Misdirection is the art of distracting the audience while you perform your 'secret move' without being spotted. Some think it is more important to get 100% correct than your patter. After all, if you can misdirect well enough, your trick can go completely wrong and the audience will never know!

It is essential to 'control' your audience's thoughts and eyes - you should not give them the opportunity to think "how does he do that" or to see your subtle move.

This is easily accomplished on stage with careful use of lighting, props, assistants and pyrotechnics. However, for the majority of us, we need to use misdirection when standing less than a metre away from the audience.

You can control the audience with a wide range of techniques. Start by positioning them in a suitable place. This is especially important in tricks where angles are important, such as the Balducci Levitation. Once they are in a suitable position, you can start concentrating on the more subtle forms of misdirection.

Eye contact is essential - you should always monitor your audience - sustain eye contact while you are doing 'your move' (so you can execute your move with perfect timing, knowing that they are looking at your eyes). If you believe someone may see your move, make a larger move with another part of your body - you may cough, itch your face, wave your magic wand, put something on the table... the list is endless.

You can also misdirect the audience by allowing time from the 'secret move' to the point where the audience is made aware that something has happened. This is perfectly demonstrated in the Cross Cut Force

It is possible to develop your routine to include the necessary distractions. Try to think of what would naturally be done at the time when you need to misdirect. It would be stupid to toss a coin when doing a card manoeuvre, but tossing a coin would be natural if you are in the middle of a coin routine. Once mastered, your routine should leave the audience entertained by the magic you have just performed, and the fact that they don’t know how it is done leaves them mystified, thinking about your performance, and possibly, your next performance!

Edward Jellard has been a professional magician for many years, performing on stage, at children's parties and close-up magic.

You can find many free magic tricks at Magic Hat to practise your misdirection techniques.

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