I have recently been reflecting a lot back on my years when I first started magic. It has been a long journey of bumps and bruises. When I first got started at a very young age, sometime in middle school, I was infatuated with watching random magicians on my local public broadcasting channel. Although at the time I never knew who the performers were, as I didn't really care then, I later found out that some of them were great magicians like David Copperfield and Jeff McBride. I tried to learn some tricks from them by checking out books at my library. I learned very little because most of the books were over my head at that age. I could, however, follow the pictures and captions under them. I learned a sloppy double lift that I never practiced enough and a poor ACR that my mother always said fooled her. I now know it didn't.
Though in 6 months I stopped practicing magic, I picked it up again several years ago. When I first got back into magic, I was excited and wanted to perform so much for everyone. Everywhere I would go I would want to do some trick. I was on the internet watching videos of the latest coolest tricks to get and perform. I would check out books or go to Barnes & Nobel to find some trick books. It was then when I started to make my mistake. Street magic really took an interest in me. I wanted to be a street performer. With my degree in theatre and loving to perform, I thought this was something great I could keep doing. However, I did say this was where I made my mistake. Sure I had some great tricks to do, I always thank Oz Pearlman from penguinmagic for some of the tricks that I used when I first got seriously started. But a few encounters left me very disappointed with myself and my audience laughing at me for my screw ups.
As I continued to do tricks for friends and strangers I began to get sloppy. I would see an effect and practice it once or twice and then go out and perform it. I wasn't doing justice to the art of magic. In the middle of my tricks I would find myself stopping and trying to think what to do next, or what was the slight I was suppose to use, or can I find some distraction for the spectator to stop looking at me for a second so I can fix this. My patter was terrible because I was trying to buy time for myself. I also found myself exposing tricks because I was doing them wrong. When I got stuck on a trick I would mess it up or tell the spectator that I didn't know what I was doing...that left me ashamed and them kind of mad for me wasting their time. That was the last straw. Determined to not make that mistake again I literally stopped performing for anyone. I always had my cards with me, but instead I was becoming a perfectionist. Practicing became everything to me. I would do it in front of a mirror, while watching television, even at work when I had the time. I got a routine. I was determined, in my mind, that I would not mess up again and make myself look like a fool. This is where I made my second mistake.
I apologize for all of the blabber about this, as I am just now getting to my main point for starting this topic. My second mistake was this; even though I had practiced so much where I could do these tricks in my sleep, when I went to perform I had people catching on to what I was doing. "How is this possible?" The reason was because of my nerves. I had a lack of confidence in my tricks and it was showing right through me. When I would do a trick I know I could do perfect, I would find myself fumbling through it. Making some stupid very armature mistakes and causing me big reactions. Either that, or I was going so fast through the trick that they couldn't even keep up with me to figure out what I was doing. Confidence was my killer. It was then that I came to the realization that even though I practiced everything, I was doing it by myself. I never applied anything to real people or tested anything out for anyone. The more that you perform for people the less nervous you get when you do a trick. It fixes scenarios when a spectator would pick a card and not do exactly what I asked them to do. I didn't set myself up a backup plan for something like that. My confidence was shot, so the trick ended with the wrong card found in the deck. My point is to stress the importance of having confidence in your tricks.
When I was doing search and destroy for the first time I was caught red handed because of a move that I didn't feel completely comfortable with was exposed. I kept however practicing and practicing and then started to apply it with one or two people, building my confidence up by using baby steps, I was able to overcome a lot of my problems. If I looked in control and was very cool and just relaxed, the audience was relaxed and it was easier to do a slight and not have them notice. Without confidence, I was tense....and my body language looked so, which made my spectators become tense as well and a little more attentive on my moves with my hands.
There is, I guess, some sort of lesson I am trying to make here, and this is not for everyone. Some people have no problem with this at all. Some might already be aware of this and feel like they just wasted their time reading this long post. But sometimes in life, when you have something on your chest and you can't get it off of your mind, it is good to just let it all out. Like I said before, I was thinking about it a lot recently. If you want to get better, make sure you practice. That goes without saying. But if you want to become superior, and not just someone who performs tricks for a camera for a Youtube video, you need to apply yourself out there and get some real world experience with your magic. It will be hard to do. You will feel like a total idiot sometimes when you don't nail a move perfect. But the truth is that you get comfortable with yourself and doing a trick at the same time in front of people The confidence you will build by doing so will not only just help you with your magic, it will help you in your life.
