I once had a chat with Lance Burton about mirrors. Lance is a very dedicated guy and works hard at whatever he does. While practicing his dove work, he used a mirror a lot. All of this work caused him to stare at his moves in the mirror. That carried over to his performance. It appeared as a stare into nothing look. Some told him about it. He said he felt bad about that and thought of somehow changing it. Then he was told it gave him an eerie undertaker look that appeared mysterious. I do not know what happened after that as my conversation with him was at the beginning of his career.

To handle some of this, I would set a teddy bear on the other side of the table and perform for it. I had trouble with video cameras because the time to rewind and view was long. That made practice unbearable. Today, this is helped by connecting a camera to a laptop and running without tape. RAM devices do not need rewind time.

During my career in magic I went to magic conventions and sold books. I demonstrated material all day long. I could easily do a show a hundred times in a day. When you do magic to pay the rent, that kind of effort is easy

Someone suggested--I can't remember who--that you film your act from behind you so that you can see and learn from the reactions of the audience. Sounded like an interesting idea.