Conclusion

We’ve seen that being a good magician is very difficult and it requires a lot of practice and dedication. We’ve seen the most important things o the things that I recommend are: Knowing the types of magic, choosing a type of magic and look for help or for some advice with some better or professional magicians. From my own advice I can’t tell you to practice a lot and if you really like magic, practice religiously.
Is very important to know the types of magic because as we’ve seen there exist a lot and all of them are very hard and special. If a magician chooses one of them and focuses his attention in one or two of them is going to be easier to practice. Each of them had their own characteristics even though some of them are very similar like card flourishes with card magic and with close up magic because all of these are done with playing cards.
After we have selected the best type of magic or the one we liked is very important to focus just in that type of magic. In card magic it’s very important to learn the sleight of hand that is the essential part of the card magic. We have to learn the basic moves and do not try to go faster, is better to learn slow but learn it well. An error that the amateur magicians had is that they try to learn the moves very quickly, this is not correct. Learn them slowly and you’ll be faster while the magician keep practicing
Beginning learning magic is very difficult because the magician doesn’t know what to learn or from where to learn. That’s why the magician should enter in magic classes with a professional magician or ask him some advice. Just for the record, there is a video called in the website theory11.com where the magician Jason England shows you what to read or what to learn if the magician is stock.
In conclusion magic is one of the hardest arts that exist, very difficult to learn and to give it the necessary time. The magician should follow the mentioned steps to learn thing in a better way.

Chapter 3

To know how to be a good magician is also good to know my personal experience in magic, in which we’ll see my beginnings, the hardest part and last but not least some professional magicians experience.

     Well, the first important thing to know is why did I get into magic. Long time ago, about 6 years ago, my cousin Felipe entered into the world of magic, he did card magic like me. First I just saw his tricks but I didn’t pay much attention, maybe because I was a kid or maybe because I didn’t understand them, but later when I grew up that changed. I specially entered in magic because he taught me and made me feel that pleasure about doing magic tricks and learning moves with cards. I wanted to be able to do things that seemed impossible but really wasn’t. If I have to say thank you to someone it is to him.

     It is also good to know how I start or how do I began in the world of magic. Really, I had two beginnings.

      The first one was when I was a child. I wanted to learn magic and be able to do the same tricks that my cousin but I didn’t know where to find them and how to learn it.  I just started to search on the internet, for me it was very complicated to understand so I had to ask for my brother’s help but he didn’t want to help me. I just learned to do some very easy tricks, for the record this tricks are known as self working tricks because whatever you do, the trick is going to work and you don’t need any sleights or difficult moves. Later I just gave up and I forgot about magic for a few years.

     The second beginning was more or less about one year ago. This began also thanks to my cousin. One day, the school took me and my friends to the school Americano. When I was on the bus ready to go, I saw that my cousin got in my bus. He also needed to go to the Americano school; there he began to do a lot of magic card tricks for me and to my friends. I liked them a lot because the expressions of my friends were very funny, they were astonished. That was when I remembered that I wanted to be a magician. From that day I took magic very seriously, as one of my principal hobbies and one of my priorities.

     I started learning tricks of unknown magicians, just from YouTube and using bad cards. Then I discovered a page of a man called Mismag (thecardtrickteacher.com). This web page had tons of magic card tricks and I started to learn from there, I thought that were the best tricks in the world but in reality, now I realize that those tricks aren’t so good, all the tricks of that page are self working. I spent a lot of time practicing my magic, almost all the afternoon and part of the night. At the time I used some bad cards like the Chinese ones that are sold in any store.

