutter and adds nothing to the presentation. Unless you are specifically trying to be funny, this gives a message to the spectator that you thought he or she was incapable of performing 79


these simple tasks. Instead, just say ‘Thanks’ and move on with the trick. It’s likely that you may now notice that you use these words when performing. Filming your magic performances can help you identify these habits, so you can work to remove them.

Redundant sentences and clichés We all do it. We all use the same stock lines, when talking to spectators. After all, we grew up watching magic and learning the way a magician acts. However, taking a moment to study what you say, and choosing alternatives to these common phrases, will dramatically change how you are perceived by your audience. Here, are some of the most popular clichés that should be avoided: “And now, for my next trick...” Just get on with it. When you end a trick and start another, it’s obvious to everyone. There is no need to tell everyone that you are starting a new trick. “And with luck...” Telling a spectator that the trick requires luck to end correctly, is a huge fat signal that you are not confident with your technique. The trick works because of magic, not luck. “Are you sure?” This is common. You ask them to pick a card then ask them if they want to change their mind. Why? As a magician, you want to let them know that they could have picked ANY card. But they already know that, as you asked them to do just that, a moment ago. Just accept their first decision and move on with the trick. Adding doubt to the spectator’s mind that they picked the right card is a distraction from the card trick. Unless your card tricks are specifically about the nature of free will or influence, making the spectator question each of their choices serves no real purpose and adds nothing but fluff.

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“So, now I am going to...” Don’t introduce each of your actions. Just do them. The spectators don’t need a running commentary about your future actions. They are there in front of you to experience the trick for themselves. “Is that fair?” By asking a spectator to judge what should be a simply innocent action, you create doubt and a challenge mentality. The spectator is invited to think:  • Why wouldn’t the action be fair? • Did I just miss something sneaky? • Should I care at all?  

These common mistakes that magicians make often just spring from assuming the spectator has prior knowledge of magic. That’s often fine if you perform mainly to other magicians, but even magicians will appreciate good language. In fact, they will probably notice it just as much, as they compare your presentation to their own.

It’s very hard to remove these negative words from your presentation if you don’t script your magic. Watch some performances of magicians who favour the ‘ad-lib’, ‘jazz’ style of magic and you will often find their patter is full of these lines. We highly recommend that you start creating a script for each of your tricks. As you become aware of mistakes like these you can remove them, scripting your magic down to only what is essential for the trick to work. Once you have this habit, you will find that you can ad-lib in a more powerful and meaningful way. Do this:

 

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A better way to practice By Noa Kageyama, Ph.D.   

While it may be true that there are no short-cuts to anywhere worth going, there certainly are ways of needlessly prolonging the journey. Magicians often waste lots of time because nobody ever taught them the most effective and efficient way to practise their magic. Whether it’s learning how to code, improving your writing skills, or learning card tricks, practising the right way can mean the difference between good and great.   

You have probably heard the old joke about the tourist who asks a cab driver how to get to Carnegie Hall, only to be told: “Practise, practise, practise!”   

My first experience of practice was when I starting to play the violin at age two, and for as long as I can remember, there was one question which haunted me every day.   

Am I practising enough?   What do performers say?   

I scoured books and interviews with great artists, looking for a consensus on practice time that would ease my conscience. I read an interview with Rubinstein, in which he stated that nobody should have to practise more than four hours a day. He explained that if you needed that much time, you probably weren’t doing it right.   

And then there was violinist Nathan Milstein who once asked his teacher Leopold Auer how many hours a day he should be practising. Auer responded by saying “Practise with your fingers and you need all day. Practise with your mind and you will do as much in one and a half hours.”  82


  Even Heifetz indicated that he never believed in practising too much, and that excessive practice is “just as bad as practising too little!”. He claimed that he practised no more than three hours per day on average, and that he didn’t practise at all on Sundays.   

It seemed that four hours should be enough. So I breathed easy for a bit. And then I learned about the work of Dr. K. Anders Ericsson.      What do psychologists say?   

When it comes to understanding expertise and expert performance, psychologist Dr. Ericsson is perhaps the world’s leading authority. His scientific research is the basis for the “10,000-hour rule” which suggests that it requires at least ten years and/or 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to achieve an expert level of performance in any given domain.   

That’s a pretty big number. So large, that at first I missed the most important factor in the equation.   

Deliberate practice.   

Meaning, that there is a specific type of practice that facilitates the attainment of an elite level of performance. And then there’s the other kind of practice that most of us are more familiar with.   

Mindless practice.   

Have you ever observed a magician (or athlete, actor, trial attorney) engage in practice? You’ll notice that most practice resembles one of the following distinct patterns.   

