I don't know what did I do wrong.. sometimes when I'm performing for friends, they seems to be able to see all my moves.. maybe not all.. :( how confident you think one should be when showing card routine??

lack practice? maybe u can prac in front of the mirror everyday.. till u are able to close ur eyes and perform.. thats the level u must be .. furthermore.. u do not jus prac blindly(lol), must think while u prac..and improve

yes , talking bull shit and making them laugh is GREAT for misdirection ,

or if u hae a digital camera , u can record at the position where you think your spectators eye levels will be , there you will know the proper angles to perform it at ^_^

Magic isn't all about practice, it's about showmanship. If you want to let your audience realise that it's an magic effect, first thing of all is believe what you are doing is magic and not a TRICK.

Why Spectator can spot moves is due to Natural movement and Non Natural movement, for instance a fake Winder does a Muscle P**s with his right hand but the real Winder does a Muscle P**s with his Left and only his left cause his right is pretty useless in magic. Hahaha ~.

So to a spectator it becomes Spot the difference, try to be natural, try to make use of angles and misdirection. It's not JUST practice, but rely on your surrounding to accomplish an effect, if you think performing is a little boring, get more people to participate in the magic. Make them feel that you are not threatening them with your this Magic Ability of yours.

Over confident will only get you into more mistake, happens to me only once. Since then i believe natural and the correct level of confidence will be the right medicine. :)

Hope my 2 cents worth will help you in the road of magic.
Hope you get what i mean ~

Just seems funny, stuff that I'm able to do in front of the mirror always fails when I try to show others.. :wacko: then the funny part is that I can see all the moves myself.. ahhh.. I'm not believing in my moves cuz i know how i did it and i can see it~!! going to go crzay... :!!:

SOrry.. just need to rant a little... shout out my thoughts.. :(

At least u can see urself is better than ur audience see everythign u see nthg, wow. Practice man, make sure u can do everything well b4 u show it to people. :D

For me, try out the tricks with real audience (your close friends or family) 1st, till you are comfortable and confident enough. Then perform to others. It sort of helps for me. Try that out...

- Ling. ;)

I did a couple of card effects for a bunch of young kids just now, one of them knew some basic techniques and was trying to expose me. So i just like fooled around with them and let them guess whether i did or did not p**m the cards. Or did i do a DL and stuff. It worked. After awhile, they were confused and the effects were delivered with the impact i had in mind :)

Cool!

Well, I actually walked up to 2 complete strangers just now at Tampiness Mall, and did a ACR. Haha, I don't know why i have such courage suddenly... Insanity... But it's FUN! :D The so-called Street Magic!

- Ling.

Same problem... How come I can see all the move I do in the mirror.... errmmm...

I always practice and try to can the angle to a position where others will not see.... but when I practise without looking at own hand or show to my mum... she is like... ermmm... I saw everything u do...

Mum: Aiyooo ah boy mai waste money lah... spend so much money on poker card... The money can buy lotsa 4D leh.. <_<

Hmm... how would i say this ... Just keep direct eye contact with your audience all the time, don't try to really STARE hard at your card to think if you are going to commit another mistake. The more you stare, the more nervous you become, the more mistake you will make.

HAHA! Your mum sounds so comical :P Is she a stand up comedian or something? :P Justin kidding just kidding...

:lol: My mum always ka jiao me one lah...
:g:

LoL, your mum sounds so fun!

First the right amount of practice needed..

Second perfroming in mirrior and real life is different so you must know try it out.. or find a friend that into magic to help you out on your angles and stuff..

Third when perfroming perfroming with confident and openly...

Fourth showmanship and the way you interact with your spec is really important..

Last never tell how the trick is done in the end..

:D

hehe i love doin tat too.. but i thought the correct label for this is strolling magic?

strolling magic?

well i suck and all, but i've never heard of it.

well dun worry .. u dun suck.. but the correct term is strolling magic while street magic is something like setting a table on the street performing.. ppl often mistook street magic as strolling magic becos of david blaine's tv special "street magic'

strolling magic.. cool i din noe that till now

It's quite similar. Strolling or street. Basically you're doing magic in public, table or not.

Anyway, good for you Ling! Anyway, some chaps'll know that I did some walkabout magic in some canteens in Uni to raise funds for The Disabled People's Association . Walkabout! It was great fun! Some good money too, but that's not the point. Great fun!

rknights, i can list down some possible causes for ur problems, pls look and decide for urself which are the causes:

1. Lack of Practice
-Poor execution
-Poor angles
-Looks unnatural and suspicious
2. Lack of motivation (due to poor flow in the routine, doing a step which seems unneccesary to the audience. could be due to looking at methods instead of effect and presentation)
-Unnatural and suspicious
3. Lack of confidence (could due to 1, or lack of experience)
-Unnatural and suspicious (fumbling perhaps?)
-Could cause poor execution and poor angles
4. Poor Presentation (due to making magic look like a challenge instead of joining in the magical experience with them)
-People watch out even more and are skeptical (although one might turn this to his benefit)
-Poor angles (some performers dont care u see...)

My advice:

1. Practice well in front of mirror/camera whatever, perfect a sleight and watch ur angles.
2. Be Natural. Make sure ur sleight is fundamentally motivated and looks natural. Whats the most natural way of showing a card? Are ur DLs anywhere close? Not just sleights, but ensure that the entire routine is motivated and psychologically pleasing to the audience.
3. Once u can master the above 2, go for presentation. make magic fun and entertaining, and no1 will have a reason to try and 'catch' u and spoil their own fun. good presentation can also aid in 2.