After a time I spoke with my cousin about magic and he suggested that I buy some good cards and told me that he would help me to learn some basic but good tricks and sleights, that’s when I learned from where to get good tricks (without his help I couldn’t     have learned good tricks). Other day he went with me to buy some good cards like Bicycle playing card. Here in Ecuador is very difficult to buy good cards because we can only find those cards in very specific places and they are very expensive, but he went with me to a magic shop were are a lot of cards and magic staff, also the price is not so expensive (magiaec.com). There I finally bought my professional cards to do magic. I spent 24 dollars on 5 decks of cards, 2 blue, 2 red and 1 black. The most amazing thing of buying playing cards is the smell of new cards and also to collect them. I enjoy collecting cards because I like the different textures and types of cards that exist, it’s an obsession.

The last aspect of my beginning is what I learned to do first. As I said, I began learning from YouTube and then with the help of my cousin I learned good stuff like great tricks and incredible moves. Now I know that the best sites to learn tricks are: Theory11.com, Dananddave.com, Ellusionist.com, and Thebluecrown.com. So the first things that I learned were simple tricks and basis sleights like; the double and triple lifts, the pinky and thumb brake, some flourishes, some false cuts some false shuffles and the riffle force.

The first tricks that I learned were from great magicians like: Chris Kenner, Dan Buck, Dave Buck, Oz Pearlman, Daniel Garcia, Jay Noblezada, Erick Jones and Brad Christian.

Just for the record, the first good and hard trick that I learned is called “The Ishkabible Sandwich by Eric Jones”.

Now it’s time to see the hardest part about being a magician and all the problems that I had.

During all the time that I learned magic, it was very hard. I had a lot of problems.

Well, magic can be really complicated if you are a lazy person, if you give up easily and above all if you are not a persistent person.  To recap, in magic you need to practice a lot to master all the moves and sleights. That’s probably the hardest part of magic.

There are also more facts that make magic complicated. Some moves are very complicated, some sleights just the professional magicians can do them invisibly, and just the magicians that have been practicing for 10 or more years can master those moves. To be a good magician you need to sit down and concentrate a lot to master the moves and practice every day more than 2 hours.

As I said earlier, there exist millions of moves but the most complicated are: The passes, Flourishes, Color Changes and the false shuffles. This are more advanced moves. Now let’s explain these moves and let’s see why they are so difficult.

     A pass is a move where you have a card selected in the middle of the deck and with a pinky break you transpose both packets, the one that is on the bottom goes to the top and obviously the one that is on the top, goes to the bottom, allowing controlling the selected card to the top of the deck. The passes that I know are: the Classic Pass, the Turnover Pass, the riffle Pass, the SWE Shift Pass and the Spread Pass. The pass is so difficult that only professional magicians can do it right and invisibly.

Some Flourishes could be easy but the advanced ones are very hard to do, I could say that a flourish need to be practiced more than a card trick.

A color change is a move where you have a card, and you change it into any other card in just a few seconds, of course is a very strong visual change. The move is difficult because you need to do it invisibly, do it very faster and clean.

The last hard moves are the false shuffles. The false shuffles are very hard because you need to do it super faster and have a lot of precision while doing the move. For me, the hardest false shuffle is called the Zarrow shuffle

     Also we can have some problems. My first problem was that the first time that I started to learn, when I was a child, I didn’t know too much English, so I couldn’t understand the tricks. Most of the good tricks are in English, so a magician needs to know well English to understand perfectly how to perform the trick, that’s why I stoped doing magic tricks, because I didn’t understand them and I need to bother my brother to help me understand.

    There also exist other problems, like cards. For me without good cards, it is impossible to do some moves or to perform well, that’s why I take care of my cards. Other problem could be that when I’m practicing, I accidentally drop the card to the floor, and that is very bad because the cards gets lost or gets dirty. The worst thing is to practice with dirty cards or with old card because they smell bad and because they are sticky.

Finally, we’ll see how people react and how this caused me some trouble.

     The reaction of some people is amazing. After I perform a trick they are astonished, but also they are trying to discover how I do the trick. The problem is when I have as spectator’s people that don’t believe in magic and don’t make magic happen.

