Post by Chris Martin on Aug 4, 2005 16:38:16 GMT -5
I write this on behalf of all the magicians out there who feel that they are not good enough and they feel as though they need to take a break from our wonderful art.
Let me first start off by saying, I am not directing this at anyone. I am merely writing this as a ‘pick me up’ of sorts when you feel like your magic is nothing. Okay, now every magician at some point in their careers go through this ‘lack of magic’ phase. Pretty much anything can spark it at any time, such as a bad performance where you messed up and you were humiliated, or maybe you did your strongest effect and still didn’t get as much as a smile out of your spectator, or you could just not want to do it anymore. I like to call this “Magical Depression.”
I have seen many people suffer at one point in time from this that are on these boards. A lot of them say stuff such as they need to just sit and think for awhile or something along those lines. Now I am not trying to say that once you are dedicated to magic, that you need to make it become your life. It is okay to take a break from magic because I feel that it is like a relationship. If you spend time away from magic, and then after a lot of time has passed, the magic bug will bite you harder than it ever did in the past.
Like I stated a couple of paragraphs above….. some of the things that can spark Magical Depression are something such as a flawed performance where nothing seemed to go right. Let me start off with this one….. So you’re performing the 2 card monte for a group of people, and one of them catches you doing ‘the move’ so they blurt it out to everyone else that was watching the performance. The only way to overcome this is to move on and practice a little more on the ruined effect. Stopping magic in general is not going to help anything.
Another thing that could possibly happen is that you performed your very best effect and yet your spectator has a face of stone and says something along the lines of “cool.” Now I know how irritating this can be, but the only way to get over this one is to once again move on to another spectator. Every once in awhile you are just going to come across those types of people who act as if they couldn’t care less about your performing for them. But if you do move on, you are bound to come across one of those types of people that are very gullible and will run around screaming after you performed ‘here then there’ for them. And trust me, there is nothing more satisfying than having your spectator nearly pass out from the reaction.
I like to think of magic as a substance kind of like nicotine….. you get addicted to it the more and more you perform. But when you try to quit, you always end up coming back to it. So if any thing along the lines of the thing I stated happens to you. Just sit back and think that things can only get better and all in all, if you really think about it, these bad performances and bad spectators only help your magic, because it pushes you even harder to become the best magician you can be. So don’t look down upon these kind of things, rather, take the blow and move on, and keep striving to succeed no matter what. In a way, it hurts me to see potentially great magicians quit because of one bad experience. Even the best magicians such as Paul Harris, Daryl, David Blaine, and even the almighty Oz have had bad experiences like these, and yet they are still around as magicians, and darn good ones at that.
Let me first start off by saying, I am not directing this at anyone. I am merely writing this as a ‘pick me up’ of sorts when you feel like your magic is nothing. Okay, now every magician at some point in their careers go through this ‘lack of magic’ phase. Pretty much anything can spark it at any time, such as a bad performance where you messed up and you were humiliated, or maybe you did your strongest effect and still didn’t get as much as a smile out of your spectator, or you could just not want to do it anymore. I like to call this “Magical Depression.”
I have seen many people suffer at one point in time from this that are on these boards. A lot of them say stuff such as they need to just sit and think for awhile or something along those lines. Now I am not trying to say that once you are dedicated to magic, that you need to make it become your life. It is okay to take a break from magic because I feel that it is like a relationship. If you spend time away from magic, and then after a lot of time has passed, the magic bug will bite you harder than it ever did in the past.
Like I stated a couple of paragraphs above….. some of the things that can spark Magical Depression are something such as a flawed performance where nothing seemed to go right. Let me start off with this one….. So you’re performing the 2 card monte for a group of people, and one of them catches you doing ‘the move’ so they blurt it out to everyone else that was watching the performance. The only way to overcome this is to move on and practice a little more on the ruined effect. Stopping magic in general is not going to help anything.
Another thing that could possibly happen is that you performed your very best effect and yet your spectator has a face of stone and says something along the lines of “cool.” Now I know how irritating this can be, but the only way to get over this one is to once again move on to another spectator. Every once in awhile you are just going to come across those types of people who act as if they couldn’t care less about your performing for them. But if you do move on, you are bound to come across one of those types of people that are very gullible and will run around screaming after you performed ‘here then there’ for them. And trust me, there is nothing more satisfying than having your spectator nearly pass out from the reaction.
I like to think of magic as a substance kind of like nicotine….. you get addicted to it the more and more you perform. But when you try to quit, you always end up coming back to it. So if any thing along the lines of the thing I stated happens to you. Just sit back and think that things can only get better and all in all, if you really think about it, these bad performances and bad spectators only help your magic, because it pushes you even harder to become the best magician you can be. So don’t look down upon these kind of things, rather, take the blow and move on, and keep striving to succeed no matter what. In a way, it hurts me to see potentially great magicians quit because of one bad experience. Even the best magicians such as Paul Harris, Daryl, David Blaine, and even the almighty Oz have had bad experiences like these, and yet they are still around as magicians, and darn good ones at that.