Hello all,
This is my second thread about mentalism, and there will be more to come. These threads are for people interested in starting mentalism, or people who already started but are still "green" so to speak. In the first thread we covered how to actually learn and practice mentalism, and we have some amazing advice from everybody who posted in the thread, specially Craig. You can find that thread here: http://forums.theory11.com/showthread.php?30905-MENTALISM-How-to-learn-and-practice
Now onto the new subject...
Audience Reactions:
Now this is a strange question, and maybe the one that only interests me, but I guess it will be helpful to someone else as well.
I have been a magician for 5 years now, and a very good one (if I say so myself). The one gauge that I use to measure my success is the audience reactions. If they are amazed, speechless, screaming all over the place, silent with their jaw in their lap, etc. than I think it was enjoyable experience for them.
Now I shifted over to mentalism, and I just can't seem to get the same reactions. Not even close. Now some one may say that mentalism in general does not provoke those kinds of reactions, which may be true, but the reactions that I get are just horrible.
To better understand my situation, let me explain it in more detail. I have yet to show mentalism effect to a complete stranger. I still use my test subjects who were before exposed to my magic. And one reaction that I get EVERY SINGE TIME is "umm, yeah that's nice, can you show me something with cards now?". I take that as a compliment being a magician, which means that people still want to see more magic from me. But as mentalist, I am crushed.
I fully understand that I need more time and fine tuning with mentalism, which is completely fine, but these kinds of things just kill my motivation (instead of lifting it up).
As a mentalist, I'm trying to stay away from cards as much as possible, because when people see cards, they immediately think "oh, a magic trick", which is not the kind of thinking I want to achieve in my spectators as a mentalist.
I have a lot more to say about this subject, but for now, lets just start with: how to overcome the reactions that you are getting as a mentalist since you got used to completely other type of reactions with magic, and how to improve the reactions that you get with mentalism?
This is my second thread about mentalism, and there will be more to come. These threads are for people interested in starting mentalism, or people who already started but are still "green" so to speak. In the first thread we covered how to actually learn and practice mentalism, and we have some amazing advice from everybody who posted in the thread, specially Craig. You can find that thread here: http://forums.theory11.com/showthread.php?30905-MENTALISM-How-to-learn-and-practice
Now onto the new subject...
Audience Reactions:
Now this is a strange question, and maybe the one that only interests me, but I guess it will be helpful to someone else as well.
I have been a magician for 5 years now, and a very good one (if I say so myself). The one gauge that I use to measure my success is the audience reactions. If they are amazed, speechless, screaming all over the place, silent with their jaw in their lap, etc. than I think it was enjoyable experience for them.
Now I shifted over to mentalism, and I just can't seem to get the same reactions. Not even close. Now some one may say that mentalism in general does not provoke those kinds of reactions, which may be true, but the reactions that I get are just horrible.
To better understand my situation, let me explain it in more detail. I have yet to show mentalism effect to a complete stranger. I still use my test subjects who were before exposed to my magic. And one reaction that I get EVERY SINGE TIME is "umm, yeah that's nice, can you show me something with cards now?". I take that as a compliment being a magician, which means that people still want to see more magic from me. But as mentalist, I am crushed.
I fully understand that I need more time and fine tuning with mentalism, which is completely fine, but these kinds of things just kill my motivation (instead of lifting it up).
As a mentalist, I'm trying to stay away from cards as much as possible, because when people see cards, they immediately think "oh, a magic trick", which is not the kind of thinking I want to achieve in my spectators as a mentalist.
I have a lot more to say about this subject, but for now, lets just start with: how to overcome the reactions that you are getting as a mentalist since you got used to completely other type of reactions with magic, and how to improve the reactions that you get with mentalism?