Magic Geek Blog

February 18th, 2010

This comment was left on our post for “What’s the Difference – Part 2″ by a customer named James:

Could you make a inspiring blog about how to be a good magician? Like talk about misdirection, practicing and being nervous when performing it would be totally awesome!! Thanks!

Thanks for the request James. Instead of answering the question with one giant post, I’d like to break it up into sections on Misdirection, Practice and Nerves. I also want to add a little disclaimer before I continue… I do not consider myself the best magician in the world. But I have had a lot of experience and I am writing this based on what I’ve learned over the years. I hope it serves you well and I hope that the brotherhood/sisterhood of magicians out there helps me elaborate on these posts with helpful comments.

Anyway, on to the concept of misdirection. This is a tool usually overlooked by new magicians, but as your magic matures, it will become a useful and exciting aspect in your magic.

Believing the Lie:
Okay, let’s say you’ve done a French Drop or Lapped a coin; at this point the audience should think that you are holding the coin in your left hand but, there’s nothing there. (Wink! Wink!) Most instructions will tell you that you are to look at your left hand. Let’s take it a step further. The audience is watching, hoping to figure you out; your only hope is to believe that the coin is there. Visualize it. “Feel” the weight of it.

Try doing the move, but actually take the coin. What does it feel like? What does it look like? How do you look at it? It’s a silly thing to do. Those are silly questions to ask yourself. But if you actually had a coin in your hand, you would be feeling those things, you would be seeing those things. Now try it without the coin and imagine it still being there.

Motivate the Move:
So you need to go to your pocket. Maybe you have to ditch something, maybe you need to load something. Either way, getting in and out of that pocket without getting noticed is going to be a hefty challenge without the right kind of misdirection. But, if you have a reason to go in there, nobody will care that you did it. Put away a marker while you steal out a coin; or dump something that you just vanished while you fish out your magic wand.

Let’s look at this tip from another angle: With most vanishes, you pick something up with your right hand and “put” it into your left hand. But, why did you do that? Is your left hand not capable of picking up its own props? Most mediocre magicians don’t think about this, but the good ones do. Try to find a reason for transferring stuff from hand to hand. Maybe your sponge ball is too far to the right for you to comfortably pick it up with the left; or make an example out of it by saying something like, “Now, I’ll take this one and you’ll take that one. I want you to hold yours like this.”

Eye Contact:
This one is all about timing and knowing your move. If you talk to your spectator and look at them in the eyes, they feel the overwhelming urge to reciprocate the eye contact. When your eyes connect, they won’t be looking at your hands.

Learn Names:
This is sort of an addition to the eye contact thing. If you learn someone’s name and address them by it, they are more likely to look you in the eyes. There is also a strange moment that happens when you first meet someone and use their name right away. It’s jarring at first and then totally relaxing. During that shift from “Hey, you don’t know me,” to “Yeah, that’s right, magic guy knows my name,” you can get away with all kinds of stuff.

Ask a Question:
This also fits under the eye contact section. If you ask a question and expect an answer, there will be a strange moment where they answer or wonder whether or not they are supposed to answer. Either way they will talk to you and most people look at the face of the person they are talking to.

Tell a Joke:
Comedy often works on the idea of creating tension and then releasing that tension. The release of tension is a fantastic source of misdirection. A lot of us use comedy and a lot of us use misdirection. But if you learn to weave the two together in your routine, both will start to work better. Timing when you need to distract your audience with your punch line is well worth the time you will spend scripting it out.