Reflections

What? Didn't I just write a blog post about the year ending? 2014 is over. Once again I'm glad it's time for a new year. I thought last year was difficult. I definitely wasn't ready for this year. Yeah we did some cool shows and performed for more people this year than ever before but man has it been emotionally exhausting.
As I look back I'm kinda disappointed at how little we did this year. It was a hard year of lots of transitions. Everyone kept saying this is your year, this is your year. Well yes now I see it but it took until the very end to get there.
January brought that awesome bull riding show with our biggest audience to date. I also experienced Disney World for the first time. I never dreamed I would get to go there, and now I want to go back EVERYDAY.

Our marriage went through some hard times and we did quite a bit of counseling but I'm happy to say our relationship is healing and our marriage is stronger than ever before. I love Brandon more everyday.

Spring, I don't have a flipping clue what happened. I mean we did some shows but nothing significant.
Summer, there's always a bunch of shows especially at the Sea Mist resort. We did the super legit show at Alabama Theatre and got some good footage for promo videos, which we will definitely be putting out next year. We also said our final goodbyes to our sweet dog and that spun me into depression for a little while.
Fall we spent packing and getting ready to move and then everything changed which was very frustrating and exciting at the same time. We can't wait to tell you guys about the super amazing news.
Winter is kinda just starting. December's been fun getting everything finalized. Oh and I met a 637 pound sea lion named Bruce. Kind of one of my favorite things ever.

Looking forward to a fresh start. I'm gonna back into my yoga. We got a juicer, so I'm starting that soon. Brandon has agreed to become vegetarian with me. Well we will see how long it will last for him haha. I'm getting off my birth control because I'm sick of taking chemicals everyday. It's time to get my body in the shape I want it to be. I'm hoping to get a car this year. We will be looking into atleast renting a house by this time next year. Our new job already has us a lot of shows lined up for next year and we can't wait to see how far we improve over the year. Next year we are getting new costumes, a much needed photoshoot, website revamp, and promo video. And hopefully that new illusion. It's time for some change. "Stagnation is artistic death"
Well I may or may not actually stay up until the ball drops because we just had a show a few hours ago and I'm exhausted. Eh I'll probably nap until right before. But I'm gonna atleast go drink my sparkling grape juice and kiss Brandon to start out 2015 right. Happy New Years Everyone! I'll see ya on the flip side.

Change of Plans

Soooo this is awkward. After our huge announcement, guess who's NOT moving? 

Yep, that's exactly how I felt. Well like they always say God has better plans for His children. Something came up here in Myrtle Beach literally a month to the day of us moving. Everything is still under wraps right now but we're hoping to be able to announce something soon. Sorry for all the confusion!
I've been itching to blog and let everyone know but it's been insanity.
Now we're just trying to get back to "normal". We unpacked the majority of our stuff and redecorated. You guys we bought our first lamp, we're growing up. *sniffle* Since we are staying we atleast wanted things to be different... That includes this. I spent like 2 days redoing the entire look of the blog. Please tell me you like the changes!
The background is that awesome pattern we like to use for all our promo stuff and it looks like Haunted Mansion wall paper. Double win. Then I got the purple colors to match our logo. The Frozen picture is our inside joke. You'd be amazed at how many times a child will look at Brandon before a show and say that. We always bust out laughing. I now have a bio. Woohoo! I'm ashamed it took so long to get all these things done.
We are working on new illusions now which is super exciting. Brandon has a halfway working prototype for an illusion that he will do. We are working on a new illusion for me as well.
In other awesome news, I got to play in another illusion. My bucket list includes getting in as many different illusions as I possibly can, not necessarily perform them but just get in them. I've now performed in 8 and played with 5. The wonderful Josh & Lea Knotts let us play in one of theirs this past week at the state fair. It was crazy deceptive!

