talkmagic.co.uk

I must agree with the comments of Mark Smith...if you wanna read them scroll up...

It's very useful for practicing sleights. Things such as the pass have been painstakingly tested in my mirror. My reasoning? Well you shouldn't be watching your hands whilst doing a pass or {insert sleight here}. If it can be beneficial to misdirect with your eyes - whatever the sleight - then you should practice in a mirror where you aren't looking directly at your hands (only the reflection showing speccies POV...then move on to doing it without looking at alll...then make the final transition to trying it on spectators. I consider it a progressive model for learning sleights.

I also agree that tricks should be done without a mirror though. The sleights involved should already be mastered through learning in a mirror and doing comfortably without looking for you to try and piece a routine together and try it on some speccies.

Well thanks again to everyone for contibuting to this thread, judging by the poll, mirrors are to be used. so just to recap, use a mirror for practicing slights, but not nessiseraly for tricks.

I think I will start using the mirror for practicing card/coin slights, then video myself performing the trick/effect.

ONE good reason for using mirror is easy - it's much better to reveal yourself infront of a mirror than being revealed by your audience, because of bad angles etc. ONE reason strong enough to have you practice infront of a mirror.

I could have been SURE I posted in this thread... Guess I wasn't sure enough.

Anyhoo... I'd say use a video camera! It's can be adjusted to the spectators point of view. Also, you don't have to constantly look at the mirror. You can record it and then play it back to see where you went wrong and maybe you'll find a better way of doing the trick/sleight!

Different viewpoint from me

When I learn a new trick/sleight I practice it until I can do it in my sleep. I then practice it until I can do it after half a dozen or more whiskeys late at night. Then I take it to the mirror.

I do it full face on, then a bit to the left and a bit to the right, then a bit more to both sides till I'm almost looking over my shoulders. Why, because I learn all the angles anything can be seen.

When I was interviewed recently for a newspaper article I was asked if people ever caught me out. They used to do, but they don't nowadays, because I put the effort in.

Also, mirrors stop you looking at your hands. Yes, you are still looking at your hands, but not directly. That makes it easier to look at the spectators when you perform live.

Missdirection is all about body language. You look at your hands and the spectators will too. You look at your spectators faces and they will look at your face.

Don't ever minimise the power of the mirror in learning your art. Its as strong a tool as any gadget/gimmick

Tenko wrote:I then practice it until I can do it after half a dozen or more whiskeys late at night

Bottles or measures?! l

Well I went and purchased a full length mirror today for £20 so it's loads of practice in store for me.

Practicing in front of a mirror is NEVER a bad idea. But i do believe video taping is better

Yeah video taping is good for judging your pace. It's hard to tell how fast or slow you are performing while you are doing it...

Mirrors are for me very essential to get the natural hand positions and the right posture as well as to see if the trick works. Use the mirrors to practice how you act and move as well as how you perform a trick and you will not have the problem with getting stuck in focus points and reviling eye moments.

Some of you are right, some are half right , some are wrong. You sort out which.
1. The mirror does NOT give you what the spectators see. ONLY what ONE spectator sees IF he is directly in front of you ie. as the mirror.
2. Remember the mirror reflects your handling AS you see it from your point of view.
3. Watching in a mirror CAN cause your concentration to waver and can throw timing out. It can be a bit like the old, 'signalling the move'idea, if you are not careful.
Years and years ago in the ballet studio we had to CHECK movements in the huge mirrors but they were never the same when performed on the practice floor or in performance. Keeping in strict time to the music , performance adrenalin etc. often altered things; then there was interpretation etc.
4. A camcorder can be useful BUT the lense is a fixed eye and only sees the handling from ONE viewpoint and it is a viewpoint that cannot be misdirected.
5. SO learn the moves, learn the handling THEN use the mirror sparingly simply to CHECK.
6. There is a THREE sided mirror available to check angles BUT surely you could make one of these.This is simply 3 mirrors hinged together.
Magic is a SOLITARY Art. We rehearse ALONE. Why?: This is where Mini Mind Freak is 100% right about working it in front of a friend.
So, AFTER you've learned the moves, the handling and DEVELOPED some sort of routine rehearse in front of a trusted friend.
PREFERABLY NOT a magician (there is the odd exception) He will almost certainly say "But I do it this way " etc. YOU are NOT him. Find someone whose work you respect and trust and preferably someone with theatrical experience.
7. AFTER you have the routine polished and smooth, rehearse it in THE CLOTHES, EVEN THE SHOES, you will wear when performing, live. This will save much heartache, mistakes etc.Pocket , sleeve& arm hole sizes vary. Some shoes are more comfortable than others.
Being clever is not necessarily being good.
You do NOT necessarily need all the sleight of hand techniques in the world BUT if you are performing to others; an audience of 1 or 2 or 1002, adults or children, stage, cabaret, stand up,or close up, you do need theatre's techniques to PERFORM the stuff not just dem. it like MOST of those who instantly respond to the 'Show Us A Trick Brigade'.
Allen Tipton

Thank you all for your comments and thoughts on this subject, I have read some very interesting points in this thread and will try to take them all on board.

I don't like using the mirror as everything is reversed and I just mess up a lot.

Otherwise, the good thing about using a mirror is you can see where you're going wrong. Or get used to angles and such. ETC ETC.

Does anyone else become almost dependent on a mirror to pull off a move? It sounds ridiculous, but when practicing a move, because I am so used to seeing the reflection, which is specifically seeing what a spectator would see, without a mirror the move looks unusual.

Recently bought two DVDs with the aim of cherry picking the best elements to create a chop routine, one DVD involved doing the (overlooked but actually very effective) French drop, doing a fake take, but because when performing what you see is in fact an exposed view, as the mirror reflection is instant feedback, I found myself wanting to know how it would have looked from a spectator's point of view. I felt comfortable performing and seeing the mirror reflection, but uncertain when looking away from the mirror, which ultimately is a real world performance requirement. Also, it was hard to judge whether the fake take looked convincing without a mirror. The move was important as the routine involved doing the fake take as misdirection to place a ball on top of the chop cup, requiring a real transfer twice and then the fake take on the third time to condition a spectator that a ball would always go into the hand, but I felt this took up too much routine time, so opted to do the fake take once - hence why it had to be spot on. Incidentally I often performed tricks in the past with little practice, but felt this effect deserved a degree of reverence.

I found that when doing it without looking in the mirror there was a brief hesitation as I felt the need to look at the dirty hand to see that the ball was fully covered so as to signal the moment the supposed transfer would take place, and those milliseconds telegraphed my magician's guilt and was enough to create doubt that the fake take was convincing enough.

After spending considerable time repeating a real transfer in the mirror, I realised that there is the briefest touch of both sets of fingertips during the real transfer, and making this connection it now meant associating that sense of touch as the cue to effect the simultaneous transfer. In reality, whilst we are taught as magicians to always use your line of sight to draw your spectators to a particular place, a real transfer would only involve a dart of one's eyes, and you wouldn't really have to look down at your hand to transfer object to object. I found that making this connection allowed me to exactly replicate a real transfer down to the minutest of subtleties, which you could try next time you learn or revisit a move.

I prefer to record myself so I don't look at the reflection but still have the feedback.