beginners road to magic

[charleychacko]

Bring your favorite gimmicked trick with you all the time

It’s always good to bring a gimmick or two with you where ever you go. Once you build a reputation, people will ask you to see a trick.

It’s always good to do a card trick, but a gimmicked trick really shows the impossible. Don’t bring a gimmick that is a lot of hassle or is brittle, bring something that resets quick, and packs small. Remember even small packs big!

I Always bring my invisible deck, or my disappearing card case. Something the size of a deck of cards is fine.

How Do You Make A Reputation

This is one of the biggest asked questions from beginner magicians. Here are several things that you need to do, to make a good rep.

1) Patients
Your not going to be known around school or the work place as a magician right away, you need to slowly build up.

If you show a couple of people a few amazing magic tricks, they will never forget that moment In there life. They will tell other people to come watch this amazing person, and those people will tell other people and so forth. Trust me on this, the word will spread fast. I am known all over school for this, just by showing a couple of friends some tricks. Just have some patients, and the pay off will come.

2)Promoting yourself
Some people do show their stuff to there friends, but nothing happened. If this does happen, which sometimes does, here is something you can do to help.

Put on some free shows at school, or at the work place. Make some posters, sure it may cost you one hundred or more dollars in printing ink, but you won’t get anywhere if there is no advertisement.

If your in school, talk to the principle, ask him to announce the show on the morning announcements.

By now you have spread the word a fair bit, and many people will show for your magic presentation.


Those people will bring there friends, and there friends will bring there’s. Don’t feel down on yourself if some people don’t come. The first show is more of a convincer for more people to come, the people who did go were amazed, and will come again to see this, just by pure interest in what you do, I assure you after that first show more people will come.

3) Know as many Impromptu Tricks as you can.

This is very important, find as many interesting and unique impromptu effects as you can. If you so happen to forget your deck of cards at home, you won’t need to worry. Its better to be prepared, then to be standing there in front of a large crowd, completely embarrassed. Trust me on this, this has happened to me several times when I had nothing with me when I first started magic.

If someone asks you to see a trick, you can do something totally impromptu, quick and easy and leave them hanging and wanting more.

4)Bring A Pack Of Cards With You Where Ever You Go
If you bring a pack of cards with you, you wont have to end up doing impromptu effects to save yourself. Im not saying that impromptu effect suck, you can do impromptu effects with cards, but I find that more set up tricks always have a better reaction. Call me crazy, but it just feels that more satisfying knowing you worked hard to set up the trick, and it paid off well.

5)Don’t Just Stick To Cards
Card Effects are my favorite, however I find people get bored with them after awhile. Also they start to think its just skill more then magic, and as a magician you want to try and keep that magic feel to your routine.

Mix you routine up with coins, rope, paperclips, rubber bands, everyday objects are really awesome for magic.

Many magicians, when first learning magic always start off with card magic. I might be wrong with this but I say 80 percent of them do. After three of four months of doing just straight card tricks, for me I felt bored with it, and I felt like it lacked something. I then picked up a great book which I recommend to you guys!

6) Mark Wilsons Full Course In MagicThis is a must buy for beginner magicians, Mark teaches you almost every kind of magic there is. Impromptu, Coins, Cards, Mentalism, Stage, Parlor, Kids shows, Rope, Reputation makers.
This book really helps you become a better magician, and turns that beginner into an amateur or even pro magician. Many of his tricks have inspired me to create my own similar effects, and with ought this book, I would still be back to cards, my audience dead asleep. You can get this book either online, or at Indigo, Chapters, or Coles.


7) Hawk Eyes
I Refer hark eyes to people who stare constantly at your hands, even when the biggest misdirection is made they still stare down, looking at your every move. Even when you talk to them to try and break their focus, they still don’t break it, and don’t give you the eye contact you in fact need.

Well my advice is, finish your trick there and walk away. Don’t try to do your best effect on him, its just a waste of magic, and it will make you look worse then you are at that point

I often find these type of people really ignorant and oblivious that they know how it’s done, but they think they know how its done and tell more people.

What I also find is that, he/she will get there friends, and the (hawk eye) will tell his/her friends to in fact watch your hands.

This has happened to me only a couple of times, however this does not make you feel good, especially if you try and show them what your made of, and still end up looking like a loser. Just walk away and save it.

8)Know when to stop

Learn from my Mistakes guys please, know when to stop. What happened to me when I first started magic, everyone was having a good time, everyone was freaking out, and I wanted to keep freaking them out more, I wanted more. However there are several problems.. Here they are

1)They Eventually Are Going To Get Board!

