I have magicians that I'm friends with and we jam regularly. The reality is, if I'm going to perform something to lay people, I want a qualified opinion as to whether its performance ready. They feel the same way. I'm not talking about watching footage to see if the sleights are invisible, its all aspects of the performance, the misdirection, the handling that we work through. The patter, the subtleties, what works with each of our performance styles and our personalities, when to make a joke to what the joke is, to how its phrased to what purpose every aspect of the routine serves. How slick it is. As a result methods are discussed from all parties, and sometimes methods are figured out whilst watching the performance. As these are friends of mine and I of theirs I'm not worried if they learn a method, or I do, or whatever, we're a group of people that hang out and talk about magic and test ideas on each other. This isn't some, "If you show me this, I'll show you that" 13 year old discussion where we're trying to be one up on the other. I appreciate their performance of a method rather than the method itself, and we're just open with one another in terms of trying to improve our magic.
For me its essential in the learning process that such dialogue takes place fairly openly. I'm not at high school, so frankly my 'magic buddies' are often working pros or semi pros that aren't going to call me out and ruin my high school reputation in the middle of a performance because they're not 13 and we don't perform at a high school. I say that because that's the only reason I can think of why sharing a method with a magician friend would cause any problems. My friends aren't going to go and expose it to a layman, and if they like the method they'll pick up the book or the DVD to learn it from the creator of the effect, not some amateur such as I!
The fact is though, I don't see how this sort of dialogue causes a problem. In the real world, there's nothing to be gained by sitting on a method and not explaining it to those close to you. (Do you think the Buck Twins bought Surfaced to learn the clip shift, or do you think they were buddies of Chad's that he bounced the idea around with?) The acid test for a method in my view is whether it is deemed performance worthy or concealable by another magician that performs.
Is it OK to just spank a bunch of methods to a bunch of guys you never speak to that may or may not be 'magicians', no, lol, because that's just exposure in my view.