1) Broken record method: This is where we simply repeat the same thing over and over. Same tennis serve. Same set of cuts and shuffles. 83


Same powerpoint presentation. From a distance it might look like practice, but much of it is simply mindless repetition.   

2) Autopilot method: This is where we activate our autopilot system and coast. Recite our sales pitch three times. Play a round of golf. Run through a complete magic routine from start to finish.   

3) Hybrid method: Then there’s the combined approach. Going through a routine until you hit something you don’t like, at which point you stop, repeat the moves over and over until it starts to look better, and then resume the routine until you find the next thing you don’t like, at which point you repeat the whole process over again.      Three problems   

Unfortunately, there are three problems with practising this way.   

1) It’s a waste of time: Why? For one, very little productive learning takes place when we practise this way. This is why you can “practise” something for hours, days, or weeks, and still not improve all that much. Even worse, you are actually digging yourself a hole, because this model of practising strengthens undesirable habits and errors, increasing the likelihood of more consistently inconsistent performances.   

This also makes it more difficult to clean up these bad habits as time goes on – so you are adding to the amount of future practice time you will need in order to eliminate these undesirable tendencies. To quote a professor I once worked with: “Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.”   

2) It makes you less confident: In addition, practising mindlessly lowers your confidence, as a part of you realizes you don’t really know how to produce the results you are looking for. Even if you have a fairly high success rate in the most difficult moves, there’s a 84


sense of uncertainty deep down that just won’t go away.   

Real on-stage confidence comes from (a) being able to nail it consistently, (b) knowing that this isn’t a coincidence but that you can do it correctly on demand, because (c) you know precisely why you nail it or miss it – i.e. you have identified the key technical or mechanical factors that are necessary to perform the trick perfectly every time.   

3) It is mind-numbingly dull: Practising mindlessly is a chore. We’ve all had well-meaning fellow magicians tell us to go home and practise your Elmsley Count x number of times, or to practise x number of hours, right? But why are we measuring success in units of practice time? What we need are more specific results-oriented outcome goals – such as, practise this move until it looks natural, or practise this sleight until you can figure out how to make it lead perfectly into ABC.      Deliberate practice   

So what is the alternative? Deliberate, or mindful practice is a systematic and highly-structured activity, that is, for lack of a better word, more scientific. Instead of mindless trial and error, it is an active and thoughtful process of hypothesis-testing where we relentlessly seek solutions to clearly-defined problems.   

Deliberate practice is often slow, and involves repetition of small and very specific sections of a skill instead of just running through the whole trick. For example, you might work on just the first sleight of an Ambitious Card routine to make sure that it looks exactly the way you want, instead of performing the entire first revelation that the playing card is now at the top of the deck.   

Deliberate practice also involves monitoring one’s performance – in real-time and via recordings – continually looking for new ways to 85


improve. This means being observant and keenly aware of what happens, so that you can tell yourself exactly what went wrong. For instance, was the first turn over too fast? Too elaborate? Too controlled? Too close to the body? Too low down?   

Let’s say that when you turned the playing card over, it was too fast and looked like you were trying to hide something. Well, how fast was it? A little? A lot? What should the movement look like in it’s real, natural form? How much more speed did you add when ‘mimicking’ the real natural movement?   

OK, the move was a little fast, just a tiny bit rushed, and required a more clear and natural-looking gesture with your finger and thumb in order to be consistent with the natural movement. So, why was the move fast? What did you do? What do you need to do instead to make sure the move is perfectly paced every time? How do you ensure that the speed is just as you want it to be, and how do you get a consistent speed each time you begin the sleight?   

Now, let’s imagine you video recorded each trial repetition, and could watch the last attempt. Does that combination of ingredients give you the desired result? Does that combination of elements convey the natural movement you are attempting to mimic?   

If this sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. Which might explain why few take the time to practice this way. To stop, analyse what went wrong, why it happened, and how they can produce different results the next time.   

Simple though it may sound, it took me years to figure this out. Yet it remains the most valuable and enduring lesson I have ever had. The principles of deliberate practice have remained relevant no matter what skill I must learn next. Be it the practice of psychology, building an audience for a blog, parenting, or making the perfect smoothie, how I spend my practice time remains more important than how much time I spend practising. 86


How to accelerate skill development   

Here are the five principles I would want to share with a younger version of myself. I hope you find something of value on this list as well.   

1) Focus is everything: Keep practice sessions limited to a duration that allows you to stay focused. This may be as short as 10-20 minutes, and as long as 45-60+ minutes.   

