magic for friends ebook 300712t

8/13/2019 Magic for Friends eBook 300712T

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They know you are not magic......4

Prop grabbers..................................7

Do another one!..............................10

Being the centre of attention............13

How not to spill the beans................16

Quick tips.........................................20

Whats next.................................22

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Ben Williams is a full time close upmagician and a member of TheMagic Circle.

He is head of sales at The Merchant

of Magic and a magic creator. Hismagic tricks and books are soldworldwide.

Dominic Reyes is an internationalsleight of hand magician and amember of The Magic Circle. He isthe founder of The Merchant ofMagic and a magic creator.

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Your family and friends know you dont have magical powers. You are

just a normal person to them and now suddenly you are showing themsomething amazing that they cant explain.

At first this will evoke certain responses within your friends. Immediately it will make them feel like you havejust out smarted them, this can be fun to play with but it is very easy to let your ego go over the top whichwill leave you open to a big fall should they figure something out or pressure you till you crack next time you

perform something. It will be hard for your friends to take you seriously, although they will most likely beexcited about seeing magic each time the see you.

So how do you deal with this?

Try not to present your magic as a challenge. Take the approach of, I learnt something cool this week, would

you like to see? Try to focus on how interesting the magic is, and get them in the frame of mind that it isamazing and their attention will shift to a just let it happen attitude rather than a you watch his hands and

well figure this out together approach. Let them know it is a bit of fun and it isnt to be taken too seriously.

You will have a certain amount of I know something you dont know about your performance, otherwise itwouldnt be deemed as magic. It is how you deal with this that will determine how much your friends relax,watch and enjoy the magic tricks as opposed to being on edge, not really watching and not treating it as funbecause they are just trying to figure out what you are doing.

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Friends at first have a tendency to grab at everything, theyll want to shufflethe cards at all the wrong times, or theyll want to examine the coin reallyclosely if you have just bitten a chunk out of it. Theyll grab your sleeves ifyou vanish something and they will test you with other objects, heyMagicman, can you vanish this coin or this cigarette now?? Hey, magicman, can you vanish this coin or this bottle now??

This is inevitable, its the curious nature of usas human beings.

What you need to do is decide how you want toplay this. If you only want to perform a feweffects that are examinable at the beginning andend then you can be fairly free to let themexamine things that is ok. The problem is that themore you show these effects the more they will

zone in on times when you cannot let them seeeverything. If your approach to letting themtouch your props is open then a question at thewrong time, can I look at the coins now? canreally make you feel uncomfortable and highlightweaknesses in your effect, this is not how youwant to feel when performing.

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You need to keep control. The more you let spectators look at your props,

the more control you are handing over to them. If you own yourperformance and take control, simple actions like placing people where youwant them at the beginning, structuring your patter so you are engaging,knowing your tricks back to front, will help to subconsciously suggest wherethe limits are to your spectators. This will immediately make some peoplejust relax and watch It may only be the real tough cookies that still challengeyou and in this case you will have won over pretty much the whole crowdand more often than not they will help you deal with the tough spectator bytelling him/her to just leave you alone.

Not letting them examine everything can

strengthen a performance rather than be seen asa weakness in the effect.

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These questions are something that you will have to deal. Every person whobegins showing magic will be asked to, do another one! This can beparticularly problematic as some gimmicks make you look like you can doamazing magic with anything, however the gimmick may only be tailored toone trick.

The best advice we can give in this situation is topractice your magic tricks well so you are comfortablewith them and be sure to let your friends know you

are only showing them one or possibly a couple ofmagic tricks. There is no harm in saying at thebeginning, I have a couple of new magical things toshow you, do you want to see them? Theres only twobut I am sure you are going to love them!! Thisdirectly says that you have two tricks to show and thatis all, yet it hasnt weakened your performance at all,

in fact it only helps to give you the control you need inthat situation. Explain that your magic takes a LONGTIME to master, and you will only show them, magicwhen its totally ready.

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With new tricks it is importantto practice them properly andgive them the time they deserve,

we all have tricks that we dontfeel comfortable with becausesomebody maybe figured themethod out one time or maybethere is a move that hasnt beenpracticed enough and it resulted

in a flash mid performance. Thediscomfort here can easily beattributed to the trick, butusually (if you are honest withyourself) it comes from a lack ofpractice, and isnt necessarily afault with the effect. Keep your

magic fresh for your friends butdont compromise on theintegrity of your performance

If a new trick isntready to show just tellyour friends you are

working on somethingthat will blow their

minds and it will beworth the wait!

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This is something that will happen naturally when beginning to show magic. Maybe you are someonewho is naturally outgoing and an extrovert at heart so this will be second nature. If thats the caseGREAT, go forth and attract as much attention as you can with your magic!!

But then maybe you are not, maybe you are fascinated by magic yet shy in public, or just a regularperson with only a little shyness but also no desire to be the centre of attention in a normal setting,how do you deal with this spotlight when its on you?

It can be overwhelming when you are surrounded by people and everyone wants to see what is going on. Its

important to remember that the reason they are watching you in the first place is that they are interested inwhat you are doing. This is a positive thing and should be seen as that, use it to your advantage. They are

here to listen to you and to be entertained by you. If there are too many people around you and you areworried about angles, ask them to back up a bit and maybe let some of the people at the back of the group

know you will go over and show it to them close up in a minute, a simple phrase like:

Everyone, thank you for being interested, but this looks much better close up, I tell

you what, if you tell me where you are sitting Ill come over and show you all in a

minute

A lot of people will feel pleased about that, they will feel like seeing it up close will give them more chance offiguring it out or just a better viewing of the trick when it may actually help you out by moving them from abad angle.

