Because of the nature of a mentalist’s job, you must know your tricks perfectly. But before you can start flawlessly performing in front of an audience, you’ll need to train and practice like a professional.
If you’re just starting out as a mentalist, you might be looking for ways on how to practice mentalism and test your skills.
Below, we talk about some of the best ways you can practice mentalism and how you can improve your skills and tricks further, and wow your audience!
Mastering Mentalism
To improve your skills and master the art of mentalism, practice and dedication are key.
Practice will help you familiarize yourself with the various techniques used in tricks. Dedication will keep your engines running even through the most difficult mentalism methods.
Below are a few ways you can practice mentalism and improve your skills:
- Start with people you know
- Host free shows
- Watch how the pros do it
- Mix and combine
- Focus on a character
- Record yourself and your performances
- Set aside time for practice
- Get a mentor
- Enjoy the process
Now, let’s take a closer look at these.
Start With People You Know
When it comes to tricks involving other people’s reactions and mannerisms, it’s good to practice on people you know.
Ask your friends or family members if you can do a cold reading on them. If you’ve exhausted this option, you can start asking people outside your circle if you can do cold readings on them.
Note: Cold reading is when you guess what somebody is thinking just by looking at their body language, etc… It’s reading a person on the spot.
This way, you’ll be exposed to a wider selection of characters with different quirks and personalities. Now, you can sharpen your observation and deduction skills.
Host Free Shows
If you’ve recently been working on a new trick, the best way to test if it’s effective is by hosting a free show and inviting a few people over to see it. You can also offer to perform in a friend’s event or party and test your trick out on their guests.
Ask a friend or close family member to evaluate your performance after every show. What works and what doesn’t work? From there, you can keep improving your techniques for every show you do.
Watch How the Pros Do It
Watch shows and recordings of mentalists that you like or want to be like.
Watch how they perform their tricks, how they write their scripts, and how they interact with their audiences. This will give you a foundation on which to base your performance, script, and character.
Make a list of tricks that your favorite mentalist does that you find interesting. Find out how you can perform these tricks and add your own twist to them.
Mix and Combine
Many professional mentalists start out doing magic before moving on to more complex mentalism tricks. You can mix magician techniques with your mentalism tricks while you’re still getting your footing. Then you can transition to using fully mentalism methods for your performances.
Focus On a Character
Beyond perfectly executing tricks, a mentalist also has to focus on a single character during every show. After all, the presentation can make or break a performance. This is why it’s important that you also practice your character; make sure it’s as believable as you want it to be.
Confidence is an important element in selling your story. You have to believe what you’re doing is true so your audience can believe it, too.
Other elements you should practice are spatial awareness, a sense of timing, responding intuitively and spontaneously to the unexpected, improvise, the ability to concentrate on several components and actions simultaneously, read body language, and exercise a potent memory capacity.
All these can help make your character more convincing.
Record Yourself and Your Performances
Recording yourself while you’re doing a certain trick is a great tactic that many professional mentalists use.
Take a video or audio recording of yourself performing a trick. After your performance, you can rewatch your show and deconstruct your whole performance. This will help you identify which parts of your show are working and which parts are not.
Set Aside Time for Practice
Most of us live busy, chaotic lives. It’s hard to get something done unless you set aside time for it.
If you’re determined to improve as a mentalist, you’ll set aside at least 2 to 3 hours in your day to go over sequences and practice tricks, until you’re sure that you have it pinned down.
If you can’t schedule practices into one whole session, you can also practice in chunks.
Set aside 30 to 40 minutes in the morning, 30 to 40 minutes in the afternoon, and 30 to 40 minutes before you settle in for bed.
“Practice makes perfect.”
That statement might be a bit overused, but it’s so true when it comes to mentalism.
Get a Mentor
Another way you can continue improving your skills is to find yourself a mentor. This mentor doesn’t technically need to be a mentalist. Just someone who specializes in an area you feel like you need more help with.
For instance, if you struggle with your character and performance, you might want to get a theater professor to mentor you on showmanship.
Alternatively, you can get help from a licensed psychologist if your struggle is with the more technical parts of mentalism.
You can also have more than one mentor if you feel like you can benefit from it.
Enjoy the Process
It’s one thing to be serious about practice, but don’t get too engrossed in becoming perfect that you forget to enjoy the process. Whatever you’re struggling with right now, enjoy it! Most of the fun is in the journey and not the destination.
Slow down and appreciate what you’re doing. I mean, the more you enjoy it, the more you will improve.
Can Anyone Become a Mentalist?
As we mentioned earlier, it takes a certain level of dedication and perseverance to become a mentalist.
Bodybuilders spend hours training at the gym every day. That’s how they get strong and build muscles.
Similarly, a mentalist also needs to practice for hours every day to strengthen their skills and build a richer repertoire of tricks.
If you have the discipline and drive to push past all these challenges, then there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t become a mentalist!
The Bottom Line
Practice is necessary for any profession. It’s important to stick with your why, so you can stay motivated to keep moving forward, even as things get harder.
The tips we’ve listed above are just a few ways you can practice mentalism and test your skills.
If you think we missed anything out, feel free to share it with us in the comments section below!