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
About The Author
Chris Lloyd is the author of "Discover The Magic Trick Secrets You're Not Supposed To Know". His website can be found at http://www.DiscoverMagicTricks.com.
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