Finger Exercises for Magicians – Free Ebook

How to add finger exercises for magicians into your magic practice, to protect your hands, and improve dexterity.

The aim of finger exercise is to build up finger speed, strength and overall dexterity. Through regular exercise, finger strength is also increased and you will see a marked difference in your ability to manipulate a deck of cards or a stack of coins.

Where the work happens

Your fingers don’t actually have muscles within them. The muscles which are used to work your fingers are located within your palms, and also on your arms. They are linked to the fingers by tendons, which control the fingers as the tendon ‘strings’ pull and relax.

The muscles in your palms are not very strong. They are designed to pull the fingers inwards to the palm. The stronger muscles that control the majority of your finger strength reside in your forearm. The tendons of these muscles travel through your wrist to your fingers. Because the power in your fingers is related to the strength of your arms, by toning these muscles, your gripping strength will improve.

For sleight of hand, the aim is to increase your suppleness by stretching the tendons to pull the muscles.

The Merchant of Magic has created a free ebook that will teach you simple, easy Finger Exercises for Magicians used by professional magicians as part of their sleight of hand practice sessions.

The 21 page ebook will teach you how to:

Develop dexterity, speed, and strength in your hands.
Avoid R.S.I injury.
Spot the symptoms of R.S.I
Improve focus and coordination.
Maintain healthy finger joints.
Improve your ability to manipulate playing cards or coins.
Understand how your muscles control your fingers.
Know when, where and how to exercise your fingers.
Much much more.

The Finger Exercises for Magicians ebook includes video tutorials of each exercise.

‘I found your exercises book and I can’t tell you how amazing my wrists and hands feel right now. I’m a writer/artist so I use my hands a LOT and I have always had a little trouble with pain in those areas from constantly typing (I type fast too so it can be a lot of strain) as such I tend to write for a bit and then have to stop, sometimes for several days at a time. When I read through the exercises I wondered if it might help with the typing as well. I haven’t done it long term yet but it really loosened the stiffness in my wrists and hands even just doing it once. I’m so grateful for you sharing this, I just wanted you to know. Thank you so very much!’ – Stephanie Valis

How can I read minds like Derren Brown?

by Dominic Reyes 2 Comments

How can I read minds like Derren Brown?

This is a question we get asked a lot at the Merchant of Magic. Derren Brown is a world class entertainer at the top of his game so we can learn a great deal from watching his performance and taking that experience and using it as a springboard to generate ideas for our own style and presentations. Lets look at some tips, and tools that we know of that can help you on your quest for knowledge!

Firstly it would be wise to make it clear that Derren Brown uses a whole range of techniques, he is skilled in all types of magic and mind reading and has lots of toys at his disposal. However with a bit of thought and clever routining and good scripting you can create the illusion that you are nearly as skilled as he is!

The real secret of making people feel as if you have read their mind, in the way that Derren Brown makes people believe, is found within his performance. It really has nothing to do with the trick itself. You can perform a simple playing card force or even an elaborate chair routine with three climaxes, but if you do not present it in a way that is warm, well received and engaging, it will not get the desired results.

Here are some key points to help you master how to read minds like Derren Brown:

Speak clearly and at a pace that is calm and deliberate, DO NOT mumble and speak quickly.

Stand tall and proud, this gives off confidence and assurance

Rehearse your lines, so you do not get tongue tied

Research the phenomena you claim to be demonstrating, it always helps if you do actually know about what you claim to be a master of.

Remember that mind reading and mentalism doesn’t usually focus on props. It’s a conversation, an interaction between the performer and the audience. A full, balanced act could simply involve the performer, a note pad and a pencil. Because of this, it’s essential to make the presentation as interesting and varied as possible.

Many of the secrets of mind reading are very simple from a technical standpoint. This allows you to focus on the entertainment created by the routine, and that you are holding the attention of the audience. Performing a simple and easy routines like, for example, Any Word by Ben Williams means that you can, with NO SKILL whatsoever, predict ANY word a spectator can think of. Because Any Word comes with suggested patter, it’s designed to make you concentrate on delivering the patter in a convincing manner. Good mind reading magic tricks are structured to be as simple to perform as possible, yet their mechanics ensures the spectators really feel that you have influenced them into thinking of that word.

Another important point to remember is that mind reading needs to be frames within a greater context. A show that involves simply having people think of a word, then revealing it, over and over again would soon lose peoples interest. Even though the feat is impossible and incredible, it needs more that just a demonstration of mind reading abilities to keep people entertained. If you watch one of Derren Browns shows, you can learn a great deal about how to 'mix up' essentially the same effect (revealing a thought) in different ways. His show is carefully constructed to provide changes of pace, sections of comedy and serious demonstrations of apparent psychic and paranormal activity. The whole show is a presentation around a theme, rather than a collection of separate disjointed 'tricks'.

If you put thought into the construction of your act, and focus on entertainment rather than mechanics, you will find that mind reading and mentalism are one of the most rewarding branches of magic to explore and perform.

How to Learn Magic Tricks With Poker Chips – What the Magic Shop Recommends

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

Want to learn some cool tricks with poker chips?

It's a great way to impress your poker friends, and also transfers nicely over to coin magic. Lets look at how to get started:

1) You need some poker chips.

We recommend you invest in good quality clay poker chips as you are going to be working with the chips over a long period of time. Cheap plastic poker chips can work fine, but the clay chips have a much better feel and weight. You can pick up packs of clay poker chips very easily from most online magic shops.

2) You need some expert tuition on tricks with poker chips

We recommend learning from Poker Columnist and Entertainment Award Winner, Rich Ferguson in his excellent DVD on the subject of tricks with poker chips. The DVD covers over 70 tricks with poker chips, often seen on TV or performed by professional poker players.

The DVD also includes a range of poker chip tricks by Rich that are his own unique creations!

3) Whilst learning the skills, cheat and take a shortcut.

There's nothing wrong with using a gimmick to start performing poker chip tricks right away. As long as you are also learning the sleight of hand poker chip tricks, it can get you performing and building up a reputation for poler chip skills right away. Imagine being able to spin a poker chip on the very tip of your finger.

Check out this poker ship trick in action: