Best way to practice magic?

[Amo]

Hello,
I have recently found that I have been discouraged and unwilling to practice magic. I'm pretty sure this is because I feel like I am getting nowhere with my practice. I normally just sit down and practice the sleight and routine in 30 minute sections, Practice then rest or homework ( I'm a student) then back to practice. Because I am a student I want to make my practice as productive and fun as possible. I can fit about 4 and a half hours of practice in on school days, but that does mean I don't get a lot of time to relax until about 10 pm. On week ends I can do 7 hours and still get all my work and jobs done, or at least any that I don't get done in the week. I'm currently working on trick from 'The Trilogy' by Dan and Dave Buck ( they are my favourite magicians/flourisher's). I love how visual and fast paced the tricks are yet really give the spectators a punch in the stomach, not literally because they probably wouldn't want to see any more tricks after that.
So I just want to know how I can make my practice productive and allow me to get a few really good tricks under my sleeve for the summer when I will more then likely be able to walk around and show magic to strangers to begin to boost my confidence as well, but that's a different topic.
Thanks in advance,
Adam

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Marathon sessions of practice are counter-productive. The mind can only absorb so much information at any given time before it starts "muddying". To speak more scientifically, as you repeat an action you form neural pathways in your brain. If you do this for too long, those pathways start overlapping and confusing each other. So doing the same thing over and over four hours at a time will hold you back.

Practice a move until you have made distinct progress or have plateaued. Then stop that, and move on to something else. Usually what I do is practice a single move for about 10-20 minutes, then do it in the context of the routine, then practice a different move, etc. Change what you're working on, don't drill the same thing over and over.

I also make a point of having "trophy" moves that are just fun to do. Things like the Clipshift. I do those when I'm getting bored or mentally starting to drift. Basically, I keep things changing and fun.

If you make yourself stick to a schedule that's boring, you'll get bored. Obviously. So don't let yourself get bored. Remember, the only pace of learning that matters is your pace. Don't compare to anyone else.

 

[TeeDee]

I could write a whole book on this. In fact I might at some point. Let me give you some bare-bones bullet points for now, though.

1. Decide on your goals. Be specific and write each goal down in one sentence. If you can't write them in one sentence then you haven't got the goal clear in your mind. An example could be, "I want to master Tivo Transpo."

2. Now examine each of these goals and see if they can be broken down into more, even more specific, goals. To continue the example, clearly Tivo Transpo could be broken into moves and then the moves into their consituent elements, for example, "I want to master dribbling the deck and holding back two cards."

3. You should now have a long list of very small, very specific goals. Translate each one of those goals into an action that can be repeated. Using the example we already have, this action would obviously be "Dribbling the deck, holding back two". This is the step which could be challenging if your goals aren't broken down enough. If you're having trouble creating this list then go back and break your goals down even more. Literally the smaller the better. If you end up with things like "Placing the deck in left hand mechanic's grip from right hand Biddle grip" as one action, you're doing the right thing.

4. You should now have a long list of small, repeatable actions. Enter this list into one column of a spreadsheet so you can keep track of your progress.

5. Execute each small, repeatable action successfully 1,000 times. Note that I said "successfully". An attempt at the move I mentioned earlier where you accidentally drop the cards or accidentally hold back three doesn't count. It might sound strange but don't try to get better while doing this. That will just impede your progress. The purpose of these repetitions are to cement your goal in your mind, and every time you consciously make a correction to your technique you're effectively starting from scratch. If you unconsiously make corrections, that's fine, your unconscious mind is better at practicing than your conscious mind is, so allow it to do what it wants. Consciously, your only target is the quantity of repetitions.

6. Up until now, you've only been practicing tiny moves, or parts of moves, rather than whole tricks. At this point you can add full routines onto your practice spreadsheet. So, in our example, this is where "Tivo Transpo" would appear on the spreadsheet as well as all the elements that are comprised in it.

7. Continue your repetitions, until you've achieved 2,000 repetitions of all the tiny elements and 1,000 of the full routines. Remember that conscious improvement is going to hold you back, so just concentrate on the number of repetitions, not on making conscious corrections. This is great, because it means you can be doing reps while listening to music, watching TV, having a conversation or whatever. As long as you're counting your reps and making sure they're all successful, that's all the attention you need to give them.

8. When your routines have reached 1,000 repetitions, add in performance rehearsal to your spreadsheet. This you will have to concentrate more on, because it involves actually speaking the words you'll be saying during your performance, and handling everything as if it were in front of a real audience.

9. Now your target is to reach 3,000 repetitions of the tiny elements, 2,000 of the routines and 1,000 of the routines with presentation. When you've reached this point, add live performance of each routine to your spreadsheet. Each time you perform each routine to a real live audience (friends and family count) that's one repetition.

10. Now your target is 4,000 repetitions of the tiny elements, 3,000 of the routines, 2,000 of the routines with presentation and 1,000 live performances. When you've reached this point, go back to the beginning of the process and add in more goals, more tricks or moves you want to learn or even non-magic related goals. Remember to keep practicing everything on your spreadsheet until you reach 10,000 repetitions of each item, though. 10,000 is the golden number which means you can count yourself an expert.

This is a very brief overview of a quite complex process. It's not complex in execution, but perhaps it's difficult to understand all the concepts behind it. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[Randy]

Paul Wilson mentioned the best way to practice a move was to use it in the context of a trick. Vernon has also stated that same advice too.

 

[Amo]

Wow. Thanks for the informations, I wasn't expecting to get this much help. Putting the tricks into a excel table and breaking them down seems like a extremely logical thing to do, can't believe I haven't done that before. I will get on making the spread sheet and making a good enough drill or regime that won't make my head go insane. Probably just half any hour sessions on each little move involved. Yet again thanks for the info but I still have one question. Do you believe there is a limit to how much I should practice a day? Keep in mind I am a student so yeah, I need to do other things as well, sadly.
Thanks for all the advice so far,
Adam

 

[TeeDee]

Do you believe there is a limit to how much I should practice a day? Keep in mind I am a student so yeah, I need to do other things as well, sadly.
Thanks for all the advice so far,
Adam

The limit is really however much or little you want to do. Don't beat yourself up if you don't find much time to practice one day, and don't worry if you become so engrossed that you pull an all-nighter every now and then. Worrying about how much or little you're practicing turns it into work, rather than a pleasant little diversion, and, ironically, will probably mean you practice less because the whole task seems like an unapproachable monolith. This is part of the reason for breaking everything down into tiny elements. Even if you only have five minutes, you can fit in a couple of hundred reps of something, and there you go, you're a couple of hundred reps closer to mastery!

 

[Amo]

Thanks again, currently working on the spread sheet since my hands are aching. It's turning out nicely. This will help me a lot now that I know what I need to work on.
Thanks a lot for the help,
Adam

 

[PaulSmurphyy7]

I learned from Jamie D Grant to do magic Fridays! Practice the effect, show a few friends and then on Friday, show as many people as possible! I have been doing this for a few weeks and it's been great!

 

[MarcusChristiansen]

Already a lot of good advice here.

I'd say this - ten or twenty minutes of focused practice will give you a lot more than 60 minutes of unfocused practice. If you feel like you're losing focus, put the cards away and take a break. If you can keep the focus up, you can go on for as long as 90 minutes in between 20-minute breaks. After that you'll be losing focus bit by bit no matter how hard you try.