REAL MAGIC!

I had not felt this sensation in a long time. My guess is that we, after a log period of being professional magicians, tend to take for granted many things. One of those things is that (sometimes) we create the illusion of real magic.

I was at my nephew's first birthday and there were some kids. My sister said 'do tricks for them' to which i replied 'i'm not a kids magician!' to which she replied 'OK!!'. But then again i said to myself 'time to try some new stuff out!' and did tricks for them.

At first the kids were skeptical. They would not believe that i was a magician. But then i did a coin matrix for them. The first coin that traveled made a little girl say: ' HE'S A REAL MAGICIAN!!!!'.

That's when i felt it. They were actually eating off my palm. They thought i was a REAL magician. They would not fight the tricks like adults, they would actually believe everything was happening 'for real'.

Then i did 'pressure' by Theory11's Daniel García and BOOM! they were in shock! (and so was i for it was the first time that i did it for real people).

I usually hate kids but they can give you really good feedback. Much more pure and honest than adults!

Dark side

We've all got a dark side. Sometimes that aspect of our personalities shows up while onstage. I'm learning to handle that.

In my case, you don't have to dig too deep to find my darkest self. My problem is exactly that. My destructive energies are at arm's reach. It all boils down to insecurity, i think.

I used to be a very ill tempered person. I've always been fun and stuff, but it has always been too easy to fuck me up. To get me angry. To make me want to kill.

Fortunately this happens not very often, but once in a while i'll go a little bit crazy while doing my show. Sometimes i'm just a little bit too aggressive. 100% of the times this happens in the form of a reaction. I will only enter my dark side if i feel threatened. This means hecklers.

Last nite i was doing my show for a rather excentric crowd. Their behaviour was not really motivating. When i entered the place and got in a bathroom to get ready, they started talking shit and i could heard. Also, the woman who hired me, was spying trying to see what i was doing.

They turned out to be a crazy bunch. They all kept a very entertaining spirit. Always cracking jokes and having laughs. The problem was that many of this beings felt my presence as a threaten to their egos. There is always going to be at least one spectator who feels he deserves being where you are. They don't want the focus of attention off them. They should be in the spotlight, not you. So they get pissed off and start trying to descredit you in front of others trying to outsmart you, be funnier, make better comments, etc.

I have a strict no bullshit policy on people who try to steal the wheel from my hands. I allow and encourage playful participation , but don't try to fuck me.

Also i get rather angry when a spectator makes a wittier or funnier remark than me :)

Last nite i was a tad too bitchy on a couple of spectators. They were afraid and attacked. I got afraid and attacked back. I must learn to not feel attacked in the first place. That's the key.

Funny!

Found this site:

http://badmagicphotos.blogspot.com/

It's about lame pictures of magicians!

Very funny.

ON FIRE

That's how i'd describe myself at the last gig i had.

I was ON FIRE! What a beautiful state! Excuse my self-congratulation but i deserve it. I gave a very professional and inspired show. I was spitting jokes left and right and feeling great. It's also the third time in this year that a customer writes me an email telling me how much fun he and his guests had. He also told me about all the lovely reviews he got of my work. I will enjoy this little moment because they don't come often.
It's a good sign, a very good one indeed! I'm always so hard on myself and most of the times end up feeling i could have done better but not this time. This time i KICKED MAJOR ASS!

It's a strange thing that i arrived at this place feeling like shit. I was tired and so uninspired. I usually don't eat before giving a show but this time i had dinner and dessert; i had a full belly working hard on digesting all the stuff. This means that i was really wishing the whole thing ended so i could go to sleep. I had a hard time leaving my house before the show. Also it was a 'big' gig; 100 people in the audience. I usually suck at this kind of venues.

Almost everything i said during the show caused laughter. What a fucking pleasure!

Difficult spectators

Hecklers, what a fascinating subject.

There is nothing i hate more than a difficult spectator. I consider the performance of a show to be a very intimate moment of mine. I just cannot afford anyone pestering me while i'm enjoying that which i love. That's why i hate these people.

But at the same time i enjoy and accept the challenge. There is no bigger pleasure than beating them in their own game. The rest of the audience also enjoys it a lot. They want you to be gladiator, not a wimp. So when they see you kick his ass, they love and worship you.

There are not too many ways to react to a difficult spectator. Only one you must deliberately avoid: confrontation.

I was having a hell of a time working at the v.i.p room in a casino in my country. I was getting paid a lot and sleeping in a 5 star hotel room. I was the fucking king of the hill. My tricks were doing fine but what was really shinning was my personality. At one moment a rich japanese dude who was there spending money with his lady said to me in broken spanish: 'i know how you do all your tricks'.

It's not the first time that such thing happens. What i don't know is why i reacted the way i did. I guess i was just on a roll and i felt i could handle everything. ouch.

'ORLY' i said, and added: 'tell me how i do this then'

And proceeded to start a trick at a roulette table. The people in the room sensed the challenge in the air and they all sorrounded us. They wanted to see the action. Magician vs. Gambler. I started spreading the deck and having a card chosen. When i was putting it back in the deck for control, i got self-concious and started thinking wtf to do. I took an indifferent card and then proceeded to 'magicaly' change it with a very ill timed top-change. I don't know why i did it all wrong. I guess i'm still a wimp. As soon as i finished my half-assed trick the japanese dude started explaining everything. He was talking non-stop about the methods to the tricks. The sad thing is that most of the times he was right. I even blushed at one point! This asshole was a pain in the ass. A big one.

