Lee Asher | asher's playground | articles

Card Magic: Tips for Both Beginners and Advanced Magicians

Of all the magic in the whole world, there is probably more card magic out there than any other sub-section of the fine art of magic.

You can find card tricks everywhere – there are more than a few on this site.

There happens to be some great card magic out there. Unfortunately, there are also card tricks that aren’t worth the pixels they’re lit with. I think you all know what I mean!

Here are some quick tips for improving your card magic:

Even before you start to improve your trick, you should practice it to the point of near perfection. This means being able to perform the card trick from memory and in a rhythmic manner. I will go into more depth...

Let’s talk about card magic rhythm, for a minute. The natural rhythm implies flow – you perform the magic effect without thinking about it. Each phase flows at about the same pace as the other elements of the card trick.

So, your first tip for improvement is to tweak the rhythm. Try different speeds at which you pace the effect. Perform the card trick as fast as you can – not for an audience. This is practice only. Try it in front of your mirror.

In fact, you should not be performing for the audience, until you have gone through all of these steps. It will benefit you to know your card magic intimately.

Practice the card effect several times at full speed.

Next, perform the card trick painfully slow. Sloooooowly. But keep your rhythm. The point of this exercise is for you to find the best rhythm for each phase of the card magic trick.

So, after practicing the effect slowly, it’s time to mix and match rhythms. Vary the pace. Exaggerate each and every aspect of the routine. Remember, this is just the practice phase. So, accentuate each movement – make it caricature-like.

Now that you have blown each movement out of proportion, you have one more step before putting your trick back together.

Take one step backwards (not physically). Perform the routine without any of the card trick moves. If the routine calls for a switch, don’t switch the card. Feel the effect – how does it feel without using any sleight of hand?

Imprint that feeling of doing the trick without any sleight of hand. That’s how the trick should flow, when you are actually performing card magic (with the sleight of hand).

You have the flow without the slight of hand; you have the moves memorized; you can perform the effect faster than anyone humanly should; you can perform it at a snails pace – but with continuous movement. Finally, you can emphasize any point in the card trick with syncopated exaggeration.

Now it’s time to put it all back together, glued in such a way as to make it seamless.

Points at which the audience has to process information, slow down your pace.

It only takes several times in front of a real audience to see where your routine lacks verve. Pick up your pace, or restructure the sequence that isn’t working as well as you want it to.

So much to talk about, so little time….

If you would like to see some visual examples of card tricks that have been tested in front of real audiences, click here. These are free video clips of me performing some of my original sleight of hand.

If you want to learn how to perform some of my properly paced, original card magic, click here. These are not free but they are great!

I hope you have benefited from the above tips. If these tips were helpful to you, or have requests for other tips, please drop me a line.