An example is my uncle, I can’t do magic to him because he doesn’t react, he is so “smarty”, he thinks that he know everything, he suppose that he knows how to do how all the tricks. This is the problem in how people react. Another problem could be that there are a lot of people that don’t let you do the magic, they are always saying “why do you do this? Or do this thing!” But they screw your trick and your magic, a good spectator just needs to watch and then react.

As a conclusion, I want to thank my brother because he has been a lot of support for me. He also supports me and gives me great advices about what I did wrong in the card tricks.

     Know that we have seen my personal experience it is time to see the experiences of professional Ecuadorian magicians. These amazing magicians have shared his experience: Felipe Bolaños, Isaac Yepez and Ignacio Merino. Is very interesting to know other magician’s experience because we can learn a lot, especially how to act in front of people.

     This magician have more than 10 years of experience, his name is Isaac Yepez. His artistic name is Isaac el mago. He is a terrific magician because he has more that 10 years of experience, so he knows a lot of things, specially how to perform in a place full of people.. The types of magic that he performs are:  Magic for kids, close up magic, restaurant magic, mentalism, etc.

    First he said that he entered in the world of magic because when he was 6 years old he saw a magician called Smollen, then instantly he knew that magic was his profession. Then, he told me how he began. First he began learning for himself and trying to practice a lot. When he was 12 years old, he bought his first book of magic. He just learned with books because in that time tutorial videos didn’t exist.

The first things he learned were everything that was in his book. He thought that everything was important in magic and he learned everything that was in his first book.

     Isaac thinks that a magician can have problems but all of those problems can be resolved. He thinks that the audience is not a problem, “You make your own audience”.  He realizes that the audience has a lot of reactions: Nervous, they freak out, they ask how the effect is done, they scream or sometimes they don’t know how to react, etc. He thinks that the audience is not a problem although the biggest problem could be when someone is drunk is the audience. “I know how the audience will react”

     His inspiration was David Copperfield.  He said that the best part of magic is “The beauty of wonder”.  For him the most difficult presentation were his first presentations, when he performed in CCI in front of a huge crowd (one month, four times a week).  For a good performance there exist many factors to take into count like: Acting, makeup, attachments,lights, music and of course a lot of practice.

Finally he thinks that the best type of magic is card manipulation because it’s difficult to perform and we can use any thing that we have in our hands.

     Now it’s time to learn the experience of another young and great magician called Ignacio Merino. Ignacio 23 years old and his artistic name is Ignacio Kumati. He is a terrific magician. The types of magic that he performs are mentalism and card magic.

He entered into magic because he saw a magician called Juan Tamariz and he liked very much. Later at the age of 14, he bought a DVD with some easy effects and that was all until he was, 18 when he entered into the world of magic again because he met a group a magicians and he had the chance to learn magic. He started with classes, he took magic classes with Magnalucius (†) and the magician Isaac, after this he began to buy some books and DVD’s.

He first started learning some simple card tricks and little by little he discovered new techniques and new sleights up to do some amazing but hard tricks.

He thinks that he most difficult part of being a magician is the acting. Acting is very important. “They say that if the actors were magicians, magicians would not work”.

¿What problems can a magician have? He said that the world of magic is so great that sometimes the magician feels confused. The magicians don’t know where to begin, what to read or learn. “It’s very difficult to study magic without a guide”.  He thinks that all the “magicians” doing card tricks in Youtube are not so good and for him that is not magic. Constant practice, both the tricks and the presentation will eliminate any problem a magician can have.

Ignacio thinks that the spectators can have a lot of reactions. Among these are laughs, cries, silence, fear, etc. “Applause is very common in magic but silence is also very common. A lot of magicians do not value  silence but silence is a great form of reaction and silence needs to be very valued, but also in a presentation  need to be all of the metioned reactions.

His major influence in magi was Juan Tamariz, Jeff McBride, Magnalucius and the Isaac el mago.

The things that Ignacio Kumati likes the most about magic are the surprise and the pleasure that occurs in magic. “The fact that there is something so strong like magic, freak out people for a moment is the greatest beauty of this art.

