Arthritis and Performing Magic Tricks

By Mark Henderson

Sam suffers with rheumatoid arthritis and wants some advice about performing magic tricks.

There are times in our lives, if we are old or young, that our hands don't work quite as we need them to. Some of us develop arthritic difficulties at an old age, but really it can strike at any age. I am going to share some tips with you that can help you to keep performing your magic, and keep getting great reactions.

Recently Sam wrote to us saying,

"I've been performing magic for about 16 years now and also been a customer of MoM for a very long time. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis about 3 months ago and being only 27 it's a bit of a shock. My fingers are a lot better than they were after being put on meds and I'm being hopeful that I will not have to hang my deck or coins up just yet or at least for a little while. It's an unfortunate thing, but for something I can't change I'm not going to let it get me down too much."

That is the Spirit Sam! When one door closes, another one opens, even if your finger dexterity is diminishing, you can still perform miracles with your hands. With a little bit of creative thinking, you can adapt your magic tricks to achieve the same outcomes, just taking a slightly different route to get there.

Top tips for adapting your magic to cope with arthritis.

As with any medical issue, it's important that you seek advice from your doctor. Here's some tips to help.

▪ Instead of performing a riffle shuffle in your hands, that can put unnecessary stresses on your joints, you can do a simple process of cutting the cards or mixing them on a tabletop to shuffle the cards.

▪ If you are having difficulty holding a coin in classic palm, try altering it to finger palm.

▪ Ryan Schutz's Miracles Without Moves has a plethora of mind blowing card magic tricks that use little to no sleight of hand what so ever, and still produce jaw dropping reactions.

▪ A memorised deck such as Mnemonica or other stacked deck can achieve actual miracles in your spectator's eyes with no crafty card moves at all.

▪ There is a whole world of mentalism and mind reading out there that is totally unrelated to any sleight of hand. You can always use your head if your hands start to fail you!

Sometimes life throws us a curve ball, and sometimes it hands us lemons. Either way, you can use them to finish off your chop cup routine.

Recommending Magicians When You Perform Magic Tricks – Dominic Reyes

by Dominic Reyes 8 Comments

Should magicians recommend other magicians when they are performing magic for the public?

Dominic Reyes recorded this short video about an experience he had at a recent event at which he had been hired to perform magic. He was chatting to another magician at the event, who was complaining that he was being compared to several magicians on TV. Here's what Dominic told the magician about using that situation to his advantage:

As a magician, you might not like the fact that people compare you to magicians they see on TV, or that the magic you perform live, is different to much of the magic presented within a TV show. Dominic thinks that it doesn't matter what other performers think about TV magicians because they are not the target audience of the magic shows. Instead, he feels that it's far more important that people are being entertained by magic in general.

Dominic uses this to his advantage by recommending TV magic shows to his spectators. At the end of a set, he will tell the group to check out an up and coming TV show about magic that they won't want to miss. He puts down the details on his business card for them.

"Recommending a magic show that's about to be aired on TV has really helped me. I've noticed it directly in my booking rate. If I've been promoting a show at events leading up to a new series, I notice recontact emails from new clients spike in the few days after each TV episode. Clients are most likely to contact me just after they have seen me live, but by recommending a magic TV series, I pop into their heads, each time they watch that show. That's a lot of extra 'touch points' being created, and it's repaid the time I've taken to tell people about the magic shows many many times over. I hope it does the same for you." – Dominic Reyes

Recommending shows for his audience to watch, means that he remains in their minds much longer after his performance. He has found a way to HELP THEM further, and at the same time, become associated with their experience of magic long after they have seen him perform.

Card Magic Tricks – The Elmsley Count – A Magicians Progress

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

Just two weeks ago John Hutchison didn't think he would ever learn card magic tricks using sleight of hand.

However, he is working through our Sleight of Hand for Beginners course. We ask each student of the course to send in progress videos of their work drilling the techniques. John sent us this video and we think he has made excellent procress in just two weeks of drilling the techniques as the course has shown him:

'Just dropping a quick mail with my first ever recording of me performing the Elmsley Count – I've had to improvise a tripod with my webcam using a couple of coffee jars and some Blu-Tak 😉 Unfortunately the sound isn't too good, but at least it disguises my rather shameful patter! There are some things I spotted in there that still need work before I can unleash this on the public, but given that just two weeks ago I couldn't even begin to consider sleight of hand tricks, I'm really happy with the progress so far. Loving it so far, and really looking forward to months 2 and 3.' – John Hutchison

Great work John

Your timing is very good indeed. It really is all about the timing and flow of the technique. Not too rushed and not too slow. Try to focus lifting the ace lifting of the ace as natural as possible. Keep going with this, and remember say your patter loudly and clearly. Even when you practice, you should speak as if someone is actually there watching you. Begin to look away from the cards inbetween phases, and address the audience with eye contact, before doing the next phase. The patter should have energy so it doesn't seem focused on the mechanics.

Very impressive for so early in the drill process.

I'm also detecting some tension in your hands, that's because you are really concentrating. As you drill, you will find that the timing starts to remain constant, but your hands will relax a little more. It's a subtle difference, and not one that you can force. Just keep drilling and it will be the natural result of the drilling process.

Keep going and let me know how you get on

Dominic Reyes