Entertain Yourself or Others

[AnimusLi]

Whenever I see other people perform, either in real life or in videos I never see people perform tricks that require mid-hard sleights. Tricks like tivo (2.0 and transpo), Triumph, Asher Twist, Sinful, and other tricks of that nature. Now I personally love performing things that require sleights. But I'm just wondering, do you guys learn these tricks to entertain yourself, or do u learn them to go out and perform for others?

 

[joshrobarts]

Tivo 2.0 and Triumph are two of my favorite tricks to perform for people, mainly cause they are so visual and get such great reactions. i suppose a lot of it might have to do with confidence in attempting harder sleights in front of a crowd or maybe just the fact that sometimes simple tricks are all you need to make an impression

 

[AnimusLi]

Tivo 2.0 and Triumph are two of my favorite tricks to perform for people, mainly cause they are so visual and get such great reactions. i suppose a lot of it might have to do with confidence in attempting harder sleights in front of a crowd or maybe just the fact that sometimes simple tricks are all you need to make an impression

Well simple tricks like ACR, or Two Card Monte do make an impression. But whenever I perform it, I don't get the satisfaction of knowing i pulled off something truly hard to perform. I guess it's sort of selfish , but anything for the audience right?

 

[Shodan]

Interesting topic title. I think that its fair to say that any performance medium has an aspect of "performance satisfaction" - the performer gets a kick out of doing their thing. Magic in particular takes this one step further, because you have the aspect of outwitting your audience. Whit Haydn made this point in a related discussion over at the cafe:

"Bobby Fischer said that the object of chess is "to crush the mind of your opponent."

Magic has a similar goal, but much harder than chess, the magician has to make his opponent enjoy the experience as well."

This really resonated with me, and I think is relevant to the topic at hand. Entertaining yourself is fundamental to any performer; the more the performer invests in the performance, the more the audience will invest too. If pulling off clever sleight of hand is what you enjoy, then that's what you should present. If you get a kick out of a clever self working trick, then THAT'S what you should present. Performance is highly empathetic.

Short answer - successful performers love what they do. Whatever it is that makes you smile, that's what you should perform. So if you learn a trick because YOU think its neat, then its up to you to convince your audience that it is. Don't feel that there are tricks "just for you" and tricks "just for performance" - that should only ever be an issue of practicality.

 

[Shodan]

Afterthought: 2CM and ACR are only as simple as you make them. I'll focus on the ACR seeing as I don't do 2CM - by that or any other name!

ACR is a wonderful plot because there's so much room to play with it. If you look at a variety of different approaches to the trick you'll see a wealth of clever methods, interesting premises and presentations, sequencing and big finishes. A well formed ACR should be a personal masterpiece, something that is characteristic of YOUR style. That doesn't mean it has to be technically difficult - my ACR is pretty straightforward to do - but then you have the satisfaction of showing an audience the end result of a lot of hard work, and that's just as good as showing them something that's difficult to do.

I have a spelling trick that I'm very proud of. The whole trick involves one sleight, and most of the time even that isn't necessary! I get a huge buzz out of performing it though, because the thinking behind it is what makes it special - I put the work in before the audience ever got there.

 

[AnimusLi]

Come to think of it, whenever I perform to people i've never met, I normally do ACR, Stealing Jacks (not sure about the name anymore), and maybe a little card to wallet. But then when performing for close friends that have seen my magic a few times, I perform something more technical. To see if I have practiced it well enough. But I really like the way you put it. ACR can be something very interesting and magical but the simplicity of it really scares me .

 

[DLeerium]

Normally when I perform for people, I perform tricks that are simple and strong hitting eg simple transpositions, card sandwhiches and triumph being some of my favourites. I gernally try to keep clear of techniques such as palming, tenkei etc because some curious people just like to...change their angle of observation..

When I do more complicated tricks, I usually do it for myself, in front of a mirror and ocassionally film some.