Finally, the type of magic that he prefers is card magic because he thinks that a magician can make a tremendous show with just 54 cards with the jockers, which is fantastic.

Now, the last magician is Called Felipe Bolaños. He is an incredible magician with more than 5 years of experience. The type of magic that he performs is card magic.

So, he began in magic because of “his friends fault” because his friend performed some tricks for him, so Felipe was tired of not understanding anything. As a result, he began to learn magic by himself, his friends didn’t know that Felipe was learning magic and he took advantage of that so that he could learn more techniques. He pretended to be surprised about his friends’ tricks but he already knew how to perform those tricks. He begin in magic watching 9 DVDs made by a magician called Michael Ammar, this DVDs were called “Easy to master card magic”.

The first thing he learned was a very easy card force to “guess” the spectator’s card.

     The most difficult part of magic is practicing. “Magic occupies a lot of time”. Sadly, Felipe hasn’t been practicing a lot recently because of his work and education. “It’s my hobby, not my profession”.

In the problems that a magician can have, Felipe thinks that there are no problems that  don’t have a solution. “If you practice a lot every problem can be overcome”. Even with a difficult audience that could be a real problem or can cause you a headache, if you practice enough you can overcome them. He thinks the most difficult spectators are children because it is very difficult to attract their attention.

He thinks that there are difficult spectators. Always in a group of people there exists a person that thinks he know everything. “I enjoy performing magic for people that have never seen magic because their reaction is what makes magic exist.

For the record, Felipe’s best influence in magic is Michael Ammar. “Without him I could never have learned anything I know”.

What Felipe like most about magic, he explained with a phrase from a Ecuadorian magician: “la magia hace lo posible sea posible y lo imposible sea posible también.”

He also says that people who don’t know about magic think that the more difficult is to do a trick, the most impressive it will be. He says that sometimes he was frustrated because a trick that took him many months to master do not create the impact in the spectators that he believed, so hard tricks are not necessarily the best ones. “I can’t qualify how good the trick is, who qualify it are the people”. He said that sometimes you do some tricks for a group of people and they end up very shocked but for other groups the effect of the trick is not so good, so people have different reactions.

Finally, he says that the type of magic that he likes is card magic. He likes this thing called “One on One magic” which is basically when you perform magic to people and they are very close to you so they can see you don’tt have anything hidden or anything to cheat. With relation of his best type of magic he said, “I don’t say I don’t like another types of magic, I like stage or scenario magic but I rather prefer to do magic with cards or coins even though the cards are not mine”.

In conclusion we can say that they have a lot of things in common. They entered into the world of magic because they think art is a very powerful art and because they love the spectator’s reactions. Also they began learning the basic same basic things like card forces. In the way that they are different, I could say that they have different likes about the types of magic. Felipe just performs card magic, Ignacio performs card magic and mentalism and Isaac performs a lot of magic but not so much card magic.

I have learned a lot from the and I am very grateful for letting me interview them. No I know magic is a beautiful art. I will keep making a lot of effort and practicing a lot so I can get to be as good magician as them. Someday I will perform in front of a huge crowd.

Chapter 2

     Among the multiple things that a magician needs to know to be a good magician, one of the most important is called sleights. Sleights, also known as sleight of hand, are the different techniques used by a magician to manipulate cards or coins and do secret moves. There exist millions of sleights but the most important or the basic ones are the brakes, the double lifts, and controls-forces. These are the most important sleights because are the basic ones and if a magician doesn’t know them, he can’t learn other more difficult sleights. With that in mind let’s take a look into the first sleight, the brakes. 

     To perform the most difficult sleights it is necessary to know and to understand the basic ones and relate them to create your own tricks. All the sleights can be unified to create one great trick or illusion.

     Breaks are a useful move that is often used to retain the position where the spectator returned their selected card to the deck, so the magician never loses the spectator’s card. The important thing is that thanks to brakes, the magician will always know where the spectator’s card is and therefore he can perform other sleights like double lifts, passes, controls or forces (S.W.Ersdnase).

