Through The Eyes of a Child

magic4u02@aol.com
http://www.kyleandkellymagic.com

As a children's performer, how often do we get lost in the business of what we do? How many times do we worry about the hyper kid or the parent who doesn't care? How many times do we each call in a show simply because we are worried about the trip home or the bills that have to be paid?

If we are honest with each other, the answer is probably that it does happen. Maybe not all the time, but we are only human. We fall into these "traps" regardless of what we do.

We forget what it means to be a children's entertainer. We forget the joy that we felt as a child watching magic happen in front of us. We forget the amzed feelings we had seeing somethign appear from no where. We lose track of the amount of times we tried to make the magic happen oursleves yet had no real clue how to do it.

I recently had a rude awakening at a gig that brought all of this back to my mind again. I was doing strolling magic and this little 4 year old boy was crying. I may never know why, but he was not having a good time at all.

I started doing some ball manipulations to the music the DJ was playing. I was not paying much attention but out of the corner of my eye I see the child inch closer and the tears start to dry up. I started making the ball appear under my hat and a smile formed on this kid's face.

For 5 minutes this child watched me as if magic to him was something TRULY special. He stopped crying and was transfixed into everything he was seeing me do. His laughter made me laugh. His smile made me smile. His mother could not believe just how engulfed her son was in what I was doing.

Now I do not share this here as an ego thing. Instead I share it because for those 5 minutes I saw magic through the eyes of a child. I saw magic the way I remember seeing it so many years ago. I remembered what it was like to just totally believe in magic and to just allow oneself to be 'Entertained". No more and no less...to be entertained and not only fooled.

Through this child's own eyes, I got to feel like a kid again. But most of all, I got to remember the POWER each children's magician has inside of us. We have this ability we often take for granted.

We have the ability to make a child smile and laugh and forget about things even for just a few moments. We are often times the very first live magician that child may have ever seen. It is our duty and our JOB to never allow oursleves to give anything less then 100% effort every time out.

We must remind ourselves to see magic through the eyes of a child. We must remind ourselves of the joy magic can bring to a young one and how we can shape how that child views magicians from that day forward.

I may never know what will become of that child I saw that day. However, I do know that through his eyes, I saw magic again the way I first felt when I was his age. I remembered what being a children's performer is all about.

As much as his mother thanked me, I should be thanking him for allowing me to realize just how wonderful it is to do what we do.

As always, I encourage you the readers to let me know your thoughts. So if you have any thoughts on my articles or suggestions or comments, please feel free to e-mail me directly at magic4u02@aol.com. I would love to hear from you.

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