talkmagic.co.uk

I would Strongly advise getting the royal road to card magic its a great book to read there are also loads of other ways to through off the crowd from a scent as you should know don't run if your not being chased, what I mean by that is if you try to hide every little thing and go to indepth on doing so you will draw more attention to stuff.

TLS

Kryzal wrote: What are you delivering when you perform? A trick, an illusion or magic?

This question and the comment by bmat actually gave me some extremely useful ideas, so I graciously thank the both of you. I was thinking of a routine as trick leading into a trick, finnishing with a bigger trick.

I think ive been working under a false pretense that the trick is the magic, not just a means of creating the magic. I guess watching a magic trick for someone who is not overly interested in magic itself is pretty much like watching a fancy puzzle being solved. If I had some kind of narrative to it, it will be more like watching actual magic, taking their minds off the fact I've just learned a very fancy way of playing cards.

Thanks for the insight people!

Young man. Thank you for acknowledgement of my comment. Iam pleased it helped you to think further - such is the aim of my messages even if (or maybe because) they are cryptic. I wish you well. You have already shown great promise in that you are prepared to think more laterally. For those without your perception I will (and this is rare for Kryzal) make it clear - perform magic; do not "do tricks" if you wish to succeed. Much love. Kryzal x

IAIN wrote:they're your family and friends, the most difficult of all crowds...

Yep....

And I always like the "ohh...if you liked that one then you will love this one..." and then move into another trick.

Why?
Didn't I do it right the 1st time?
Great advice
I do feel that no matter how good your "routine" is, if there is an opportunity for the peopel to saysomething, you will get asked to "do it again!"
Have a plan. Assume it will happen and be ready.

Ah friends and family.

It is their relationship that makes them feel entitled to you sharing more of your art / knowledge.

This is the same method you can use to make them back off.

I typically use the, "Hey now respect the craft enjoy it for what it is." that tends to stop most of my friends.

If that fails I revert to, "I didn't realize you were so focused on this sort of thing I guess in the future I'll remember that." with the implied threat of never showing them anything again

Tho yes listen to the pro's your using your friends as stand in's for you to practice on. You really need to use them to practice performing on.

Lucky for me most of what I do is hypnotism (This mentalist c*** (not the best) is hard yo). So I can reproduce it

--Infy

I have adopted a new approach and tell them the my made up reason for a mentalist trick, I did a recent prediction of the headline in the Sun newspaper a week before for the lads at work had the prediction put into a small tin and locked only I had the key another guy kept the tin on his desk.

They asked how it was done I replied it is really hard and takes alot of time, I explained to him I see your getting a cigarette out and I can predict in a few seconds you will be smoking that cigarette, How I did that was I had to read the previous papers and from past events work out by making smaller predictions over a long period of time you could end up making a bigger prediction a few weeks down the line.

They all bought into this and now think I am some kind of Miracle worker.

TLS

If you do effects such as Kolossal Killer, or anything using envelopes, they won't ask you to do it again, because they already know what the climax is.

Whenever I'm asked to 'do it again' I just say something along the lines of "No, but I'll tell you what I'll do something even better" and just go straight into another effect (it's not waiting for their approval, merely a segway and they'll have forgotten about the previous effect pretty quickly). However, of course the underlying problem here is that you're performing for family, who as many have said (and I agree with) are the worst audience to perform to. Eventually, you could just stop performing for them and practice in front of a different group of mates?

I used - "but if I did that may spoil the illusion" when my mum kept bugging me when I first started... then I learned the ambitious Card routine.

Lost the card in the middle and then bought it to the top. "do it again" "OK" and kept repeating it with a different revelation each time

Hope that may help slightly

JJ