Andrews lecture was very much about “getting real” and before he started said that it would be very much a non trick lecture.

In a break from your normal lecture Andrew started with playing the acustic guitar. He used this to demonstrate the advantage of “breaking the rules” and how playing an acustic guitar in an unconventional way provides a much bigger palette of sounds, and this can be applied to our magic.

First steps was aerobics for the hands, as Andrew took the audience through a number of exercises for the hands, designed by Greg Erwin to strengthen and traing our hands to be more flexible and strong. Weird as it was everyone was finding complex finger movements became eaiser in just this short time. The idea behind this was to streach us beyond what we’d normally need so that the difficult moves in magic could become easier.

Andrew also took the audience through some character discovery techniques that he has used with teachers and people to fond their “inner entertainer”. The audience started to write top tens of what people like about them, what people dislike about them, what they liked about magic, things they hated about magic and what where their top ten interests outside magic.

By looking at these lists Andrew explained that all the negative things could actually be things good about our performance, and the things on those lists could actually play as strengths or personas that could create the performer, and also how the things that don’t work, can help create.

A very different but thought provoking lecture, and definately something to revisit after the weekend.

Many thanks to Matt Buckland for the photo.