by: Chris Lloyd

How to Get Started If You're a Beginner

Whether you've been practicing magic for two days, two

years, or twenty, the only effective magic trick is one

that actually "fools" your audience. This ability to create

a good illusion depends in huge part on one thing:

rehearsing!

Let's face it-no matter how great a trick is or how useful

a magic prop is, you won't surprise or delight anyone

unless it's performed smoothly and confidently. What if you

drop your deck of cards or accidentally mishandle a coin?

The illusion will be destroyed, and you'll have lost your

audience's trust.

When you're just starting out it's understandable that

you'll have to practice in front of an audience several

times before you get it just right. No one expects you to

be perfect right away. But you also can't expect to fool

anyone unless you put in the time to practice your skills

and work with your props (if you are using any).

The tricks in this chapter were chosen because they are

simple, effective, fun to perform, and appealing to just

about any audience. You can delight a crowd of

schoolchildren with them, or you can test them out on

adults. But before you do, practice, practice, practice to

get it right!

For now, let's cut straight to the chase and talk more

specifically about these simple yet stunning tricks. Then,

at the end of this chapter I'll give you some highly

effective strategies and techniques I used when I was just

starting out!

Sleight of Hand

What exactly is sleight (pronounced "slite") of hand? This

term refers to a broad category of magic tricks that relies

on your skills and techniques as well as the facility of

your fingers and hands. In other words, these are tricks

that depend on your skill and dexterity to fool the

audience, much more so than on props or gimmicks. It's your

fingers that do the work, not a manufacturer's product.

Another way of saying all this is that a sleight of hand

is a trick that is performed so well and so deftly that the

audience can't tell precisely how it was done!

There's a great word for this that every magician should

know: "legerdemain." This word comes to us from the old

French phrase "leger de main," in which "leger" translates

as light, and "de main" means "of hand." So if you perform

with a light touch, that's the ideal form of legerdemain.

This deftness applies to most magic tricks, though, not

just sleight of hand! In fact, most of tricks we're going

to discuss involve sleight of hand, from shuffling cards to

palming coins. Even levitation, which we'll discuss in

Chapter 4, involves sleight of hand-although that's more

like "sleight of foot!"

Just keep in mind that accomplishing many of the following

tricks successfully involves not just a working knowledge

of the techniques but also the ability to carry them out

easily and without a lot of obvious effort. Another good

reason to get in as much practice as you can!

This article was extracted from the book 'Discover The Magic

Trick Secrets You're Not Supposed To Know'.

To find out more please visit

www.DiscoverMagicTricks.com" target=new>http://www.discovermagictricks.com">www.DiscoverMagicTricks.com