Well that was all rather random but that's what has been going on lately. I'll keep you updated with all the big stuff. If I don't post again before the 31st, Happy Halloween! (Considering it's my favorite holiday I'm sure I will)

Final Bows at the Beach

Long time no blog.
I apologize for taking so long to post again. Summer is a little insane to say in the least. Life has been changing drastically. Some good things, some bad things.
First things first, summer ended officially on August 27th for us. We think we did 47 shows and 13 magic classes but there may have been more. Oops. Shows went a little different this year, I did a lot more in the show like we planned which started out really bad but got better once we found the balance.
 We started to find a good schedule and get in the swing of things. Then our dog got hurt. Or so we thought. We had a lot of back and forth emergency vet visits, medicines, and very long nights. Then on the morning of August 7th she got sick, really sick and we just knew she was leaving us. I made the hardest decision of my life on August 8th by putting my best friend of 11 years out of suffering. Turns out we think she had kidney cancer. It was a long summer for all 3 of us.

Shows have been difficult lately. It's been hard to keep my shine onstage. It's hard to pretend to be happy to make others happy. I know she is healed and no longer hurting but my heart has never felt so broken and empty. Only time can heal wounds this deep. Life goes on even with it's storms and we learn to cope. We get stronger.
We made the decision around March or April to move our lives on to another place. This season of us living in Myrtle Beach is wrapping up. We've decided to not make a huge deal out of it and people will really only find out through either reading this or our newsletter which you can sign up for here: http://eepurl.com/FjeKH. We are moving to the upstate here in South Carolina, the Greenville area. Not only will it be easier for travel (we can hit all surrounding states in 2 hours) but it also will be more year round work. Obviously when living at the beach it is seasonal work for only 3 months.
We have loved living here and of course we will miss it but we really feel as though we are being called to move. It's been a great 2 1/2 years and so many wonderful people have helped us feel at home here.
Even just this summer we have done some really exciting things like perform at The Alabama Theatre for over 1400 people. Still waiting to get the photos from that but I promise they will get posted. We will never forget all the awesome memories we have made here. The beach will always be part of us, it was our first home together. Our careers really started here. We will always come back and perform here, visit here. The salty air and waves are medication to my soul and honestly it worries me to think how I can go without it soon. I guess I'll have to get a CD that has the sounds of waves on it.

Right now it's September and we are moving in October, I know we aren't giving much warning but this was a decision that we made and wanted to keep it to ourselves while we finalized things. So from the beach to the mountains we go! We found a place this past weekend and we are already so in love with our new town. It will be nice being closer to what used to be home to us. Family will only be about 1 1/2 hours as opposed to 3. It will be much easier to come and go as we please and we can raise our own family there. (No, not yet. Just planning ahead.)
I feel like I'm rambling, there's so much I wanted to say before over the past couple of months and never got to but now those things don't seem so important in the big scheme of things. This chapter of our life has come to an end, we are turning the page to start the next part and I can't wait to see where it takes us. Please keep us in your prayers and we will keep you updated with how things are moving along.

Practice Makes Perfect

Practice until it's perfect. Rehearse until you curse.
A big part of our job is rehearsing new material. Or rehearsing old material to make it stronger. It is one of the most stressful, frustrating, and fun parts of our job. Working with my husband definitely has it's perks. We're best friends so we always make things interesting. Such as tonight I rehearsed in a mermaid clamshell bra. Anyone judging me? I thought not.

Right now we are working on a mostly new show for the Sea Mist resort that we will be performing at this summer. Finally I have a lot of speaking lines. Which means we are having to walk through the script line by line right now. And with that comes laughing. If there is any point that either one of us can reference a movie, book, or tv show from one of our lines we definitely do. Especially SpongeBob, when all else fails, quote SpongeBob. Or Frozen. Or just Disney in general.
One of our new magic effects will be a mentalism routine; I will be reading people's minds. Of course to convince people I'm not cheating I have to wear a blindfold. Reading a new script while blindfolded is not the easiest task.
While I've always loved rehearsing the illusions the most, I've come to really enjoy some of our new interaction pieces. Interacting with Brandon or an audience member can always be challenging but it makes for a more interesting show. Of course the "volunteers" that Brandon and I pretend to be for each other would never be that odd. We always give them interesting names and voices or make them as difficult to deal with as possible.
I honestly think if people can't have fun while working together as a team then it's not worth it. Making faces or dancing at random moments always keeps everything light. Or atleast we try to. Somedays aren't so easy. Some of the more physically challenging illusions could hurt one of us and put us in a bad mood or if we're just mad at each other (because we are a couple after all) that also definitely effects how rehearsal goes. Somedays I really get fed up with picking up playing cards.

