Tips and hints to help you when you're starting to do magic tricks

Here are a few basic points to help you get started in doing magic.

1. Practice doing magic tricks in front of a mirror. It helps you see the trick that your audience will see.
    
2. Patter is what you say while you're doing a trick. A good story helps distract your andience. Until you've been at it a long time, you'll do much better if you decide what you're going to say and practice it as you practice your tricks in the mirror. Since we're mixing magic with shrimps, I will sometimes suggest story-lines that somehow involve shrimps, but feel free to make up any storyline you feel comfortable with.
   
   It's more personal and works best when you make up your own story, then even old standard tricks take on a new life when you weave your own story around them.
    
3. Don't tell your audience how a trick works. Part of the entertainment is in trying to figure out how it was done.
    
4. Only do a trick once for any given audience. To avoid having to repeat a trick, have another trick already lined up and ready to go. Another variation is to have a very similar, but different trick ready then if you're asked to repeat you do this other trick.
    
5. Control the way people are sitting, some tricks need your audience to be watching you from a particular position ... usually directly in front you you.
    

   
    

6. Always try to do your tricks with things you've borrowed from your audience, whether they are coins, pencils, napkins, whatever. If you borrow these things it makes it seem like you've not had a chance to manipulate the items and the tricks seem more magical.
    
7. Many magicians use a magic puppet or a stuffed animal as their assistant. You can get the puppet to whisper into your ear (for mind reading tricks) or for many card tricks. Using "an assistant" of this kind helps get over nervousness when you're starting out.  For many performers the assistant they choose ends up being their "trademark" and can be the most entertaining part of the show.

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