First Magic Experience You Remember - Share

[ii3randonmagic]

I wanted to hear some of your guys stories of the first time you saw magic and it really blew your mind. I think that this would be a fun forum and i'll share first.

I was about 9-10 and my family decided to take a trip to Las Vegas, it was such a wonderful place the bright lights, tall buildings, fun hotels and magicians. At that time the only magicians I were really familiar with were; Criss Angel and David Blaine (due to how much they were advertised). My family stayed at the "Circus Circus" hotel and casino and I absolutely loved the environment but it wasn't until the second to last day when a store that had been closed all week was open.

It was a magic shop, I begged my parents to look go inside just to take a look. Just stepping inside I felt something just come inside me, it was joyous and I was having the time of my life, a man was doing the Ufo Card inside the building and I could see absolutely nothing except for a floating card, doing crazy tricks right in front of my face.

I begged the man to know how it was done, so he took my father and I and another family to the "Back room" and he showed us how it was done. I bought the Ufo card, played with it and lost the necessary supplies. After I had lost the supplies I really stopped doing magic for a few years due to my lack of understanding, fast forward a couple years I see a super simple card trick on youtube and I bought a deck and here I am now, studying every single book on card manipulation that I can!

Share your experiences, I can't wait to read them!

 

[KonTW]

Hi,

First of all I want to say, that this is a great idea. It really helps to understand, how different people got
into magic.

3 years ago my family and me spent a week in a hotel in Austria. One evening, while we were waiting for dinner, I suddenly asked myself how a magician vanishes a silk. I don't know why I asked that.
When we were back home, I just searched around on Youtube for Magic tutorials, and one day I saw a performance of Dai Vernon doing his Cups and Balls routine and I absolutely loved it. I watched it over and over again and was completely fooled.
A few weeks later I was in A magic show in Munich, Germany (that's where I live) and after the great show, I asked the magician for some advice on how to start with magic.
And he recommended a Germany magic - onlineshop.
I searched around on the site of the shop and finally found what I wanted:
A Set of Cups and Balls with DVD and wond
The only problem was, that it was quite expensive (250$) and I din't know that you had to spend so much for a good set, so I decided to buys the Chop Cup first. It was expensive, too but I loved it. I performed the Chop Cup so much and fooled so many people with it, that I got the whole Cups and Balls set from my parents for Christmas.
After that no one was able to stop me
I practised so much and especially my parents had to watch what I did the whole day long...
I did this for one year until I found a video of Jason England who was doing the Zarrow Shuffle. In the describtion there was a link: www.theory11.com
So I visited the site and I started to begin with buying and practising everything I got; from Jason England to Daniel Garcia
What I don mostly this time is cardmagic, and I don't know what's coming next
I also frequently perform on gigs, etc.

I'm exited to hear the next story!

- Konrad

 

[Craig Browning]

Saturday morning TV 1963 -- seeing Mark Wilson do the Choo Choo Illusion with Nani. My mother swears she should have never allowed me to see that show knowing what she knows now. . .

 

[SamMorgan]

I suppose it was when my Dad used to pull coins and other items out of my ear when I was very young.
To me it was so strange and magical - I don't know how much effect this had on me becoming a magician, but it may have come into play at some point.

 

[Chris W]

When I was in Florida at a relative's house, my relative hired a magician. I picked a card, signed it, and he lost it in the deck. He told me to pull out my wallet and in my own wallet was my signed card. Still no clue how he did it and don't want too. It wasn't until years later that I actually started up this fun hobby. I'll never forget the memory though.

 

[Josh F.(1)]

I still remember the very day I got into magic five or six years ago when I was in Orlando, Florida. Of course, I went to see Universal Studios and I went inside a magic shop (Theatre of Magic or something like that). There was a full ten minute performance by a magician who you could absolutely tell loved what he was doing. He did tricks like the Floating Card, Svengali Deck, and the Fire Wallet.

Of course, i was amazed as everyone else was. But when he performed the Sponge Balls, I was fortunate enough to be his 'participant'. He placed one ball in my hand and one ball in his .... and i think you guys know the rest of the story! When the second ball came popping out of my hand, I was in total bewilderment. I bought it as well as a few other things and that has lead me to where I am today.

It just goes to prove that even the simplest tricks can leave a lasting impression.

 

[ZachMueller]

When I was around 8 years old, my family was living in London - I lived there for a little under 2 years.

There is a huge, amazing department store called Harrods, which is an eight-year-olds dream. Each floor is dedicated to a different thing. One floor, all desserts. Another, all designer clothing. Another, all kids toys. I ran straight to the kids floor.