     The Breaks can be done in 2 ways, one is called pinky brake because we do it with our pinky and the second is called thumb brake obviously because we performed with our thumb. A pinky break is the act of keeping a gap or space between the cards of a deck (S.W.Ersdnase).

     To perform brakes, magicians need to also know how to hold the cards correctly. This is called a grip. There exist a lot of grips, but the most common are the dealers grip (also called mechanics grip) and the biddle grip. If you are right-handed you will be grabbing the cards with and left hand; on the other hand, if you are left-handed you will grab the cards with the right hand, so if we grab the cards with our left hand for the dealers grip we’ll have to put our thumb all across the left part of the cards, the pointer finger at the top right part and the other 3 fingers in the right side. In the biddle grip we’ll need to put the thumb in the lower part of the deck (center) and the other 4 fingers in the top part (center) ( S.W.Ersdnase).

     To learn how to obtain a break is very easy. For a pinky break we should be in dealers grip and just where we want our brake we introduce our pinky a little bit in the lower right part of the deck, the spectator won’t notice it. For the thumb brake we split the deck where we want our break in biddle grip and place our thumb in the middle part of the deck (Card Sleights).

     Now that we have seen the brakes let’s take a look into another great slight, the double lift.

     The double lift is a sleight used by all the magicians in card magic. It is a method where the magician can keep the identity of the top card secretly just by lifting the top two cards at once, this gives the spectator the illusion that only the top card has been displayed or shown . Therefore the audience is tricked into believing that they saw just the top card in the deck but in reality the magician showed them the second card. There are different ways to perform this sleight and also there are different double lifts (variations) such as a triple lift or even a quadruple lift (turning over three or four cards over as one respectively) (Echidna, Mark).

     In summary, the double lift allows us to apparently show the top card to the spectator, but we are really showing them the card below it (second card)

     The double lift can have many uses, for example, popular use of the double lift is when you have the spectator’s card at the top of the deck and want them to think that the card is lost in the deck, if we perform this correctly, we can have an amazing card trick or illusion. Another use of the double lift is to show the spectator a card then does something with it like to lose it in the deck, when in fact the card they saw is still on the top of the deck. These are the most common uses of the double lift (Jason England).   

    With this in mind, is time to learn how to do it. To perform the double lift, first hold the deck in dealers grip or mechanics grip (point one) in your left hand and catch a pinky break (point one) under the top two cards. We can catch the break we by simply counting two cards with our thumb or using misdirection and push off with your thumb the deck 2 cards as one. Lift the two cards as one holding them with all the fingers but make pressure with the thumb so the cards won’t flash, this is done with your right hand, then to put the cards face down again, lift the cards with your left middle finger and obtain a break beneath the top two cards, then repeat the same process. The triple lifts and the quadruple lift are performed in the same way (Paul Wilson).

     Now that we’ve learned the double lift, let’s take a look into the last two indispensable sleights, the force and the control.

     A card force or a force is often used in close-up magic. The objective is to apparently offer a free or random choice of a card, when in reality the magician knows exactly which card will be chosen. The magician makes the spectator pick the card the magician wants. This can then be revealed later in the trick depending on the trick. (Card Sleights)

    There exist a lot of variations and ways of doing a card force. Many tricks using card forces are among the simplest tricks to perform, but also are very powerful like the classic card trick of a magician trying to divine which card the spectator has selected, the trick is that the magician made the spectator pick the card that the magician wants, is very common and powerful this trick. Maybe it is for this reason that card forces are among the tricks most frequently performed by professional magicians (Card Sleights).