I shot myself in the foot. I reacted wrongly. When he said 'I know how you do your tricks' i should have said something like 'good for you bro' and then move on. I should have defused his attack; instead i took the bait!

If you're challenged and your reputation depends on it then you have to do something that requires little to no technique. Fool them with an invisible or memorized deck. It's really hard to do complicated sleight of hand under such pressure. Just resort to simple, effective tricks to fuck the bastard(s).

The sad life of the diletante

He has studied it all. He knows and can do every sleight in the calendar; he's got the books and knows the history of the craft. He is a mobile library but he just can't perform. He sucks because he gets so nervous that most of the times he just avoids performing for a live crowd. He is just too upset about public performances, and that is something he'll be bitter about forever.

I know of too many guys who are very savyy but will never be magicians. They are just too stuck with the books and the mirror. They are trapped in the mirror like Alice! Too shy to perform they are 'virgins' in a way because they never do tricks for real people.

I spent a lot of time reading books and practicing in front of a mirror but never doing tricks for real people. I was a 'theoretical master'. I had read a lot and could criticize with a raised index finger. The real growth begun when i started performing. On one hand i knew about a lot of stuff but on the other, the number of tricks and/or technique that i could perform (as in 'for human beings') was really low.

Nowadays, thanks to the fact that i'm performing every weekend, i'm catching up.

Are you a diletante? Do you speak about magic or do you perform?

GET TO WORK!

Most of us just do tricks

Most of us magicians do tricks. Only a very few selected ones in the whole wide world do Magic. The percentage of people that perform miracles before audiences is very very small. All the rest of us (me included of course) just attempt but fail to create a magical experience.

Audiences clap, they laugh and they show us signs of approbation, but that does NOT mean that they are completely fooled. I'm sorry to inform you that MOST of the times they know, let alone suspect, what's going on (Erdnase). They still like it, of course. And they love and thank the fact that you're entertaining them; but that is still miles away from the ideal situation where you, mr. magic, sweeps them away with a wonderful experience.

They see the bird coming out of the jacket, they can see the break, they detect the double lift, they know you've done something but most of them are NICE and won't let you know. They won't say that they saw something. Kids will. That's why performing for kids is in some way the 'acid test'. Do it for a kid and ask him how it's done. If he does not doubt for a second before giving his explanation, you're toast.
If after you finish your work you get phrases like: 'you are very fast' or ' i swear i did not see where you got that bird from', you have still have lots of work to do.

Remember that it's enough form them to suspect something for the illusion to be completely destroyed. Feel your audience. Get out of auto-pilot. How are they reacting? What's the look on their face? How genuine is their reaction? Are you feeling uncomfortable? Feel what's going on and you'll know if you're doing things fine or if you're fucking it up.

Being an excellent magician is a hell of a lot of work and a pain in the ass.

Rythm

When i started doing magic i noticed that i was way more entertaining when i was NOT doing tricks than when i was. My offstage personality was brighter than the onstage one. This had me lost for a while. Why was i funnier without a pack of cards?

I now believe it has to do with rythm. Back then my rhytm was fucked up. My engine was not tuned properly. Rhytm is essentially it. If you're not vibing the way you should then the show is boring, misdirection does not misdirect, etc.

Imagine a beautiful and powerful car engine that's not been properly tuned. As entertainers we must catch up with our natural rythm.

How to tune it? The Master himself again recommends:

Work, work, work.

More 'rubals' lately

My posts are not always negative, of course not!

Lately i've been getting more 'rubals' from my shows.

If you understand what i'm talking about must be because you read 'The magic of Michael Ammar'.

I mean that lately at my gigs i'm doing different stuff and taking risks and employing more technique than the usual. I'm growing a couple of balls.

I've started using a different method for vanishing the bill in my 'bill to impossible location'. I used to put the borrowed and signed bill in a purse and then it would vanish from the purse and reappear inside the impossible location. Problem was that audience suspected of me not inserting the bill in the purse in the first place. The purse was too big and the method employed was a little bit flawed.
Now i just vanish the bill with a magic wand. No purse.

The other new item i've included is a faro shuffle. Yes! I'm faroing in front of a live audience! I do 'card to any number' by Tamariz. The trick becomes more impossible with a faro shuffle because the selected card appears at the selected position after the deck has been genuinely shuffled and cut.

Oh and i'm also doing the raccoon again, so welcome back buddy!

My show is getting better. I'm getting better. The whole thing is getting better. I'm slowly building a good, solid, entertaining show.

David Williamson's rope trick is about to be ready too. I'll include it soon in me repertoire.

Cheers.

grand prix, really?

I don't think that Shawn Farquhar's act was grand prix material.

I have to admit that i'm not that surprised about the fact that he won.

I've been dissapointed by FISM many times.

I once attended a FISM convention and i thought that being a world championship, the level of the competing acts would be very high. I was wrong.

Shawn's act is not original, there is no or little technique involved, his execution of the sleights is average... i don't really see why he won.

Here's a link to part of the routine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EEU4PEug50

In the comments section of the afore mentioned video, Tim Ellis (one of the FISM judges), in an attempt to 'defend' Shawn from the online attacks said:

He's actually mates with all of the judges. He's a very friendly guy.

Go figure.

Please, don't think that this is an attack to Shawn.

I have nothing against him.

This is just me not knowing how things at FISM work.