I started magic in earnest when I was 16 years old. (10 years go almost to the day.) It all started for me when I saw a magician doing a color change and sat there for literally four days just trying to figure out exactly how he did it. When I finally figured it out that lead to another trick, then another, then picking up Erdnase. At the time I was already routinely sharking my friends at cards, but with self taught sleights and shuffles and controls that I'd just picked up. Erdnase took it to the next level, then Huggard did the rest. For 2 years I performed for cash about every other night at local restaurants, at events, I even did a wedding. Then when I was 18 I had an accident that involved me shattering a staggering number of bones in my right hand resulting in me still having a weirdly deformed right first finger and my ring finger and pinky not really moving particularly well even now. As a result I stopped both magic and playing the guitar. It was only about 3 months ago when I started picking it up again, and had to learn basically everything from scratch. I'm having a great time doing it and have started performing again, but my act now is very different than it was (and necessarily so) but I certainly don't think its any worse, and after about another 12-24 months I'd imagine I'll better than I ever was.