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There is a lot of pressure in this situation but the payoff can be huge and intensely gratifying, a hugeround of applause, screams and shouts, expletives

being blurted out or just stunned silence can feelamazing when it is directed at you so when you feel

the pressure turn it into excitement for the reactionyou will get, as long as you keep control you willhave a blast, just remember this!

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When you first show magic to your friends the immediate response will be

that they want you to share the secret, you share other information withyour friends all the time, why would this be any different?

But DONT!!A lot of your friends will be unaware that you have practiced hard behind closeddoors to produce this result, as one day you were just standard old Joe Bloggsand now suddenly you are Mr Man of Mystery! The change to them isinstantaneous and they are unaware of all effort you have put into learning theseamazing magic tricks.

Ben Williams will paint a picture of his experiences for you...

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I began learning magic on a cold dark winters morning, the frost on the window-pane slowly meltingin the sharp sunrise... That is enough picture painting, Ill just get down to the nitty gritty! Showing

my friends and over the first year or two I had many friends want to learn how I was doing thesethings and I refused to tell them. One day though my close friend was bugging me to teach him sometricks, he was studying at College and performed juggling in his spare time, he was genuinely

interested in learning so I thought it would be a great idea if we both did magic together. I beganteaching him the basics and I supplied him with some props like cards and some rope and let himwatch some of my DVDs on the subject to help him get up to speed. However even with his want tolearn he very quickly found that he didnt have the time to practice as his commitments in life were

very different from mine at the time, he had lots of college work to do, a part time job to hold downand a pretty rocking social life. All of these other things going on in his life meant that the magic took

a back seat, it quickly dawned on me that his interest and desire to learn was really just a frustration ofnot knowing how it all worked. I believed that his commitment to learning juggling was a sure fire

sign that he would be committed to learning magic, this was not the case. If you think about it, he hadlearned juggling off of his own back, he had the desire enough to go and seek out information about

the subject and spend time learning it himself. Although he wanted to learn magic and assured me hewould practice he was looking at me to provide a quick solution, this is not the case with magic, there

are no short cuts. If my friend had really wanted to learn, he would have trawled the internet andfound out information on the subject himself. It wasnt just that though, everyone goes through life on

their own path and his path was set in motion with his college courses, his job, commitments with rent,being young and care free, all of these things contributed to filling up what time he had in his life,

there was simply no room to dedicate the time it takes to studying and practicing magic. Magic wasthe weakest link in his life so it took a back seat...

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One of the problems with this situation is that I had spilled the beans and opened his eyes to our

world, he now finds it hard to be fooled which is a shame as he really enjoys the feeling. It is easy toruin the magic for someone like this, (just ask my wife!!) so just think twice or maybe three timesabout letting someone in on the secrets, you wouldnt want to potentially ruin magic for the rest oftheir lives would you?If someone wants to learn something I always say if they go off and learnsomething, study it and practice it and come back and PERFORM it on me only thenI will show themsomething to help them progress, and I wont show them too much, it is a steep learning curve and it isbetter if they take that journey themselves rather than being pulled up by you.

Remember, in the long run it is better for you and it isbetter for them if you simply refuse to teach your

friends the secrets you know. Hold these secrets close.

Without them what you do is just a toy or game.

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Dont force your magic on your friends.

Never reveal even one secret.

Dont show unpracticed material.

Dont play the magic down.

Never repeat a trick to the same person

Dont say you got it from a magic shop.

Accept constructive feedback

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Performing for your family and friends can be very rewarding. Magic is agreat hobby and can become a life long obsession. Showing a trick, leadspeople to want more, and spurs you on to keep learning. However, todevelop further, you will need to take the next step and perform for thepublic. The dynamics are quite different.

There are many places you can get experience of publicperformance. Charity events, residential homes, localschool events are all great places to approach to see if theywould like you to entertain them for free. You help your

community and get valuable experience in the process.

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Here are a few articles related to this subject

that may help you:

Studying Close-Up Magic - Avoid the Traps

Magic Tricks for Magicians Vs Magic for the Public

Magic Needs Misdirection

If you found this ebook useful, please pass on a copy to your magic friends.You can get more tips and news by visiting us on facebook HERE

You can also share how useful this book is by sending out a tweet. Simplyclick HERE

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http://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2012/07/magic-tricks-need-misdirection.htmlhttp://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2012/07/magic-tricks-for-magicians-vs-magic.htmlhttp://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2012/07/studying-close-up-magic-how-not-to-fall.htmlhttp://clicktotweet.com/_38THhttp://clicktotweet.com/_38THhttp://www.facebook.com/merchantofmagichttp://www.facebook.com/merchantofmagichttp://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2012/07/magic-tricks-need-misdirection.htmlhttp://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2012/07/magic-tricks-need-misdirection.htmlhttp://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2012/07/magic-tricks-for-magicians-vs-magic.htmlhttp://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2012/07/magic-tricks-for-magicians-vs-magic.htmlhttp://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2012/07/studying-close-up-magic-how-not-to-fall.htmlhttp://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2012/07/studying-close-up-magic-how-not-to-fall.html


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The Merchant of Magic produce guides,ebooks and advice for magicians wanting toimprove their magic. You can get these guidesby subscribing to our newsletters.

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