That's part of the act though. The mess is enough to drive my OCD up the wall. We had a maintenance guy come in earlier and he had to deal with something in our magic room, I totally forgot we didn't clean it up after rehearsal last night. I'm sure he thought we were slobs. It's a jumbo rainbow of a mess.
I definitely know all the hours we put into our show pays off though. My new solo routine is coming along nicely and I can't wait to see how the mind reading is received. If you're in the Myrtle Beach area this summer you will have to come stay at the Sea Mist and see our show! Until then, it's back to rehearsal!

"Amateurs practice until they get it right; Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong" 

Miss Direction

When a magician waves his hand and says, "This is where the magic is happening." The real trick is happening somewhere else. Misdirection.

The quote above is from the movie Now You See Me. While watching it the other day for the first time since it was in the theaters, I finally got to really take in the movie. One of it's main themes is misdirection. The key to magic. Without it, well there wouldn't be "magic".
Now we assistants are usually blamed for all misdirection. Most people say oh sure, put any girl in a skimpy outfit and the magician can sneak an elephant onstage. While this could be true, I guess, that's definitely not how we do it in our show. I don't need to rely on my body to change where someone is looking.
There are a million different ways to keep attention away from what's really going on. Everyone knows that something sneaky has to happen, they just don't know where or when. And it's my job to see that it stays that way. Now that's not to say that I do all of it, Brandon does it too of course. But it is easier to rely on each other to cover for one another than to do it all alone.
Misdirection is a skill. I don't care what anyone has to say opposing that. The beauty of misdirection is you should never see it. It should be invisible. If you noticed a magician or assistant trying to make you look somewhere else, then obviously they failed. As a performer if you accomplish this, it's one of the satisfying feelings in the world. But on the opposing end, if they fooled you, it's one of the most frustrating things in the world. I'll never forget how many times during seeing Penn & Teller's show out in Vegas that I was just like holy crap, when did I look the wrong way? Or in their case, the right way.

As humans, we can't help it. We like order. So we naturally do what we're told. Whether it is someone actually "speaking" to us or not. The way that we misdirect could be a number of different things. But of course, all are natural. Our body language, facial expressions, a wave of the hand. All of things can cause redirection and misdirection. Where I look, you look. It's only natural. I look so fascinated by what Brandon is doing, you automatically want to see what I see. You want to feel what I am feeling. It's all part of the experience.
I'm not gonna lie, it's one of the harder parts of doing magic. Trying to concentrate enough on what you're doing, while not looking like you're doing what you're doing is extremely difficult. I'm working on my first silent solo magic piece and I have to do what magicians call "stealing". So obviously I have to use misdirection. And it's not easy. I can't check it or watch my hands. It's all about using a bigger motion to cover a smaller motion. Or just being gutsy. That can work too.

"It's so overt it's covert" -Robert Downey Jr, Sherlock Holmes

I'm not trying to give away some big secret here, I'm pretty sure everyone knows something sneaky is happening. It is magic after all. You watch it to be fooled, something has to hide the action of the trick so it can be magic. My misdirection has definitely improved over the years, maybe one day we can work up to full elephant status.

 

Outside Inspiration

Recently, well March 27th to be exact, I celebrated my magiversary. Four years I have been doing this! Absolutely crazy! As I think back over my time in magic, I think about how I have developed as a performer and who/what helped me with that.
Inspiration can come from really crazy places. Movies, books, pictures, art, music. Whatever helps you discover what you need to be or do. Being a magic assistant I often do a lot of dance, but also acting. Not necessarily talking, but often the facial expressions can speak louder than words.
In one routine in particular, I have to looked scared. I had the hardest time trying to figure out the right expression. I am a visual learner. I've never been super creative with coming up with my own stuff. That's why Brandon has to show me choreography so then I can copy him. Same with facial expressions. I needed to look scared so where did I go to for inspiration? Kristen Stewart. Yes, haters gonna hate, I know a lot of people don't like her but I do. She is perfect to look at for a scared face. Or a face in pain. I mean let's be honest, those are her best. Whether you like her or not, that was the perfect place for me to look. I've gotten a lot of compliments about my facial expressions for that routine so I think it was worth it!

