Everytime I do a coin trick for my family, I always have the same experience of them saying that although I have vanished a coin, or make 2-3 coins appear, etc those kind of tricks, coins must have be hidden in my palm in the first place. any solutions to this ? patter or ?Thanks

Start with a handwash or an "empty hand" gesture.

Magic should be for entertainment. If they are not entertained, they will be suspicious. The magic should take away all their suspicion.

Discover one of the various ways to make the magic happen in their hands, not yours. That should take care it

Best,

Mike

Sometimes doing tricks for family, you don't give the same patter and performance because they are family. You just simply do the trick without a lot of presentation. Maybe this is why you get that reaction. I do that sometimes when I purchase a new trick and I want to perform it, I always show it to my daughter first before I perform it on spectators.

Yeah I think its true, whenever I got a new trick or sleight of hand, I will always show my sister and ask her for comments. This helps me to improve the way I handle my trick.

If you take a look at Ortiz's "Strong Magic" you may be able to work out what preconceptions your audience is likely to have concerning methods employed in your magic. For example, focusing on cards Ortiz suggests that audiences always immediately believe that magicians; 1. Use their sleeves, 2. Use duplicate cards, and 3. Use marked cards. Any devices to allay their suspicions on these points before you start will not only stop any questions, but also heighten their experience of your magic.

You can come up with similar conditions with coins (in fact, your audience already has by the sound of it). So by "proving" your hands to be empty, taking off your jacket and rolling up yor sleeves, having coins marked to "prove" you're not using duplicates, etc. etc. you can improve the effect of a performance dramatically (in my opinion and experience).

As well as Ortiz's work, I'd recommend Knepper's "Indirection". This concentrates on indirect and (mostly) unspoken methods of proof. Because you're making the audience make their own assumptions about a condition (even when it's not true), they accept that condition more strongly than if you state it directly.

I'm not sure that last paragrpah makes sense, so yell if it doesn't.

Hope that helps.

Ian

Also they might have seen you practice round the house. lock yourself away till it perfect then show it

I assume that your routine starts with the coins in your hands, if this is indeed the case then do something like this -

* Get your coins into position while you're sitting at the lunch table, then wait for someone to bring up magic, or try to steer the conversation there yourself, that way the routine will seem more impromptu and that may help diffuse their suspicions.

* If possible, do another quick routine first (a card routine for example)while keeping the coins palmed throughout, then after your first routine launch straight into your coin routine... or

* Do a different routine first and load yourself up with coins either DURING the routine or as you're putting the cards away.

Good luck.

Doing tricks for family members is always difficult, because the don't expect you to do "magic" but to do "tricks". And don't forget this: in my view cion magic is always very difficult, more difficult than most performers think, because the attitute of the spectators are very often: "He is just hiding the coins". If you want to be successful in coin magic, in my opinion you must practice more than with mentalism or card magic. This is of course just my experience, so a lot of coin magicians will disagree. But try it for yourself, watch some coin magicians: you will experience that a lot of them are not performing very good.

Magixx

I am fairly new at this (started 2 years ago), but have learned something in the past month after performing for the first time for my neighbors and then for my IBM ring. I felt like I got great, enthusiastic responses from both performances. I think the key was that I spent a lot of time putting together a magic show of around 8 tricks. I developed story lines and what I thought was a good segue from one trick to the next. I followed Al Schneider's advice and put together a show of my best effects. The end result was that the audience responded not that I was performing "tricks", but that I was doing magic. I also saw Michael CLose lecture at our IBM ring and he brought out the point of putting your own personality into your effects, and developing interesting story lines for them.

The response was totally different compared to just trying out individual tricks on people to see how they went over. I could get a sense of the technical success of the sleights, but without a good story line or presentation, there was no beginning/middle or end. Just one trick.

At my IBM meeting, the other members commented that they really enjoyed it, and that it was obvious I had spent time developing a show with a definite flow in it.

I would recommend getting together 5 of your favorite tricks, and script out a show with them. Develop story lines for each trick, try to go smoothly from one to the next, and end the last trick in a manner so they know the show is over. Pick one person to practice your sleights on, but have a planned show for others.

As I said, I am definitely a novice but I feel like I made a great leap since putting together the show.