     There exist a lot of forces like the Hindu Force, The classic force, Glide Force, or the Riffle force. Some of them require some hard sleights so we’ll talk about the most easy and common one, the riffle force. The riffle force is a utility move for forcing a card. We take the cards in biddle grip (explained in point one), then we make a pinky brake in the card that we want to force (this card should be in the middle of the deck), then we just simply riffle down the cards with  our thumb maintaining that brake in the card that we want to force, when the spectator say stop we simply lift the cards in our brake, no in the part they said stop, showing their “random” selection (Card Sleights).

     In card magic there is also exist something called controls. A control is a utility move to secretly pass a card to the top or the bottom of the deck, once you master locating a card with a break; you're ready for more complicated maneuvers. It is important though to keep track of your card in the deck (Card Sleights).

      The most common controls are false cuts or false shuffles like the false overhand shuffle, the false Hindu shuffle, false riffle shuffle, the zarrow shuffle or the swing swivel cut. Some are very difficult to do. Controls are primarily used to maintain the deck in the same order and doesn’t losing the selected card (Card Sleights).

     So far we’ve seen the basic and the most important sleights that a magician needs to know to be a good magician these are the breaks, the double lifts and the control-forces.  It’s very important to master all this sleights so we can do or perform the hardest ones. Some of them will take hours of practice but if we really like magic the hours will be seconds and the result will worth the effort.

Now It’s time to see some personal experience and other professional magicians experience so we can help to future magicians.

Chapter 1

Being a good magicians is complicated, you just don’t have follow these steps, you also have to practice a lot and never give up, these 2 thing are essential in the process of learning this art called magic.

     In magic there exits many types of magic like card magic/cardistry, mentalism, close-up magic/street magic, stand-up magic, micro magic, mathemagic, magic with animals/live animals or  stage magic. The most popular of these types of magic are: card magic/cardistry (also known as card flourish), mentalism and close-up magic/street magic. These four types of magic can be combined to create one great illusion; all the people know that magic really doesn’t exist that is just an “illusion”. Saying that magicians create illusion means that magicians make people think things that aren’t really happening or making them believe something has vanished even though it hasn’t. (Lebon)

     The first type of magic is card magic that has a very close relation with cardistry (another type of magic). The basic purpose of card magic is to create magic effects or card tricks using a deck of playing cards. Card magic is also used in other types of magic like close-up magic and in street magic. Thanks to its versatility card magic has become a very interesting and popular hobby among modern magicians. It goes from finding any card that the spectator selected randomly and has it lost in the middle of the deck to vanishing any card in the spectator’s face. This type of magic can be done for a few people or for a lot of people, for example magicians can perform this magic on a stage with lights, but also just for few people in restaurants, streets, schools, public places. (Lebon)

     Many people could say that this type of magic is the hardest one because most of this tricks or these illusions magicians accomplish with a lot of hours or days or even months of hard training (sleights), also there exist a lot of requirements that a magician need to have to be a good performer of card magic like have big hands and be fast with the hands (even though this is accomplished with practice). Well-known card magicians of the past and present include Daniel Garcia, Daniel Madison, The Buck Twins, Darwin Ortiz, Wayne Houchin, Jason England, Juan Tamariz and Michael Ammar. It’s important to mention the most important magicians so people would know from whom to learn. (Lebon)

     Even though magicians could perform with any deck of cards, there are cards that are preferred among magicians like Bicycle playing cards, Bee playing cards and Tally-Ho playing cards due to their durability, size and texture. These types of playing card are the standard size of card, there exist other cards that are smaller like santupai playing cards. The most common ways or methods of learning card magic are books and especially instructional videos (also called tutorials or a trick reveal). A lot of tricks are in the market and are released every day. (Lebon)

     Also, there exists a type of magic called cardistry or card flourishes. In cardistry the magician has a visual display of skills attempting to impress the spectators with playing cards. Flourishes are primarily intended to be visually impressive and intend to appear difficult to do. For magicians flourishes can be divided in many genres like: one handed cuts, spreads, two handed cuts, fanning, and springs. (Lebon)