On that floor, among thousands of amazing toys, there was a section for Marvin's Magic. Now Marvin's Magic in America and Marvin's Magic in the UK are two totally different things. In the UK, at least when I was eight, it was all class. Elegant, beautiful tricks, well packaged, well put together, beautiful props, just pure elegance. At least from my 8 year old memory.

There was a demonstrator in that section, white gloves and tailcoats, and I thought it was amazing. Just the area with the tricks, and the booth was a spectacle to my 8 year old self. The magician at the booth did the Dynamic Coins. I was hooked.

Great idea for a thread - I'm enjoying reading these stories

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

The first magic act I saw that actually interested me was one of those World Greatest Magic things. I happen to catch it when I was channel surfing. The guy produced tall glasses of fruity looking drinks from bare hands with his sleeves rolled up. I thought that was neat, but forgot about it pretty quickly.

Then in 1995 I saw Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants on HBO. This was a man doing magic with cards (an object I was familiar with due to many family game nights of Blackjack and Rummy 500) that were incredible. And he was funny, and he knew so much, and these people adored watching him do his thing. Before that show I assumed all magic had to be up on a stage, with big boxes and hidden devices and none of that really interested me. To this day I can't sit through a stage illusion set or a manipulation act.

But here was a guy doing amazing things with playing cards.

I watched that show on VHS probably a dozen times over the next few years. Then David Blaine got his special and people were telling me about this guy doing magic right in front of people, on the streets. No stage. No lights. I was intrigued that there could be something really there.

Those are the two closest things I have to a 'magical' motivation for starting this whole shebang.

I still watch Ricky Jay to this day. I've seen it so much I can nearly remember the entire script by heart. He is probably my strongest influence in magic and definitely among the people I would most like to see perform live.

 

[Lyle Borders]

My parents won a trip to Disney World when I was only 5 or so. We had a great time (my earliest memories were from here). While at the park, we saw a magician out performing. I don't remember much, but I do remember him performing a cut and restored rope trick. My parents took me up to him after he finished performing to ask if he could show me more. He reached up and pulled a 1 1/2 in piece of rope (a short piece from his performance) from my ear. Having never seen such a thing in all of my vast experience in life, I was floored. He let me keep this little piece of rope, which I still have today. Ever since then I have been dabbling in magic in one form or another, playing with cheap magic kits, fooling friends with basic card tricks, performing occasionally, and now working with theory11.

Awesome topic! I can't wait to hear more.

// L

 

[seanb]

i was about 4 when my dad convinced me our house was haunted but i didnt realize until i was 9 that all he did was perform burn by brad christian

 

[The123ad.]

When I was about 12 years old my uncle showed me a video of Lance Burton plucking cards out of thin air, sleeves rolled up. Was totally floored.
Next I see him do his Dove act with all his charm and elegance combined with the beautiful music. Jaws drop , Eyes wide open, I rewind the video a hundred times finally believing it was real magic. Seeing my keen interest my uncle tells me about the backpalm. For the next few days I tried to learn back-palming. I realized it was difficult to palm a single card so to do that dozen must be close to impossible. My respect for magic and Mr.Lance Burton grew.
And then....
I was hooked.

 

[simplicity1356]

I wish I had a great story like you guys, I guess mine would have to be watching Mindfreak with my sister...I just recently got into magic because of a tutorial that I saw on youtube and it just grew into the love it is now.

 

[Lavernesmith]

That is quite an intriguing incident you posted out here...anyway welcome to the forum and have a great time out here...

 

[TeeDee]

Throughout my childhood, there'd always been a few beginner magic books around the house. My older brother had had a brief flirtation with magic and so I'd seen a few card tricks "performed" and had a vague sense of some of the principles involved. To me, though, they'd always seemed like a puzzle to be solved, and it seemed obvious to me that they must rely on some sort of prearrangement of the deck and very little skill. Interesting little conundrums, but not magical. And yes, the six-year old me probably did call them "conundrums". I was irritatingly precocious.

When I was about ten or eleven, though, I went to a wedding. Just reconstructing from the dates, it must have been one of my cousins getting married, but which specific cousin no longer forms part of the memory. The hugely promininent part of the memory, though, is the trick that one of the other guests performed for me. To date, this is the only time I've ever seen this trick and I've never read it in any magic book, which adds to its mythical proportions in my mind. The effect was this. He displayed both his hands palm upwards about a foot apart. On the palm of one hand was a single coin. Fairly and cleanly he turned his hands over, clenching them into fists. He paused for a moment, then opened his hands again. The coin had jumped to the other hand. This was my first experience of real magic.