Thanks for reading and letting me get this off my chest.
Though in 6 months I stopped practicing magic, I picked it up again several years ago. When I first got back into magic, I was excited and wanted to perform so much for everyone. Everywhere I would go I would want to do some trick. I was on the internet watching videos of the latest coolest tricks to get and perform. I would check out books or go to Barnes & Nobel to find some trick books. It was then when I started to make my mistake. Street magic really took an interest in me. I wanted to be a street performer. With my degree in theatre and loving to perform, I thought this was something great I could keep doing. However, I did say this was where I made my mistake. Sure I had some great tricks to do, I always thank Oz Pearlman from penguinmagic for some of the tricks that I used when I first got seriously started. But a few encounters left me very disappointed with myself and my audience laughing at me for my screw ups.
As I continued to do tricks for friends and strangers I began to get sloppy. I would see an effect and practice it once or twice and then go out and perform it. I wasn't doing justice to the art of magic. In the middle of my tricks I would find myself stopping and trying to think what to do next, or what was the slight I was suppose to use, or can I find some distraction for the spectator to stop looking at me for a second so I can fix this. My patter was terrible because I was trying to buy time for myself. I also found myself exposing tricks because I was doing them wrong. When I got stuck on a trick I would mess it up or tell the spectator that I didn't know what I was doing...that left me ashamed and them kind of mad for me wasting their time. That was the last straw. Determined to not make that mistake again I literally stopped performing for anyone. I always had my cards with me, but instead I was becoming a perfectionist. Practicing became everything to me. I would do it in front of a mirror, while watching television, even at work when I had the time. I got a routine. I was determined, in my mind, that I would not mess up again and make myself look like a fool. This is where I made my second mistake.
I apologize for all of the blabber about this, as I am just now getting to my main point for starting this topic. My second mistake was this; even though I had practiced so much where I could do these tricks in my sleep, when I went to perform I had people catching on to what I was doing. "How is this possible?" The reason was because of my nerves. I had a lack of confidence in my tricks and it was showing right through me. When I would do a trick I know I could do perfect, I would find myself fumbling through it. Making some stupid very armature mistakes and causing me big reactions. Either that, or I was going so fast through the trick that they couldn't even keep up with me to figure out what I was doing. Confidence was my killer. It was then that I came to the realization that even though I practiced everything, I was doing it by myself. I never applied anything to real people or tested anything out for anyone. The more that you perform for people the less nervous you get when you do a trick. It fixes scenarios when a spectator would pick a card and not do exactly what I asked them to do. I didn't set myself up a backup plan for something like that. My confidence was shot, so the trick ended with the wrong card found in the deck. My point is to stress the importance of having confidence in your tricks.
When I was doing search and destroy for the first time I was caught red handed because of a move that I didn't feel completely comfortable with was exposed. I kept however practicing and practicing and then started to apply it with one or two people, building my confidence up by using baby steps, I was able to overcome a lot of my problems. If I looked in control and was very cool and just relaxed, the audience was relaxed and it was easier to do a slight and not have them notice. Without confidence, I was tense....and my body language looked so, which made my spectators become tense as well and a little more attentive on my moves with my hands.
There is, I guess, some sort of lesson I am trying to make here, and this is not for everyone. Some people have no problem with this at all. Some might already be aware of this and feel like they just wasted their time reading this long post. But sometimes in life, when you have something on your chest and you can't get it off of your mind, it is good to just let it all out. Like I said before, I was thinking about it a lot recently. If you want to get better, make sure you practice. That goes without saying. But if you want to become superior, and not just someone who performs tricks for a camera for a Youtube video, you need to apply yourself out there and get some real world experience with your magic. It will be hard to do. You will feel like a total idiot sometimes when you don't nail a move perfect. But the truth is that you get comfortable with yourself and doing a trick at the same time in front of people The confidence you will build by doing so will not only just help you with your magic, it will help you in your life.
Thanks for reading and letting me get this off my chest.
