Just to share a story with you guys.


Walked past a magic shop in town last week. Out of curiosity and dying of boredom, I decided to go in and inquried about the magic courses they were advertising.

To cut the story short, I was totally unimpressed by the “master magician”. Not that he was bad, but he wasn’t particularly good either, as least not as ”masterful” as he marketed himself to be. Honestly, I tried my very best to watch his effects with the eyes of a layperson, but even that, his techniques were full of obvious flaws.

And he certainly didn’t strike me as somebody who might be qualified to teach something like ”seduction magic” (promises to get you the gals with magic).

But the real story wasn’t about what transpired in the shop, but after I stepped out of it.

A school boy (apparent from his smart white school uniform, and ankle length pants), ”ambushed” me outside and asked me if I was going to take the courses. I replied no.

To cut the story short again, he told me it was not worth paying money to the shop to learn magic and advised me to get my magic education, free, from a certain video-sharing website on the internet. The funny thing was, I recognised him as one of the customers in the shop with me just now. (with customers like this, is it any wonder we are having global financial problems ?)

Out of curiosity, I asked him to show me some of the effects he picked up from the website. He responded with a series of “flourishy” cuts, totally unrelated to any magic effect, assuming I would be suitably impressed by the display of dexterity and skill. I was not.

Determined for some magic, I requested again to see a magic effect. After a moment of hesitation, he proceeded to performed series of “pick-a-card-n-I-will-find-it” tricks (peppered with fancy flourishes of course). After the third repetition, I was all ready to snatch the cards away from his hands and performed a card to face, but thank God, I managed to keep my murderous feeling in check.

It was no so much about his (lack of) technical skills, but rather the way he showed the tricks and his explanations that came along with it. Eg: After correctly picking out my chosen card, he went on to tell me how he “forced” it upon me. Apparently, not satisfied with sharing only that little piece of info, he continued with a mini- lecture on controls, lifts and forces that lasted for about 10 minutes

I almost fainted…. (remember, I was supposed to be a layperson).

This is what happen when you tried to save that few dollars to learn from videos produced by people who couldn’t even perform "live" a simple trick to save their skins.

You have indeed met a "Dan & Dave inspired" kid, I must say. Haha!

Furthermore, he certainly had the courage to tell you so much things despite you being a total stranger to him. xD

Whoa! That guy really is brave. I actually wished you shown him a MIND-BLOWING trick to stop him. Very scary to get 'ambushed' too. And lecturing someone older then him? Freaky. :blink:

I seriously think that there is nothing wrong with the boy performing tricks that is full of flourishes or just performing flourishes. That is his style.And even if he has any issue, or anyone has any problems with the way they do magic or the tricks they choose, and if anyone looked like a total beginner at doing magic, then it would be nice for the seniors to advice, or else how do people know where they go wrong? And it is definetely worth praising that the boy could be so expressive in front of stranger

And i don't think it is wrong to learn magic online, however ,whether to perform the trick learned or do the way it is done , it must be considered.

[Don't misunderstand my point, i did not say that i support learning from online,I merely stating there is nothing wrong learning magic online]

And it is certainly not just a few dollars to learn magic so-called officially, it took me along time to save up to buy even a twenty dollar magic trick book, and it was royal road to card magic, by the way.Plus not all paid materials are better than what you learn online, but i have to admit, i learnt better with books and a bit of guidiance from people.

Lastly, if anything i wrote is offending or seems wrong in my post, do drop me a pm, but don't blast me okay :lol: . Above was just my opinion.

Axl, was this student trying to be helpful or was he trying to be a show-off?
Eg. look at how much I know, aren't you impressed?

Kser,

There's nothing wrong with the boy performing sh*tty tricks. The problem is not the style, it is not the 'expressiveness' of the boy either.

The problem is that this little schmuck thinks that he is fit to give away secrets he barely understands. I suspect that he does this because he likes to feel smart by showing off how much he knows versus a layperson.

To put it simply and bluntly, he is a socially maladjusted twit playing with secrets he has no right to handle.

