Hey Guys. I'm a semi-new magician and I find that my movements and gestures and overall performance are not very smooth. I practice all of the time and I never seem to be able to get more comfortable with the deck. When I'm performing with cards, My movements feel and look choppy. Do you guys have any suggestions for smoothing out my routines?
Help for a beginner
- Thread starter Topaz711
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When you say you practice, what form does your practice take? Do you practice individual moves, complete routines or full performances including patter, or a combination of all three? I should say, the fact that you've identified a lack of smoothness in your movements and gestures is a great start towards rectifying the problem. Analysing and criticising your own performance is an excellent habit to get into, as opposed to a "that'll do, it'll fly past laymen" kind of attitude.
Hey Christopher, Ive been practicing for about 8-9 months on most of my stuff. The problem I have with all of my movements are just how I break it down into steps and I cant seem to make it one fluid motion. Its all very choppy and I'm having trouble fixing it with all of my practice. Theres no specific move that i'm having trouble with.
Thanks so much for helping!
Thanks so much for helping!
I think the biggest reason you "may" be having the issue is that because when you are practicing, you allow yourself to take it slow and focus on making the move "just right" but in reality when you have spectators burning your hands and you are trying to "entertain" the crowd....there is a bit of a disconnect between the way you are practicing and the way it needs to happen live for a crowd.
The more you practice live for audiences the better you become with "said" effect. Case in point: If you get a strolling gig at a restaurant, you might only take 6 effects with you that evening, however you might perform each of those effects 20 times in that one evening. By the end of the night, you better believe you will know those effects inside, outside, upside down, etc. You'll know what lines of patter work, what jokes to say, and "when" the timing needs to hit on sleights.
Try to only master 1-2 routines over and over and over again for different audiences. Don't overwhelm yourself with too much material. It is a common mistake for rookies. This typically goes hand in hand with the desire to purchase every new and cool effect out that hits the market. Trust me....we've all been there. Ha ha.
The more you practice live for audiences the better you become with "said" effect. Case in point: If you get a strolling gig at a restaurant, you might only take 6 effects with you that evening, however you might perform each of those effects 20 times in that one evening. By the end of the night, you better believe you will know those effects inside, outside, upside down, etc. You'll know what lines of patter work, what jokes to say, and "when" the timing needs to hit on sleights.
Try to only master 1-2 routines over and over and over again for different audiences. Don't overwhelm yourself with too much material. It is a common mistake for rookies. This typically goes hand in hand with the desire to purchase every new and cool effect out that hits the market. Trust me....we've all been there. Ha ha.
If I had to guess, I'd say in your performance you pause between the steps, almost resetting your arms, hands, posture. Is that accurate? I ask because it's something I've seen before.
When you practice, do you also rehearse? You go through the routine, saying the scripting out loud, blocking out your movements and gestures?
When you practice, do you also rehearse? You go through the routine, saying the scripting out loud, blocking out your movements and gestures?
Id recommend just getting more used to holding and handling a deck. Id also recommend this very highly: http://www.magiciansthegathering.com/community/showthread.php?t=684
Right there we've isolated part of the problem. Rehearsal is at least as important as practice. Without the effects you're not doing magic, you're telling jokes and making conversation. Without the scripting and blocking you're not so much doing magic as demonstrating sleight of hand.
You have to get used to actually doing the motions and jokes instead of just thinking them. Without rehearsal, your mind breaks everything down into rigid steps. But when you rehearse, you connect everything together and your body fills it with natural motion. You don't sit down by bending your joints one at a time ("Fold yourself in the middle!"). Your magic shouldn't look like that either.
Rehearsal also means less air in the conversation and a more conversational tone. Many amateurs make the mistake of thinking that rehearsing their words takes all of the spontaneity out of it and makes everything look rehearsed. But that's the thing about good acting: it's not supposed to look like acting.
Do continue to train your mechanical skills, but also give equal time to your rehearsal as well. Get used to the rhythm, connect everything together, work out the timing. I guarantee you if you take one three-phase routine tonight, come up with a 3-5 minute presentation for it, and rehearse it every day for the next two weeks, you'll see a marked improvement in how your audience responds to it by the end.
Also, at 8-9 months you're still new. After 9 months of magic, I was still studying RRTCM and doing the first three or four tricks I'd ever learned. If you're not naturally inclined to kinesthetic skills you're going to quite a while to get smooth at these things. Fine motor skills are the hardest to learn well. To put it into perspective, according to Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers", it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master of something. Meaning to know it to the point where you're doing it subconsciously and not having to think about it. You've only done 8 months or so. That's a drop in the bucket thus far.
When I practice I tend to do some time with just sleights. I deal seconds for a few minutes, passes for a few minutes, controls, etc. Just random stuff that occurs to me, really. This gets my hands warmed up and ready to go. Then I start going through full tricks. I do each one for a few minutes, not worrying about patter or anything, just going through all the motions from start to finish. After that, I rehearse the tricks I intend to use soon, performing them as if there were people there actually having a show. After that, I tend to go back to drilling a few specific moves or tricks until my hands hurt.
We can't recommend any routines, because we don't know what you know.
When I practice I tend to do some time with just sleights. I deal seconds for a few minutes, passes for a few minutes, controls, etc. Just random stuff that occurs to me, really. This gets my hands warmed up and ready to go. Then I start going through full tricks. I do each one for a few minutes, not worrying about patter or anything, just going through all the motions from start to finish. After that, I rehearse the tricks I intend to use soon, performing them as if there were people there actually having a show. After that, I tend to go back to drilling a few specific moves or tricks until my hands hurt.
We can't recommend any routines, because we don't know what you know.
Having a handful of go-to effects that you do consistently well is much better than knowing a million different effects that you're only okay at.
What books and DVDs do you have? I need some idea of what you're working with.