I badgered him to show me again, and again, and eventually persuaded him to show me the method. And the method was just as intriguing and brilliant as the effect. It was clean and simple and elegant, and it's still the standard by which I judge all magic.

 

[Hagphantom15]

I was in 5th grade and my teacher asked me if I liked magic. I said yes and she brought me a shoe box full of a couple of magic books, rings, rope, a pen, and a quarter with a hole in it. I used the pen and quarter to preform a trick where i "stabbed" the pen through the quarter. I kinda stopped when i was in 6th and 7th grade. In the 8th grade a kid in my science class was going around showing magic tricks to people for the end of the year, I happened to be going to Texas to see family the next day so I spent hours learning card tricks on youtube from mismag822. I got so good at them my grandpa gave me a deck of cards which I used until they were just about useless. I got more cards, mostly blue and some I had from the past before 8th grade. I started to learn from Jarek 1:20 (still learn from him now) and a lot more magicians. But in 9th grade I found theory11 through youtube(Jarek 1:20). So I checked it out and I decided to order off the site. I liked it so much I had my mom buy me decks of cards from Target and Walmart and I even ordered a few cards off of here too. It was worth getting into magic because I love to see the expressions in people's faces when I preform magic, I love to mystify people and this was the way I could.

 

[Hagphantom15]

How I Started Magic

I was in 5th grade and my teacher asked me if I liked magic. I said yes and she brought me a shoe box full of a couple of magic books, rings, rope, a pen, and a quarter with a hole in it. I used the pen and quarter to preform a trick where i "stabbed" the pen through the quarter. I kinda stopped when i was in 6th and 7th grade. But in 9th grade I found theory11 through youtube. So I checked it out and I decided to order off the site. I liked it so much I had my mom buy me decks of cards from Target and Walmart and I even ordered a few cards off of here too. I then decided I wanted to continue with magic so I kept going.

 

[Darkraideons]

I was in 15 year old when I picked up magic. It wasn't through magic shops or family members (in Singapore,magic isn't really receiving much attention so it's something pretty uncommon),but through a classmate who brought a deck of bicycle deck to school (which was against school rules!) and he performed fundamentals such as colour changes and passes.
Curiosity led me to delve deeper into card magic,and then coin and so on.
That was 3 years ago and still enjoying performing to friends up to today.

 

[ArmanMagic]

Ok well as long as I could remember, I always had a magic kit. I remember always getting one for my birthday or for Christmas and I would always try to perform the magic. I never really saw true magic until my dad showed me a simple card trick when I was about 7. That trick fooled me really bad. I learned some simple card tricks and then I got out of it for awhile. A few years later I really saw magic when I saw David Blaine perform in his "Dive of Death" special. From then on I was hook.

 

[Keith55555]

A Lucky Kid

My first memories were of magic. My father gave me the 'Johnson Smith and Company, 2000 novelties' catalog. Believe it or not, they allowed you to pay with stamps then! My father would give me sheets of stamps (Not positive how he got so many stamps but let's say I think they were a gift of sorts *ehem*). My Grandfather was a barker at Coney Island and the magician in his show was Al Flosso. I met Al one day at Martinka. He showed me a trick (after I introduced myself as my Grandfather's Grandson), which to this day I have no idea how he did it. He was a great magician and a mensch. So magic was in our blood sort of.
I first sent away for a Zombie (it was styrofoam with a plastic cup). I was disappointed (not that The Zombie isn't a great effect). After many disappointments on 'how it was done' I decided I could 'do it better'.
Living in NYC, every weekend I was taken to Tannen's when it was on the 17th floor of the Loew's buiding in Time's Square. I remember tearing up when my father passed on buying me the Chinese Sticks one weekend; I got them the next weekend.
Once a teen, I would skip school and head to Tannen's or the table at the automat where the old timer magicians would assemble each week. I loved gimmicks and bought the German steel appearing cane as one of my first real investments ($25 was a lot to a 13 year old then).
Then at 15 I started producing my own stuff and my first effect that took off was "The Firefly". I hand made them and couldn't keep up with the demand. Later as an adult I was at an auction at The Magic Castle and someone was selling one of my originals as 'vintage magic'. Man did I feel old.
I delivered a Firefly to the stage door of the Broadway show, 'Merlin' with Doug Henning. He later called my house thanking me and praising the effect and my mother nonchalantly announced: "Keith...Doug Henning's on the phone".
I could go on forever.-Keith

 

[ii3randonmagic]

I absolutely love your story. I am dying to take a trip to New York just to visit the legendary Tannen's!