Of course there are a million movies out there they give me little things to help like the way I flick my wrist or hold a pose. Then there's super awesome movies like Now You See Me that really helps my character develop.
TV shows can also help. So You Think You Can Dance is the most amazing thing ever to look at for beautiful dance technique and being fluid on stage. Even The Walking Dead has inspired a few things.
Then there's the subject of music. Honestly who doesn't get inspired by it? And sometimes I just use it as a confidence booster. Everybody has those couple of songs where they are just like heck yes this is me. It puts you in such an awesome mood and you feel on top of the world like you could do anything. I freaking jam out to "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark" by Fall Out Boy. I seriously feel like I could take over the world with that song. Although that's probably not a good idea.
Brandon's inspiration is Michael Jackson. Honestly he was and always will be one of the greatest performers of all time. He wasn't just a singer or a dancer, he was an entertainer. That's always been our goal with our magic. We don't want to be just magicians or illusionists, we want to be entertainers first and foremost.
Everyday little things inspire us, change us, make us better people. It will always be that way. I hope to continue growing as a person and an entertainer for years to come. Then one day, hopefully I can inspire someone too.

Missing My Other Half

Yes, I do get sawn in half but that isn't what I am referring to.
Friday I had the opportunity to do something I don't always get to do. Assist another magician. Which actually is one of the most nerve wracking things for me ever. Not because I only get a little bit of time to learn brand new illusions before we perform, but because I don't have Brandon. My other half. He's my rock onstage and nothing is weirder than seeing him in the audience. I get so nervous performing for him!
I've done little things here and there to assist other magicians but I guess technically I have only ever really done legit illusion performances with other magicians only 3 times. Twice with one magician and then the other day with our good friend Russell.
My favorite thing about helping out others is definitely getting to play with the illusions that are new to me. Every illusion has it's challenges and especially with me being as short as I am, some things are a stretch for me. I keep a list of all the illusions I have got to be in/play in/perform in and I always love adding to the list.

After that show the other night I was talking to Brandon about how hard it is for me to adjust with a new magician when I'm so used to him and I realized that it's actually normal for magic assistants to not really have a set magician. Which I now see is true but for the most part I have always studied couples in magic so they always work together like we do, but that isn't normal. Most magic assistants are just available to whoever needs the help. And I'm no exception to that.
It's very different when working with another if you don't know them well enough. If something goes wrong, I don't know their "oops" face or "we need to cut this trick" face. I can't judge them as well. So I have to be watching for little things that say "I need help".

Another really cool thing about assisting a different magician is I get to be a different assistant. My character has to fit to what his character is. My costume has to compliment them. My movement and dancing needs to fit their style. Every magician is different so I have to customize to that. I am always me but just a little different version according to the situation.
While I haven't officially been "borrowed" by other magicians a lot, I definitely hope it's something I can continue in the future. I have a different experience every time and it always gives me new stories to tell!

Country Conditions & Disney Discoveries

Weird title right? I'm going to discuss two different topics in this blog.
First is "Country Conditions".This is referring to the big show we had on January 18th in Augusta, GA. It was for 4600 people and it was at a bull riding fundraiser. Yes, you read that right. We performed in an arena on an 8 x 8 ft platform where bulls had just been bucking around. This meant lots of not so awesome smells and lots of cow patties. Which to me was kind of normal. I grew up around the rodeo so I am as country as it gets. I loved it. My sweet city boy husband magician guy struggled a little. He stepped in a cow patty and didn't find it nearly as funny as we did. That night was insane, but such a blast. We even had to wear country outfits. It was awesome!

So after we finished up with that show, we headed to Columbia for a short break before our anniversary trip to Disney World. It was my first trip there and to be honest I wouldn't have thought much about work would have come up. Or atleast that was the plan. No Brandon didn't do magic for anyone and we really didn't talk about it for the most part. But one particular night an interesting topic came up that sparked an idea for this.