2) Timing is everything, too: Keep track of times during the day when you tend to have the most energy. This may be first thing in the morning, or right before lunch. Try to do your practising during these naturally productive periods, when you are able to focus and think most clearly. What to do in your naturally unproductive times? I say take a guilt-free nap.   

3) Don’t trust your memory: Use a practice notebook. Plan out your practice, and keep track of your practice goals and what you discover during your practice sessions. The key to getting into “the flow” when practising is to constantly strive for clarity of intention. Have a crystal clear idea of what you want (e.g. the movement you want to perfect, or specific articulation, intonation, etc. that you’d like to be able to execute consistently in the trick’s ‘patter’), and be relentless in your search for ever better solutions.   

When you stumble onto a new insight or discover a solution to a problem, write it down! As you practice more mindfully, you’ll began making so many micro-discoveries that you will need written reminders to remember them all.   

4) Smarter, not harder: When things aren’t working, sometimes we simply have to practice more. And then there are times when it means we have to go in a different direction. 

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Dominic Reyes told me about the time he started learning the Bottle Through Table trick. For some reason, he just wasn’t getting the right misdirection at the critical moment of the trick and couldn’t find a way to build it into the style of the trick that preceded it. He kept getting busted. It would have been very easy for him to simply abandon the trick and add something else to his act at that point. He kept at it, but didn’t seem to be making progress and started to dread performing it.   

Instead of stubbornly persisting with a strategy that clearly wasn’t working, he forced himself to stop. He brainstormed solutions to the problem for a day or two, and wrote down ideas as they occurred to him. When he had a list of some promising solutions, he started experimenting.   

He eventually came up with a solution that worked, and it’s now one of the tricks he enjoys performing the most.   

5) Stay on target with a problem-solving model: It’s extraordinarily easy to drift into mindless practice mode. Keep yourself on task using the six-step problem-solving model below:  • Define the problem. (What result did I just get? What do I want this move to look like instead?) • Analyse the problem. (What is causing it to sound like this?) • Identify potential solutions. (What can I tweak to make it look more like I want?) • Test the potential solutions and select the most effective one. (What tweaks seem to work best?) • Implement the best solution. (Reinforce these tweaks to make the changes permanent.) • Monitor implementation. (Do these changes continue to produce the results I’m looking for?)

Make your time count 88


  It doesn’t matter if we are talking about perfecting card technique, improving your coin work, becoming a better mentalist, improving your marketing skills, or becoming a more effective pick-pocket.   

Life is short. Time is our most valuable commodity. If you’re going to practice, you might as well do it right.    This article is an edited version of an original article by Noa Kageyama, Ph.D. It has been reproduced and edited in parts to relate to the subject of magic practice, with the permission of the author.    About Noa Kageyama, Ph.D.   

Sport & performance psychologist Dr. Noa Kageyama serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School and the New World Symphony, where he specializes in teaching performing artists how to utilize sport psychology principles to perform up to their abilities under stress.   

Also a conservatory-trained violinist with degrees from Juilliard and Oberlin. Dr. Kageyama’s work has been featured in media outlets ranging from The Wall Street Journal to Musical America.   

I highly recommend you visit his excellent website Bulletproof Musician. Although written specifically for musicians, it has a wealth of information that will improve your magic practice.

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10 tips to improve your practice 1) Choose just one trick at a time  Most magic shops would love you to constantly buy each new trick they market. But unless you are already at an intermediate or advanced skill level, this may not be the wisest move. Choose just one trick, and work on nothing else until it’s mastered. Only then, should you move onto your next trick to master.

2) Practise  Everyday, in small quick sessions. Many experts recommend the drill principle: running through the moves 20 times in the morning and 20 times at night for 20 days. If you can’t do that, just try to do 10 minutes practice every day. Short regular sessions are best.

3) Don’t practise in silence  Make sure you talk as you practise. Do you find you tend to ‘freeze’ when you perform a move in front of people? Saying the words provides cues for the moves and really helps prevent this.

4) Rehearse  Don’t just run through the moves quickly. Perform the whole magic trick from start to finish, imagining it’s a real performance. Do this just as much as you practise the mechanics of the trick.

5) Slow it all down  Slow is far better than fast. Sudden quick moves raise suspicion. Chances are the speed you feel naturally comfortable at is still too fast.

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6) Check it looks real  When considering learning a new sleight, make sure it looks natural. Do the action for real, then adjust the sleight to match your real gesture or movement as much as possible. For example: really turn a playing card over, then make sure it looks the same when you just pretend to do so. Avoid obscure moves that look pretty but nothing like real-life actions.

