Dude That's Cool Magic Blog

This is probably the first problem a magician starting out has - what if someone knows your tricks? How do you prevent it, or handle it when it does happen? Well, first up, let’s just be clear. It happens to everybody, at some point. But here’s a check list to make sure it happens as little as possible, and when it does, to give it minimal importance. One - Are your tricks deceptive? There’s an old line about ‘there’s no bad tricks, only bad performers’. The truth is, there’s plenty of both. Not all tricks are created equal, and as a performer it’s up to you to pick the best ones for your own performing character. As a general rule, I like to avoid tricks where the first solution as spectator might come up with is the correct one. Like Linking Rings. Urg. So, are the tricks you are doing deceptive? Is there an obvious solution to them, and if so, what can you do to hide or conceal the secret more? There normally is, and if it’s not obvious, co...

It’s not often that I think of myself as an old-fashioned kind of guy, but in at least one sense, I am. Very. It all stems from my ability to keep a secret. These days, for a magician, this trait is rare. Keeping a secret is an unusual thing to do, as other guys concentrate a lot of effort on the complete opposite. Youtube videos are made with a performance so bad that no secret is protected, but just as common are videos of people simply revealing the methods - no attempt at performance. So, why is this bad? First of all, it is of course exposure. Now, I’m not one of those people that goes screaming to the magic circle when a maths trick appears on a cereal packet, but likewise, I believe it should be slightly harder for a spectator to uncover a method for a trick by simply typing it into a search engine. In the age of smart phones, I’ve had people google the tricks during the performance. This is obviously not a great situation. Secondly, (but probably of paramou...

This is, of all of the things that I will blog about, one of the most important to me, because a single piece of advice totally flipped my perspective, changed my magic for the better, and literally started a revolution for one. When I first started out (and if I am being honest, quite a few years after that) I thought of myself as a pretty good performer. I would do paid gigs, and the majority of the time, they would go very smoothly. Occasionally, there would be the odd spectator or two who didn’t like the magic, or ones that would grab props, or interfere and heckle generally. But hey, what’s a guy to do? Everyone gets guys like that right? But a funny line, to put them in their place, puts them straight. That’s what I’d been told. My job is to show people magic, and I’d do that, regardless of anything else. At the time, I thought like this. And now, here’s the piece of advice that blew my brain. It comes (like all good knowledge) f...