We were eating at Coral Reef in Epcot (you may have seen it on an episode of Full House) across from a very loud family, but like I said, an interesting conversation came up. Yay for eavesdropping. This mom was going off on a fit about how some princesses were ruder than others. I know at first I was like well duh. But then as we listened more she really went into depth about it. She talked about how Cinderella wasn't as nice as the others. Then the more she thought about it she decided well maybe she had a bad day or something. They don't know what might be going on in her life right now.

This thought amazed me. Of course these poor princesses go through some of the same stuff we do. No matter what, everyone expects you to be super happy bubbly awesome mood when you first meet them. I couldn't count all the days when I have been having a rough time and sometimes it's just hard to keep a smile on your face. But fans don't think through stuff like that. And it's part of our job to not show if something is wrong. I actually had gotten kind of offended by how some of the characters acted but once the lady said that, it all clicked and I took it all back. 

Princess Ariel, Rapunzel, Snow White, & Cinderella

While it really is hard somedays just to keep it together, there is still nothing in the world like someone wanting to take a photo with you or getting an autograph from you. I was so excited about meeting all the princesses. Especially Ariel of course. I felt like a little kid, it was just an awesome experience. And it's funny to think how some people do that with us. Not usually me necessarily. But I see the way that little boys look up to Brandon. He does magic. They just think it's the coolest thing ever. Seeing them smile like that is just one of the best things in the world!

"When you are hugging a child, always be the last one to let go. You never know how long they need it."

- Words from a retired Snow White

The Pressure To Fit In

"They laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at them because they're all the same."

As some of you may know, Brandon and I have our biggest show ever coming up. By show, I mean about 7 minutes. But the audience consists of 5000. We are doing a quick flashy opening, an intermission spot, and a closing spot. All illusions, for a bull riding fundraiser event in Augusta, GA. Pretty awesome. Well we originally were told that our opening spot would be off in a corner of the arena so we had decided on an illusion to do. Then we were told it would actually be in the center where the other spots would be. That changes things since we have to drag out a stage into the middle of this huge dirt arena with the illusion.
Yesterday we tried to work on a new opening. A different appearance for me. Like I said. We tried. With what we had just laying around we tried many different ways to produce me out of just stuff. A random case top. A curtain tube. You guys, it was pretty pathetic. I tried everyway I could to fit into some of that stuff but it was literally impossible.

Yeah I looked like that. Not a pretty sight. But the more I thought about it I was like gosh this is how life is. We are constantly getting "shoved into boxes" that we aren't meant to fit in and we try EVERYTHING to make it work. And somehow or another, something doesn't fit. Your hips that are just slightly too big. Your knees are poking out. You can't get your head flat enough. Always something.
Sometimes we aren't meant to fit in. And we really should accept that and be proud of it. I'm definitely not one who fits in with everyone else. We need to stop trying to make ourselves fit in. It's like in the original story of Cinderella. The evil stepmother tried everything possible to get the ugly stepsisters' feet to fit into the glass slipper. Even if it meant slicing off parts of their foot. Seriously too far. Isn't that what a lot of people do today though? We want so badly to be loved and accepted as who we are so supposed to be that we will change anything and everything about ourselves to fit in.

"It takes a STRONG fish to swim against the current. Only dead fish go with the flow."

If I can tell you anything about being a magic assistant and trying to fit into tiny little places that people really shouldn't fit into, you should know is there is pressure. And sometimes it majorly hurts. But sometimes you just don't fit. And it's not worth trying to keep pushing it, or it might break. Is that really worth it, losing yourself for something unimportant?

"The problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you're destroying the peg."

No I'm not trying to preach at you. Just telling you how my life is changing. Like I said in the last blog post, this will be a better year for me but it can't just change because I want it to. I have to make the effort. I have to quit trying to make myself be something I'm not. I'm a square peg in a round hole kind of world. I'm a magic assistant that doesn't quite fit in the world's box. And I'm finally realizing that is totally okay. 

I am tiny. Only 5 foot 3 at around 110 pounds. But guess what? I still don't fit in some boxes. I need to take pride in the fact that I'm not quite like everyone else. I do fit in most boxes, but some are too small and a LOT of them are far too big for me. Even if it's a situation where the box is so big that I'm swimming in it, that still means that I don't fit. 

My life as a magic assistant is the same as life for everyone else. 

It's all about the pressure to fit in.