7) Check it looks effortless  Work on looking relaxed and happy when you execute a move. Make sure you don’t hesitate, close your eyes or look guilty as you perform it. Videoing your performance is a great way to spot this.

8) Make sure it’s clear and visible  Look at your hand positions. Are you covering up the action with your fingers or the backs of your hands? Work on a light touch, showing as much as possible to all around you.

9) Reduce all unneeded movements  Go over your routine removing pauses that don’t add to the trick.  Cut out any gestures or movements that may be totally innocent, but actually make the spectator think something suspicious may have happened.

10) Actually perform it live  Seriously, you will develop your technique way beyond anything you can learn in private, once you start showing people your magic live. Don’t fall into the trap of performing only on YouTube. That will stop you getting real feedback from your audience’s reactions. Instead,

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show your family and friends your work once it’s ready and you will improve it way beyond what you thought was possible.

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Practice to remove guilt Guilt is something every person has to deal with at some point when studying sleight of hand and magic tricks. Simply because you have to lie to your spectators’ faces about what you are doing sometimes. Simple statements like, ‘we’ll lose your card in the deck’ or, ‘if I place the coin in my hand’ sound easy to say. However, these statements can be tougher to say convincingly whilst performing your sleight of hand.

Telegraphing Another common issue with guilt can be the guilt of performing sleight of hand in general. Some moves (especially ones that you worry about performing) may become apparent to a spectator simply because you are telegraphing the fact that you are performing a sleight. You must learn to feel at ease with all the sleights you perform. If you feel guilty when performing a move like a shuttlepass or false transfer it will only give the spectators more chance to catch you out. The more you worry about the move, the more you transmit through non-verbal communication that you are doing something fishy. When you have to perform a move you are worried about, the body tenses up and you may stutter or hesitate. You may even become slightly more withdrawn and look at the cards or your hands instead of the spectator. All these subconscious clues tell the spectator that something dodgy is about to happen. Relax and believe you are doing what they think you are doing, and it will all become easier and more enjoyable!

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The solution to magicians’ guilt If you have guilt about doing something secretly in your pocket, like loading a box, or switching an item, and you really don’t want to draw attention to it, then there really is only one answer for this: practice! Practise the load or switch over and over again, and also make sure you practise in the clothing you will be performing in. If you practise in baggy clothing, and are wearing tighter clothing when you perform it can really make a difference with the handling. Use pocket management. Try to look at where things are in your pockets, or if there is another pocket you have that it would work equally well with but be less fiddly. If you are fidgeting and people pay attention to it, simply joke and say, ‘sorry I am not being rude, I just have so many things in my pockets, like fairy dust, and whatchamacallits, I cannot find my little box!’ A simple comment like that, and they will be thinking you have all manner of things in your pockets, so the fidgeting is now justified. People don’t really know what a magician has in their pockets! You can help to draw attention away from your pockets by asking the spectators to do something at the same time. Ask the spectator a question, or hand them something like the deck of playing cards to shuffle. Any action will buy you a few more critical seconds. Once you are practised, and up to speed with all of your sleight of hand and routines, then all you need to do is perform, the guilt will disappear. You can always justify it by telling yourself that you cannot give someone the wonderful experience of magic without a little white lie here and there!

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What to do when you get caught Phil asked me: “I am having confidence issues when I perform magic tricks that use a gimmick. What if the magic trick’s secrets are exposed by mistake? What should I do or say if the magic trick fails?”   This is a situation that is by no means unique to Phil. In fact, you are probably still reading this post because at some point you have experienced this very same feeling. You have bought a brand new magic trick, set about learning how to perform it, and then out of nowhere – you lose confidence in the trick and your own ability to prevent the magic trick’s secrets from being exposed or going wrong. Some of the time, this loss of confidence leads you to abandon the trick altogether.

So why does this happen? You CARE. You care about your performance and want it to be the best it can be. You don’t want there to be ANY chance that the magic trick’s secrets are exposed by mistake. For that to happen, you know you have to make sure everything is just perfect. For everything to be perfect, you need to be in control. Control is one of the main differences between magic tricks that rely on sleight of hand and magic tricks that use a gimmick. The success of a pure sleight of hand trick relies almost entirely on you as a performer. Generally speaking, the more time you put into rehearsing your moves, the more control you will have over the mechanics of the trick in performance.

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Gimmicks, on the other hand, represent risk. In order to clean up a routine or achieve something that looks genuinely impossible, you put your faith in a gimmick to do some (or all!) of the work. You are giving up some control for the promise of a better, more amazing piece of magic. If the gimmick fails during a rehearsal and the magic trick’s secrets are exposed, it can make you less confident that it will work in performance. You start to feel that by including the gimmicked trick in your set, you are risking an imperfect performance – and that you would be better off looking for a new, more reliable magic trick to perform instead.

