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Practice

It is often said that one of the secrets of being a good magician is "practise, practise, practise".

Much has been said of late about the exposure of magic on television, but the worst kind of exposure occurs when a magician performs a trick so badly that the method is revealed.

When this happens, it is usually because there has been insufficient practice (and rehearsal).

I well remember when I started out in magic, and I was (overly) keen to show off my new miracles to friends and family - often too soon. Such audiences tend to be very "kind" and not say when they can see how the trick is done, and this creates an illusion that the magician is a good magician. In the long term, this not only harms the magician himself (or herself), but it also harms magic in general.

I know of one magician, who has won some of the most prestigious competitions in the world of magic (more than once!), who will not perform a new routine or effect in public until he has practised and rehearsed it at least 200 times!

You have to reach the point where you know the mechanics of the trick so well that you can devote all of your attention to presenting the magic. If you are seen, by your audience, to be concentrating really hard on doing something that ought not to be difficult (e.g. cutting a deck of cards), then any illusion that magic is being performed will be completely lost. Even if the audience does not know exactly what you have done, they will spot even a minor discrepancy in your actions.

If you think about other actions you perform on a daily basis, such as brushing your teeth, then you will realise that you don't need to expend any conscious energy on such activities - you simply do it! This is how it must be with magic - your hands, for example, should be able to perform the mechanics of a card trick, without you having to think about it, which is a term often called "muscle memory".

So, just in case you haven't go the message, you must practise until you can perform without thinking about the technique.

There is a well-known saying that goes, "Amateurs practise until they can get it right; Professionals practise until they cannot get it wrong", which is a message worth taking to heart.

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