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Hi all,i was wondering as to improve on magic does anyone have any ideas to better themself,we all know its all practice again and again,but does anyone have a routine that makes themself perform better on nights out or infront of friends,i performed well when i last when out on the last manchester meet,and had a great time so its thanks to agecroft to arranging them,i think little meets like this improves your small routines greatly.but since iv tryed learn a few new tricks and have done badly,i see it must be a phase im going through,or magicians block lol.

Practise really does make perfect. Really.

When you want to do some magic practise, firstly decide what it is you're going to work on/learn. Once you've got that, don't sit and fiddle with cards doing things you already know, work on what you've decided to work on. Oh, and get a big mirror to work in front of.

Repeat the sleight/line/routine/whatever until you know it backwards, can do it in your sleep etc. Every single second of your routine should be almost a reflex because it's been so heavily rehearsed.

If you make a mistake, stop for a moment, identify what the mistake was, and work out how to avoid it again. That way you'll be less likely to do it again, and you won't learn bad habits.

When you think you're ready to perform an effect, don't. Give it a week, work on it some more, decide whether or not you're really happy with it. Then show it to someone you trust, maybe a fellow magician, maybe just a close friend, and ask them to critique it. What was good, what was c*** (not the best). It's important at this point to swallow your pride and listen to someone pointing out your flaws as a performer. It's not pleasant, but it'll do you the world of good.

Also, remember, practising for 10 minutes every night is far better than practising for an hour and a half once a week. Obviously, practising for MORE than ten minutes every night is even better...

Practise really does make perfect. Really

Balls, all it does is make you a robot...To polished...practice is for wimps lol

Serendipity wrote:When you think you're ready to perform an effect, don't. Give it a week, work on it some more, decide whether or not you're really happy with it. Then show it to someone you trust, maybe a fellow magician, maybe just a close friend, and ask them to critique it. What was good, what was c*** (not the best). It's important at this point to swallow your pride and listen to someone pointing out your flaws as a performer. It's not pleasant, but it'll do you the world of good.

I whole heartedly agree with that. I run everything past Mrs Grimshaw. She loves to point out when she can see through an effect, which makes it all the more wonderful when she can't.
Plus im always over eager to do a new effect on people, and when i go in head first it nearly always goes wrong, so leaving it another week at least before trying it is good advice.

Killaklownkris,

No better advice could be given to you, and others who think like you, that that given by the Greek philosopher Aristotle to the young Alexander the Great, who he was teaching.

Aristotle told him: "There is no royal road to learning."

Agree with the advice above (not Chris, obviously!), one thing I would add is: rehearse as well as practice. Even if you don't have any set lines you're going to use (and I thoroughly recommend having at least a few to hang the rest of your dialogue on, otherwise when you get in front of a crowd you may simply start mumbling), once you've practiced the sleights to a reasonable degree, go through the whole trick start to finish - do NOT stop, even if you mess up!

Then do it again, and again, and again.

If you always stop when something goes wrong, and if you just follow the trick through in your head without pretending you're doing it for someone (or actually doing it for a close friend), you won't be well prepared when things do go wrong, neither will you have a good idea of the pace or timing of the trick because you'll simply see it as a string of sleights.

I realised the massive importance of this on my first gig - I was excited, I had a load of material but when I was about to start I was so, so nervous, because I realised that whilst I had done loads of practice, I had never really performed any of these tricks. And, needless to say, some of them went wrong, and some of them didn't get the reaction they could have even if they went right, because I hadn't spent enough time rehearsing the routine as a whole, including the timing.

Filming yourself and forcing yourself to finish the routine each time is quite a good way to accomplish this, because the faff of starting again, sorting out the camera etc. lends the situation a bit more pressure. Just make sure you're not taking advantage of the single fixed angle the camera gives you.

I think that the best thing to do is to practice the trick as if you were performing it. Speak your lines out loud and imagine that there's someone there. If something does go wrong, don't just stop but carry on and see if you can get around it.

I also find that going over the routine in my head really helps if I can't actually practice it. I'm always jibbering to myself in the car, on the way to work going over my routines.

to all who made the effort for reading this,because they didnt need to read it or make the effort and there own time to help out.thanks again you lot.Some days you just fizzle and some days you explode,i like to look good all the time.and im going to take alot of that advice and remember it.......as already its starting to work.well back to the drawing board......theres a trick to be mastered!
kris