How to practice

[Regun]

Hi guys,
It has been for nearly 2 years i'm practicing card magic with vol 1 & 2 of card college, and royal road to card magic, but i only practiced a lot the techniques .
But I'm still lost, I only read the technique and do it again and again without purpuse, and now i have to move forward and need plans for my practice, if you can explain me how to make a good schedules for practice .

Cheers

 

[englandzilon]

Hi guys,
It has been for nearly 2 years i'm practicing card magic with vol 1 & 2 of card college, and royal road to card magic, but i only practiced a lot the techniques .
But I'm still lost, I only read the technique and do it again and again without purpuse, and now i have to move forward and need plans for my practice, if you can explain me how to make a good schedules for practice .

Cheers

Glad you post this.

The first thing you must do is stop practicing all those technique for a month. Go learn technique from a new book or those that you have not practice. Why? Because you practice without a purpose which i believe bad habits has been develop. So stop for a month to prevent some bad habits from happen for no reason. I rather don't perform for a month than have bad habits for life.

Next How to practice the right way.
Don't rush. Go slow and easy.

lets say you are learning a double lift. And you must know what actions it mimics. First try by turning 1 single as you would do a double life. I mean almost everything must be the same as you would turn 1 card to double. try make it as close as possible. Read line for line from the book. Till you are confident than continue. Read it a few times. If you are burning yourself take a break for a day or 2, then continue.

Lastly read this from ricky smith.
http://dananddave.com/editorial/read-magic-book/

 

[Regun]

Hi thank you for your answer,

I dont think that i have bad habits for now (I'm not sure but I hope so), because I studied the moves described in the books, and do them really slowly in front of a mirror, and when I'm confident with it I practice them while I'm watching TV etc...
But when i say "without purpose", I mean I learned a lot of moves but I didnt construct something with it, I have no routines, and when I tryied to present something to my friends I was really shaky I dont know if it's because my practice is bad or something else .

 

[englandzilon]

Hi thank you for your answer,

I dont think that i have bad habits for now (I'm not sure but I hope so), because I studied the moves described in the books, and do them really slowly in front of a mirror, and when I'm confident with it I practice them while I'm watching TV etc...
But when i say "without purpose", I mean I learned a lot of moves but I didnt construct something with it, I have no routines, and when I tryied to present something to my friends I was really shaky I dont know if it's because my practice is bad or something else .

Yes. First of all when u are learning a new sleight you must know what this move accomplish. Maybe like a control from the middle to the top. So this sleight allow me to control a selection from the middle to the top. When you know what it does. You will be able to improvise. I only have a certain amount of tricks in mind after that i have to improvise. My favourite one is using a control few selection to the top. And then produce them one by one. From the finger flick boomerang card to palm production and more.

Shaky is a simple solution. You maybe nervous and not enough practice. Just perform more. Even you are confident practicing at home and doing it well. Perform real life is a lot of different. You have to communicate with the audience, timing to perform those sleight and audience management and a lot more. you practice at home only using your hands.

That why i would recommend you practice it by video and perform to yourself. Getting the script down and perform.

 

[Sleightdifference]

A good idea could be to browse youtube videos to get an idea of the kinds of tricks that fit your style and that you might want to put into your routine. Then, you could watch for sales on sites like theory11, penguinmagic, dananddave, ellusionist, etc. and snap those tricks up when they appear.