I hope you do not follow his example, as it actually is far more prevalent among beginner magicians than we all care to admit.

muscleaxl,

Regarding THAT magic shop, never have I heard a larger pile of bulls**t than from them. Like you, one of my hobbies is going into magic shops and pretending to be a 'layperson'. Mostly makes for very amusing times.

I talked to the 'NLP expert' who was bragging on and on about all the women he had bedded. All done with 'magic suggestion techniques'. The guy looked like a truck ran his face over and his color co-ordination, for lack of a better term, CMI.

If he is really telling the truth and he bedded as many women as Tiger Woods, then I'm Batman.

Well, flourishes aren't magic tricks.

I've reflected on both flourishes and tricks before.
Sometimes they do complement well but most of the time they don't.
I've restricted myself to only flashy productions of cards and do away with those fancy cuts or fancy false cuts.
You do not want flourish to overshadow your magic if not people will attribute the effects to quickness of the hand or even that you are just showing off how clever you can handle a deck of cards, no magic at all.


I do not doubt that there are great online magic sources that teach good and interactive magic as occassional entertaining to friends and icebreakers. But many others are just hideous.
You can pick up a few simple misc. tricks from good online sources but you don't want to end up thinking that magic can be free.

Finally, yes. Not all paid materials are good thanks to those people who prostitute the art. What you want is to find out about the material you want to buy and read all reviews you can find. That way you don't end up paying money for the wrong things.

Hmm... Matt really got my point.

To Kser: Maybe I didn't make myself too clear with the story.

Nothing wrong with flourishes, really. I always secretly wish I could do that as well.

What I wanted to point out was how after performing every effect, he would go on to tell me HOW he did them. Within 10 minutes, he had went through a few lessons on forces, cuts and controls.... all the time knowing I am a "layperson".

I can't be 100% sure, but I think he didn't feel a thing giving away those secrets because he didn't pay a dime for it also, learning them online.

And like what Matt said, the only way these people, who are fed on the diet of online magic tutorials, can derive satisfaction from is have the delusion that they are good enough to teach others.... much like those who like to post their sub-standard tutorials online.



To Jlow: Ironically, I think he was really trying to be helpful. But he was doing it wrong.

The flourish debate has already been done to death. Read more here:

http://forums.singaporemagiccircle.com/ind...wtopic=8861&hl=

There's frankly nothing else to add.

Also,

I disagree. The post I quoted previously has reference to an article by Darwin Ortiz. I highly recommend you try to find the article in its entirety, he deals with this very issue there.

Actually, i learn a few tricks from Sankey's website which has a free trick every week. But from what you say, I think he relied on online free magic too much.

And not to offend Kser here but magic is a very expensive hobby i guess. And doing too much flourishes might just bore the spectator seeing cards fanned and fanned again.

And i guess the guy is a layperson with good fingers bragging to his friends about how he does tricks and expose them. These kind of guys make me annoyed.
:angry:

To blue mode:I agree it is an expensive hobby, but it is not possible for students like me to buy many books/dvds that cause twenty dollar plus plus and plusto learn more tricks. And futhermore, i didnt know some of the tricks existed until i stumbled onto them on the internert, when i was bored doing web surfing. I confess i learnt few tricks from youtube, but later forgotten them, or was being guided by someone later on or improve it until my friends says i am great with the trick.

And i don't think it is healthy to think magic is about keep buying more expensive props/dvd/books to perform/learn, it is about choosing right material [which i constantly require help] and your own showmanship


And it really depends on how the boy present his flourishes, if the boy claim his flourishes as magic, then i admit it would turn boring, but if he package into something that make him look real skillful, then alot of people[at least people like my classmate] would be amaze, although it sort of sad that the boy could only did a Is this your card?[ITYC] trick,unless of course his mind went blank on tricks to perform.


And by the way, i think the boy is really being helpful cause he had heard axl wanting to take the course from the magic shop[which of course he really didn't want to] , so with a kind heart he explain magic tricks that he had learn to someone that he thinks is interested too[ therefore ending with a ten minute lecture]. I think it is certainly not nice scolding him, he might not be as arrogant/ so-called laymanish, because he thought Axl is really a beginner who want to start learning.