     Card flourishes are performed both as part of magic performances and on their own. Card flourishes and card magic are in the same category because both are performed with playing cards. In this type of magic also the card that are recommended to use are the same as in card magic. Card Flourishes and card magic are considered to be art forms, and many people all over the world practice them religiously, this is a very interesting hobby.  Many famous flourishers include Dan Buck, Dave Buck, Andrei Jikh and Daniel Madison, the most common method of learning the art is through DVDs, books, free tutorials on the internet, privately produced instructional videos. There are many videos on the market from which people can learn but people have to buy them. (Waqas)

     Along with the cardistry and the card magic community many websites are available to teach them and help advance the art. Some of the most popular websites are Theory11, Thekardist, Kardistry and ellusionist. (Waqas)

     The second most popular type of magic is Mentalism. Mentalism is another great type of magic. It is so great because the magician attempt to read people’s mind.

     The principal objective of mentalism is to create an impression in the audience or in the spectators mind. This impression must be interpretated by the people that the magician has “magic powers” to read thoughts, predict events, control other minds, and similar things. It can be presented or performed on a stage, for small groups like close up magic or even for one spectator. Mentalism relates a lot with card magic, a mentalist would make the spectator choose a card and lose it in the middle of the deck, and he could know the card that the spectator choose just by looking at his or her eyes. For example, let’s say that a spectator chooses a card such as the ace of spades; the magician would know their card just by looking to his eyes or similar thing like telling the spectator to repeat in his head the card a lot of times. This technique is called control. (Lebon)

     The third and last type of magic is Close up magic, this type of magic has a strong similarity with Street magic. Close up Magic and street magic are in the same category because both are practiced for just a few people, but they are not performed in the same place. Close up magicians usually perform for small audiences that’s why is called close up. Their stuff is usually things that you find in your pockets like cards, card boxes, rubber band, sponge balls or coins. Magicians tend to talk with the spectators and also make jokes during the act; this can make the performance very interesting and funny.

     On the other hand, street magic is a form of street performing that needs a stage or surrounded by the audience. Magicians of this type include David Blane and Brad Christian (the creator of ellusionist.com). It’s very important to mention that Brad Christian is the creator of ellusionist because illusionist.com is one of the most important magic companies and he is a greet magician. People could learn from his DVD called: How to do street magic. (Types Of Magic).


     The first thing to know about how being a good magician is to know perfectly the types of magic and their feats like card magic, cardistry, mentalism, street magic and close-up magic. All this of magic are performed in the entire world and people can easily learn them in Internet or in books. Now that we have seen the type of magic, is the turn to know about the sleights and their importance on how to be a good magician.

Introduction

The most difficult thing in magic is to be a good one. In order to be a good magician, is necessary to know a lot of things. There exist a lot of magicians in the world some of them present their tricks in youtube or in other social networks. The point is that some of them are really good and other magicians are really bad, but the worst thing is that some of them pretend to be good but in reality they are really bad, that’s why is good to know how to be a good magician

 First, the first step to be a good magician, this step is to know all the types of magic that exist: Mentalism, card magic, stage magic, magic with animals, children's magic, and so on. This is important because the magician can specialize in one type and focuses in that. I'm talking about the 3 types of magic best known and those that are practiced more, these are: card magic, card magic/cardistry (also known as card flourish), mentalism and close-up magic/street magic.

Second, I focus in card magic that is the type of magic that I like, the most practiced and performed and the one that I perform. I explain that the most important thing for being a good magician or a good card magician is to learn the card magic sleights. I explain that the most important and basic to be a good magician are: the double lift, the break   and the cardcontrol-cardforce. I explain each sleigth, what are them and how to perform these secret and “magical” moves.

Finally, I talk that for being a good magician, magicians also need some advice some professional magicians advice or from magicians more experienced to help you learn and see from where because magic is something huge and if you are an amateur, you can get confused. What I did here was to interview three professional magicians here in Ecuador, 2 of them have over 5 years of experience and the other has more than 10 years of experience, then, I compare their answers and I reach to a conclusion