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Some very thoughtful lessons in magic


The Three M's of Magic

When you perform there are three things that you must understand.

(1) Misdirection

This is possibly the most important skill you can utilise with magic. This is the ability of making the audience look where you want them to look and sense what you want them to sense. Do not look at where the action is occurring, only where the action is supposed to be taking place. For example, if you want the audience to think that you are holding a sponge ball in your left hand, you must look at your hand and act as if there really was a sponge ball there. If you act as though you believe, your audience are more likely to believe in what you are doing too. You can also use misdirection to draw attention away from an area. Look at where the magic is supposed to be happening and the audience will look there too.

Keep your actions as normal and as unaffected as possible. To be convincing you must act as if what you are doing is completely normal. Study how your hands move when you transfer a coin from hand to hand and then repeat the same moves precisely as you perform the appropriate sleight.

Patter (the words that you use) not only interest and relax an audience, they can also be used to make the audience take more attention of you and less of your hands. Identity the times in your act that you are more prone to unwanted attention and use misdirection to diminish the risks.

(2) Motivation

This is the skill in deceiving your audience to believe that you are not doing anything suspicious at the very time that you really are. If you put your hand in your pocket to ditch a coin, the suspicions of the audience will be enhanced - but if you put your hand in your pocket to remove a wand then there will be a logical reason for your actions and so you can use this action to ditch a coin without arousing additional suspicion. When there is a need to perform a suspicious move, find an excuse for performing that very manoeuvre using your normal body actions.

(3) Moment

During any routine there are two important moments; the instant that the magic seems to have taken place and the instant that the magic actually did take place. Your objective is to increase the period between these two times so that potential suspicions can be allayed and that the magic can have a greater impact. You can convince the audience that the magic has taken place at any particular moment by clicking your fingers, waving a wand or chanting an appropriate phrase. Choose your time to do this carefully so that you can draw their attention away from the instant that you actually secretly did the trick some time before.

Researched from a selection of material including "The Magic Book" (2002), "The Exciting World of Magic (date unknown), "Collins Card Tricks" (1996), "That's Magic" (2001), "Magic Tricks" (1999), "Easy Magic Tricks" (1994) and "Simply Magic" (2000)