Good luck in ur magic! relax and have fun as well!

be confident, but not over-confident, which might cause one to over-look certain details or even appear arrogant.

Yea, you should focus on presentation as much as your sleight.

I think perhaps the reason your spectator always catches you is becos you dont have a strong presentation, so it may look like a 'catch me if you can' trick. So they burn (stare hard) at your hands.

I'm sure there are some effects where you are good at and some not so good at yea? So what i suggest is that, when you are performing, try to integrate your newer stuff (or stuffs you dont feel too safe with) in between some strong effects. This way, even if you flash (i hope not) they would still remember the strong effects. This way you can practise it for real audience. But be sure your sleights are strong and natural before doing it to them.

i am noob correct me if i'm wrong...
i seldom perform magic,
every time wad i do is just triumph,acr or trick switch, palming thingy, and now my fav is the kids kard(as a replacement of my svengali)
i try to do card magic which is hard to see thru, then can say "i dun know how it was done, u know?"
just found out laymen prefer gimmick decks, wad they want is to see miracle, not just remember this remember that and remember nothing when u finish the trick.if they know u are goin to perform using ur skills,they would try to be funny and try to expose u, not to prove that he is clever, but he is not stupid

prove him wrong, ok? :g:

If you had a better command of writing english, I would have understood your post more... right now, I'm assuming that you believe you must use non-skilled effects to deal with these kinds of audiences. Well, it might be a different form of the truth, which is in the handling. A person who does a gimmicked deck effect poorly will always suck in comparison to a Virtuoso with an unprepared deck, and vice versa. In the end, it all boils down to audience management, not prop management... and I guess that's what the gimmicked decks brought you, a way that was more efficient in aiding your handling of the audience.

-Kev

:lol:

:lol:
that's wad my english teacher told me~~!lol
anyway u get wad i was tryin to say :!!:

spending more time wif my english tys than cards since yesterday...

tys?

anyway, I agree with Kev, in that audience management is very important, and that using gimmicked decks can aid in that. gimmicked decks, when handled and presented well, can be much more magical than non-gimmicked decks. Nique Tan's routine is a very good example.. his use of a custom gimmicked deck, combined with some amazing sleight-of-hand, is totally unbelievable. try that someday.

it seems to me that i_neveregret is trying to say that if u use ungimmicked decks, ppl will think u using sleight to fool them and will try to "catch" u, but if u use gimmicked deck, they wont. (why my eng sounding bad also huh?)

anyway, i do not think this is the case. magic should appear to be coming from you, not a prop.

a prop/gimmick/sleight must never be suspected, else they will just say "hmm, so thats how he did it, although im not sure EXACTLY how."

but as long as they have an idea, its no longer magical.

and i think kev has already explained very well that it has nothing to do with gimmicked/ungimmicked decks...

But why do you have to say that? In my opinion, i feel that thats just some form of confrontation to your audiences. And, i bet that they would want to know how its done the next time, so the next time you show them sometime, they'd definitly try to catch you out.

And yes, its not about gimmicks or non gimmicks. The magic should come from you. Although gimmicks allows you to focus more on presentation. But the audiences should feel both of the props are standard items.

yups yups presentation muz practise presentation

Big neverending debate about whether gimmicks should be used or not. Yes they should be, when it's your last resort. Most of the time, NON-GIMMICKED effects would more than suffice. One of the greatest packet tricks of all time... NFW. But check out what Kevin did. He created a non-gimmicked version of the effect, ReTurn of The King, and now it ends totally clean. NFW with a slap in the face.

If there's any way you can make something ungimmicked, do it because it makes life a whole bunch easier.

What's the most commonly used gimmicked deck?
Svengali.
Effect?
Oh a card is in the middle u tap and it comes to the top. That's the basic presentation with the deck.

What's the most commonly performed ungimmicked card routine?
Ambitious Card Routine.
Effect?
Oh a card is in the middle u tap and it comes to the top. Except this time it's signed, and can come up in a whole variety of crazy ways.

In my opinion, gimmicks are perfect when you have established yourself as a performer who uses nothing but an ordinary deck of cards to creates miracles. In that scenario it's really not THAT much of the skill that counts, but the presentation. Two people can perform the same effect, with the SAME skill level, and get totally different reactions. Eh? How would I know that? Because I went out and tested it.

I went out and did(note the word 'did') an effect for a group of people. They looked up at me and raised an eyebrow.
'Wah. uh. Magician. Show me something.'
'I just did.'
'huh.'

I came back half an hour later and performed(note the word 'performed') the same effect with comedy, spectator interaction, and with greater suspense. I got screams. People ran away and started cursing in hokkien.

Both times my friend Glen was there with me, watching.

"Oh Huron now I get what you mean by presentation."

When you HAVE to use gimmicked decks like ID, a blatant deckswitch would not raise ANY suspicion. I've never been questioned when I change the deck in use. Instead of them thinking something fishy is going on, their mindset is that I am being professional as my current deck is becoming sticky due to condensation. It becomes a form of respect.

You can make people scream with rubberband tricks your great grandmother could do with the right presentation. Two effects can be virtually the same, but with different presentation, they become individual crazy mindblowers. One example?

Gregory Wilson's Hundy 500 V.S. Richard Sander's Slowburn.

Which to get? It depends on your style. Don't copy anybody's presentation, but take the elements present in that of your favourite performers, and fuse them to create your own.

Gimmicks can bring your magic up to a higher level, but only when used at the correct moments, in the best way possible. Some things just cannot be achieved without gimmicks, but MOST can.

It's some food for thought. Perform magic. Don't just do it.

Huron