:off: Axl, are you the guy who show me the two card monte? It was really nice and i sort of learn alot from the way you show the trick to me. Just wanted to say thanks if it was you.

Eh... yes, it was me. That is the only trick I can do, by the way. :P

Anyway, to be fair to that school boy...

- No, he wasn't arrogant.
- No, nothing wrong with his flourishings. It was ok standard.
- No, I wasn't pissed because he included flourishings in his tricks.
- Yes, I do believe he was really trying to be helpful.

It is just that he didn't think twice to pass on the secret to supposedly layperson.

My gripe with people learning online is the people who posted those clips are, more often than not, not qualified to teach and could really spoil a otherwise good trick.

Also, it gives people the impression that magic secrets are free for all.

Sorry about that. Oh! And Kser, i too am a student so i know how it is to be moneyless. But i make use of the tricks i learnt and try to make it as best as possible.

And sorry to muscleaxl. I must have misinterpreted you and thought the boy was a show-off. :(

I have invested in mostly card-related DVDs and the Card College series. Over 2 years, I have only learnt a few card effects, but I have improved the handling of them to suit my liking. I think that free magic videos online kills the creativity of wanna-be magicians. They do not adapt the script/handling to their own style. For example, recently I came up with a method to do an impromptu version of 'Simple Triumph' and I'm still improving on it.

There may be many future magicians who learn their tricks for free online and aren't good at performing/presentation. However, I am optimistic that several of these magicians will make great contributions to the magic society in the future, be it sleights, tricks, gimmicks etc. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

I feel that it is not the online magic video kills the creativity, i could also imitate the DVD's magicians perfomance or just blindly follow the books' suggested patter.

The problem lies at the attitude of learning magic, most people learn just for the sake of performing the effect, instead of trying to find ways to entertain with the effect.[i got lots of problems with this]. Thats why they don't understand how hard it is to actually learn how to perform the tricks

I have a friend who attend the course.

Apparently he paid $250 bucks for very basic sleight of hand card tricks (Mind you he wasn't taught how to do a DL nor was he thought a control).
And much to my suprise, he said that there are many others like him, working adults who are taking up such lessons.

I didn't ask too much about his experience there. It lasted for 2 hours and they mentioned that you are welcomed to come back as many times as you want to recap on what was taught within that 2 hours.

I may be going a little out of point here, but sometimes I think to myself, that it doesn't matter if you learnt your tricks online or learnt it for free. In the end, nothing will make you a good performer till you gain experience or valuable lessons from fellow magicians. And in the end there are only so few good magicians around. :(

I felt that it should be: In the end, nothing will make you a good performer till you gain experience or valuable lessons from good and nice fellow magicians that are not out there to cheat your money to teach you or guide you

Thanks for the correction kser.

One can also be a good performer by watching others perform and learn from them(good and bad points). You don't necessary need someone to teach or guide you.

I am quite sure there are many seniors in the magic circle who are more than willing to share their tips and handlings on certain effects and move

but only if you have already done the practise and put in the effort yourself.

Woah! $250!

Not worth it for not even complete teaching of basic.
Then maybe even after the lesson. They will prompt you to continue learning advanced magic and buy $50++ DVD. :(

Gosh. I agree. with what LoyaLover says.
Cause...no matter how good the magic is, the presentation will ruin/make it success.

Like how my experience with the uncle at Funan IT Mall, he present with insults.

I was told by a mentor that to better myself, I need to go out there to mix around with the layman, ie performing out in the streets impromptu. You'll get all sorts of funny people with different reactions.

Some performances could end the way you want, some do not, just move on and learn from there.

Interestingly, before I actually perform, I will do a trial for my close group of friends, who are really fantastic. They will watch my performance, and depending on their reactions that day, they will pose certain questions to "test" me. And when the trick ends, they will give positive or constructive critiques. For that, I think I am blessed to have such supportive friends.

And of course, if I master something new, they'll be the first to enjoy or critique it.

And at the end of the day, be humble and have an open heart to comments. :)