Feeding the beast If you lose confidence in a magic trick at the rehearsal stage, you may never find out if the gimmick works in performance because it is too risky to try. You decide not to perform your new magic trick, and instead tell yourself that you will learn from this experience. You don’t want to waste your time and money again on another ‘impractical’ magic trick. You raise your guard. The next time you buy a trick you scrutinise the method closely, drawing on your experience to decide whether or not this new magic trick is worth pursuing. You may even find yourself discarding the new magic trick before you have even rehearsed it because you just know it won’t work 100% of the time. You tell yourself it is not worth bothering with and move on. And so it continues…

Breaking the cycle You have decided that your gimmick is worth working on and you take it with you the next time you perform. In the back of your mind, an uneasy feeling begins to creep in. You start to tell yourself that now is not the time, and that you should stick to your sleight of hand tricks that you can guarantee will work. 96


Your confidence is starting to disappear… it could all go horribly wrong! Fear is natural. It drives us all. If everyone reacted to their fear of failure by not trying, we would probably all still be living in caves! What is driving this fear? Possible causes: • • • •

What is the worst case scenario? Are the magic trick’s secrets exposed? Will you get laughed at? Will everyone think you are a bad magician? When you think about it, nothing that can happen as a result of a magic trick going wrong is THAT serious!

Yes, in the short-term you may feel embarrassed or foolish, and that is totally natural. In the long run, it is essential to remember that, when a magic trick fails and the magic trick’s secret is exposed, it is not the end of the world. It happens to everyone at some point. What is important is how you DEAL with the situation.

The worst thing you can do is nothing Small mistakes may only be visible to YOU. Sometimes a coin flashes, sooner or later you will pick up a double and accidentally drop it on the floor. Small errors may seem to shout out to the whole world that you failed and exposed the magic trick’s secret. However, often this could go by the audience completely. Unlike you, they may not have noticed or even understand that something has happened that wasn’t part of the plan. Small errors can often just be passed over, by paying them no attention and moving on quickly and smoothly. Don’t pause and do nothing, just keep the flow and performance moving along. 97


Sometimes a magic trick may go entirely wrong and can’t be continued. You MUST REACT to your mistake. Reacting makes you look human and breaks the tension that is felt by your audience. Nobody can tell you the best way to react – this depends on your personality and performing style. Humour is usually a good way to go. By drawing attention to your mistake and making a joke, you turn a personal disaster into a shared positive experience.

True confidence No magic trick works perfectly every time. Therefore, the best way to have absolute confidence that you can give a perfect performance is to be prepared to fail. Think about it – everything you rehearse, you rehearse because it is going to happen in performance. By accepting that something could go wrong from the outset, you can rehearse ways to deal with the situation so that, if the situation ever occurs, you are ready to deal with it, with confidence.

Do this: The next time you practice with a gimmick and things don’t happen quite the way they should, don’t just discard it. Write down:

 

• • • •

What went wrong and exposed the magic trick’s secrets; Why you think it went wrong; How you might stop it from happening again; What you might do if it happened again in front of a spectator – how might you react?

By TAKING ACTION, you can minimise any negative impact that a small failure may have on your overall performance. You will develop the confidence that you can deal with any situation without fear. Without the fear, you will become a much better magician.

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Conclusion I hope this book has given you some useful information and tips about how to practise your magic. The key message is very simple: Slow down Learn one trick at a time Structure your practice Commit to short, regular sessions Set goals Review your performance If you put this into action, it will transform how you develop as a magician. Please let me know what you thought of this e-book. I would like to add to it over time and expand the content. You can leave me feedback and suggestions for improvements here:

Click here to leave me feedback

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If you have any problems or questions, all of the team at the Merchant of Magic is here to help. We produce a range of free e-books that cover all aspects of both practice and performance for magicians. You can get the books and also read hundreds of articles giving advice about all aspects of training and performance on the Merchant of Magic blog. You can find the blog at http://blog.magicshop.co.uk/ The Merchant of Magic also produces video tips, guides, and advice, as well as a podcast recorded live at the magic shop where we discuss questions magicians have asked us. Good luck with your magic! Dominic Reyes Web: http://www.dominicreyes.me Twitter: @dominicreyes

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If you enjoyed this book please do tell your friends about it, and spread the word on Facebook or magic forums. You can send magicians the following link to download their own copy:

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Approaching Magic Practice Dominic Reyes

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