No matter how strong your magic is, after awhile there attention spans get less and less, and no instead of freaking out, they just go...oh...cool..I liked that other trick you showed me, with the aces, that was a better trick.

2)You will Run out of tricks to show
You will show so many tricks to them, you have basically showed them all of your tricks, every single one, so what now?

That’s the problem, you never want them to ask you that.

I don’t know how many nights I have been up late, trying to learn new tricks, and showing them only a half ass trick, when I know if practiced well, it will make it even stronger, and you have almost no chance of messing up.

Trust me, if you blow them away with just one of your simplest tricks, stop while they are freaking out, then you can blow them away some other time, and in fact show them that you really are a magician.



Have A well Thought of routine:
Trust me on this, have a routine that you do all the time. Stick to it, and if you are doing magic for people who have seen your routine, show them some simple impromptu tricks, with everyday objects.

I say have a routine with Nine Tricks, a lot of people say ten But I will tell you why. The first three tricks are to get the audience warmed up, then the second half of the show focuses on more of a mentalist feel, and end three tricks are your best mind blowing tricks you perform.

You don’t have to have any mentalism tricks, this is just the feel I have in my show. You can add any feel that you want, but it must have simple, impressive, mind blowing. Don’t go to slow, you don’t want to bore them either, have tricks with comedy to make the audience relax. You don’t want the show to end up being awkward.

Stick to this routine until it gets boring for you, once you have mastered them and know them on the back of your hand, Learn some new tricks, toss away some old ones that you no longer want. Once you have new tricks, master that routine and repeat it over and over again.

Respect other magicians
There will be many magicians you come across that you do not like, even though they are a cheap rip off of famous magicians, you still have to respect the fact that they put there but on the line to entertain.

There are several magicians who I know that I do not like, but I still respect there style and there way of doing magic.

Like the old saying goes, to get respect you have to show it first.

Getting Feedback
I don’t know how many people get offended when someone tells the creator of the effect, that the effect wasn’t that good.

When you ask for feedback, you better be prepared to hear the good comments, and the bad. Take the good with the bad, take the bad comments and improve them in your trick. It sometimes may seem harsh, however in order to be a successful magician, you have to hear lots of harsh comments to help you get out there.

Read as many magic books as you can

Go to the library and take out as many magic books as you can, study many famous magicians. In order to be a magician, you have to know a lot about your field of work. Study the greats of magic, Harry Houdini, Robert Houdin( sorry if I spelled that wrong), Di Vernon, etc..

It will open up your views to magic, and it just makes you more passionate in what you do. A lot of history is envoled with magic, many fascinating stories involving magic can help you create your own stories to your tricks, or even inspire you to create your own effects.


Be yourself when performing

So many new people who start out with magic, try to be like David Blaine or Criss angel. I even admit to wanting to be like David Blaine.

In fact I wanted to be so much like Blaine, I did his famous stare, and if you’re not Blaine this does not turn out to well, in fact when I did it, I looked like a guy who just escaped from a insane asylum.

David Blaine did something original and because of it many people wanted to be like him. That’s because he was original.

How do you do that, be yourself.

I can’t stress that enough, no one is more original then you. When you do your magic, be yourself, no one is like you, and that is what really makes you interesting.


Practice Practice Practice

Practice, I can’t say that enough practice as much as you can. If you practice, it slims down the scenario of messing up.

Never perform a trick that you just learned the night before, I have done this and more then once have I messed up because of it, please trust me on this, practice until you have mastered it, and can do it in your sleep.

You ask any Magician, what’s the most important thing in learning a new trick, they will tell you its practice. If they don’t say that, they should not be involved with magic.

Practice as much as you can, until you feel comfortable on performing it. First show it to your family, then a friend, then build up the confidence.

Never Admit To Messing Up

If you mess up infront of a live crowd, why admit to messing up while you can act like it was part of the show. Lead it right into another trick, after you have been in magic for a couple of months, you learn some effects specially designed for messing up. My favorite being Jay Sankeys Back In Time Effect.


Here are some simple things you can say, if you do not have any tricks to fall back on.

I swear it worked in the magic shop

It’s so quiet in here you can hear a career drop

This is the first time I messed it up, again

Ladies and gentlemen the real magician will know be here shortly

Making fun of yourself relaxes the audience, and opens them up even more, and because of that they respect you for at least trying. So don’t get upset if you mess up, just laugh it off, and im guaranteed everyone will have a fun time.