Systems for Improving as a Magician

I want to share two systems with you, each of which has helped me become a better magician.

If you perform magic 100% of the time, these are probably all things you’ll have worked out by yourself already. But if you’re a hobbyist or a part-timer (like me), it may take some time to develop these systems organically. So this article is a shortcut for you — what a lucky bunch you are!

Before we jump in: why should you listen to me?

Let me first introduce myself. I’m Paavan. I’m a magician… but I’m not only a magician. For my day job, I work as a user experience designer, making apps and websites. And before that, I did a computer science degree at Oxford. 

Both of these experiences have given me an understanding of the power of thinking logically and using systems, which I’ve transferred to all parts of my life. Many people think that design is a creative field, but actually, the best-designed products have an intrinsic consistency, which allows end-users to intuitively understand how those products work. Thinking systematically about designing helps to achieve this. 

For example, take a look at this screenshot:

Notice the icon in the top right corner. That’s a menu or ‘hamburger’ icon — and, odds are, you’ll know what will happen when you tap on it. This is an example of a reusable pattern or system. All the best websites lean into this because they know visitors to that site will find it familiar. It’s not a bad thing — it’s actually something really good, as it gives people a sense of trust.

So, enough background. What are the two systems I’ve come up with?

The first one is this:

Have a destination in mind for your hands at every part of your routine.

Let me explain:

When practising magic tricks, we often focus on practising the sleights. It’s easy to do 100 double lifts while watching TV. What we don’t practise (as much) are the moves in between the sleights. This could be transitioning between tricks in a routine, or ditching a gimmick (or bringing in a different gimmick), or could even be asking the spectator for something (which is therefore harder to practise alone, without spectators).

Choreographing these parts of a routine in detail has a huge impact. It not only improves the level of deception you can achieve, but also your overall performance.

‘Choreographing,’ however, is a tricky word, so I like to always think about it in terms of destinations. No matter where my hands are at a given point, I focus on where they need to end up. That way, even if I’m nervous when performing, or under pressure, or I get distracted, my mind will kick in and remind me that: ‘hey, your hands need to be travelling to X position for the next part of this trick or routine.’

You should visualise where your hands will be for every step of the trick, and connect them in your head, like a dot-to-dot or Google Maps journey. 

Let’s look at a specific example.

Consider you’re doing a trick where you secretly control and fold a selected and signed playing card into quarters, to be loaded into a wallet. (I control the card with a dribble pass, use an overhand shuffle to move the card to the bottom of the deck, fold it with a mercury card fold, and then load into Nick Einhorn’s excellent Nest of Wallets, stealing the card out while handing out the deck to be shuffled further by a spectator. Nothing fancy.)

To cover folding the card, I ask the group of spectators: “Who amongst you do you think is best at shuffling cards?” This grants me enough of a lull to do the fold, which requires two hands.

Here’s the issue I had before I started thinking explicitly about choreography. My hand would jerk straight to my pocket, ready to get the folded card loaded in the wallet. As much as I tried telling myself to slow down, lest I make it obvious I’d stolen something out, I couldn’t stop myself.

And this is such a hard thing to get better at: it’s basically impossible to recreate the conditions of performing live, suited up, in front of spectators, when practicing at home.

What helped me was reframing the destination.

I added an extra stop.

A waypoint on the journey…

On the folded card’s journey from the deck to the nest of wallets, my half-closed fist would come to rest on my thigh, outside of my pocket.

(I learned this from Christian Grace’s teaching of Level One, another excellent trick. In that trick, you’re left unclean after handing out a single card, so it’s vital not to rush to your pockets and instead to just look relaxed.)

By aiming for my hand in that specific position, it meant that, even with the heat of a spectator gazing at my hands, I’d drilled where my hands were going. So, in spite of the pressure, they automatically went there.

The second piece of advice is to make use of templates wherever possible.

Here are a couple that you’re welcome to steal from me:

Lots of people don’t know this, but Gmail has a setting to save any draft emails as templates. (This used to be a ‘Labs’ feature called canned responses.) If you don’t have this option when composing a new email, go to Settings > All settings > Advanced > Templates, and turn it on.

Now, when replying to a quote enquiry, all I have to do is preload one of these templates, tweak the details to match that specific event, and send it.

I used to just have this saved as a text file on my Desktop, but having it built into Gmail means its way easier to find and use, and I can also use it on the go.

I also have a similar text shortcut set up on my phone, with a pre-filled thank you message to send to a client after a gig. Again, I customise this before sending.

To do this on iPhones, open the Settings app, then tap General > Keyboard > Text Replacement.

Another template I use is this printout I designed for where things go in my jacket:

I have three copies of this filled out and printed out, and I keep them in my jacket pocket, my close-up bag, and in my backup close-up bag. 

Having this to refer to means that I can quickly load up my pockets as needed. If I’m bleary-eyed after a day of full-time work and psyching myself up to perform, it’s one less thing to worry about. It helps me quickly check if I’m missing anything or need to build any refills.

Here’s why I think templates are so helpful. They lean on memory recognition instead of memory recall, saving your brain time and helping you feel much less frustrated.

Think about meeting a person on the street. You can often tell quite easily if you’ve seen them before, but coming up with their name (if the person is familiar) is a lot harder. The first process is recognition (you recognise the person as familiar); the second involves recall.

In general, recognition is easier than recall because it involves more cues. All those cues help guide you to retrieving the right information.

(If you’re interested in this, I highly recommend checking out this article by the Nielsen Norman Group. Recognition-over-recall is a fundamental usability heuristic, used by designers for making things as easy-to-use as possible, which is why I’m interested in it!)

Using templates like the ones I’ve shared really helps me be better as a magician, by taking away the effort involved in these repeated tasks, allowing me to focus on what matters (my performance!).