Michael Kras
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College Magic WorkshopI was just contacted by a local college asking me to conduct a 2 hour magic workshop, the first hour involving me performing close-up and the second hour featuring a mini lecture by me, teaching the participants some basic magic effects and a bit of basic magic theory.
What effects or effect resources would be the best place to find material to tach to complete novice magicians? Would it be a bad move to teach them a card control or double lift, two fo the most commonly used moves in card magic?
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BrianMillerMagic
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Michael...you are in no way prepared to give a lecture, especially to complete novices (and you know this). If you are planning on doing it anyway, I would either supply everyone with a deck of cards and teach two or three self-working tricks out of Karl Fulves' Self Working Card Tricks book or supply everyone with a pack of sponge balls and teach a very basic sponge ball routine. If you did sponge balls, you could go into everything from retention vanish to the psychology behind the routine/misdirection and its history. That would cover everything you've been asked to do all in one swoop. But you should know that you're not prepared to do this. If you were, you wouldn't need to ask these kinds of questions. I'm not in any way doubting your performing abilities, because you're certainly making excellent progress there, but lecturing to complete novices at the college level? I wouldn't bank on it.
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Michael Kras
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No, these people aren't at a college level... my bad there, forgot to mention they are only young preteens. Sorry if my post was misleading.
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BrianMillerMagic
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Even still. Your best bet is to hand the gig off to a local working pro, even if he doesn't regularly lecture. But again, if you're going to go do it anyway -do not teach card controls or double lifts in a one hour first time introduction to magic. When I ran my Introduction to Card Magic Camp last summer, the entire first day was spent solely working on proper card mechanics. In the entire five day camp we never got to a double lift.
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Michael Kras
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Thank you for the advice. It's more just teaching a couple of basic magic effects then a full-on professional formal lecture.. more of an informal one. I will think about it all.
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Michael Kras
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And shouldn't any form of teaching magic to new people be considered beneficial to the magic community, no matter how? I understand I am probably not the most qualified to do it, but taking that fact into consideration, to me it doesn't seem as bad.
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BrianMillerMagic
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| Michael Kras wrote: | | And shouldn't any form of teaching magic to new people be considered beneficial to the magic community, no matter how? I understand I am probably not the most qualified to do it, but taking that fact into consideration, to me it doesn't seem as bad. |
No, any form of teaching magic to new people is not beneficial. In your first post you were wondering if you should be teaching a double lift to complete beginners. That would be at best blatant exposure. There is a massive learning curve to magic, and understanding how to teach it properly takes a lot of experience - experience teaching, not performing. There is so much more to it than simply explaining the mechanics of an effect. And if they want you presenting some history of magic, you had better have a perfectly accurate researched presentation.
Teaching magic to first time beginners is an enormous responsibility. Whether or not those students pursue magic or decide to leave it forever is dependent on their first encounter with learning it. I know an hour long lesson doesn't seem like that big of a deal to you, but it is to them.
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Michael Kras
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I see what you mean. I didn't have the intention of teaching a double lift to them at all. Although it is irrelevant, I do have teaching experience, and one of my past lecture type events was even officially acknowledged. I will think about what I want to do with this gig though.
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Ben Train
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Dawg,
Have to agree with Brian- not qualified. My suggestion- call me and we'll talk. I have a few ideas.
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Michael Kras
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I ended up changing it around and simply did two one-hour shows. Thank you for your suggestions and advice.
Oh, and welcome to Magicanada, Ben!
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