A bit long. And I beg your forgiveness in advanced.
Magic is like martial arts.
I have been thinking about this for quite some time, and wanted to find a different way to express my opinions on “magic” in general.
I have been doing martial arts for near 21 years now, and when I look at it, learning magic is very similar to a martial artist’s pursuit of perfection.
Anyone else who has experience in this area would agree that, getting your black belt is the easy part. The real challenge starts after you get that long sought after black belt. The time it takes you to get your black belt is spent on learning techniques and theory, and training your body so that it will be able to do those techniques on demand. A black belt is issued once you have reached a proficient level in completing those techniques, and once your body is in a condition to do those techniques on demand, with little to zero thinking time (reflexive).
Once you get your black belt, is now time to learn how to appropriately use those techniques to their fullest potential. In a way, there is no manual for this, no direct one way to teach this to any one person. This takes time, experience, personal development, research into the human body and human mind. You hit and miss, you get hurt, and you naturally develop your own true style of fighting that utilizes your potential, unique abilities, body shape, etc…
Fighting is not 100% technique alone. Fighting at a high competitive level, at a natural level, involves reading your opponent, leading your opponent to do certain things sub-consciously, finding and exploiting your opponent’s weakness, and reflexively/instinctively being able to instantly process through a list of priorities in relation to how you move your body, breath, and execute a technique. Training your body and mind to reach this type of fighting level takes years of practice, but with out a doubt, could not be accomplished without having endured through the years of learning and repeating the techniques thousands of times until they were natural for your body to do.
Now onto magic. Magic is the exact same way. There is learning and practicing the technique, and there is training to be able to execute those techniques flawlessly in a performance style that suits your special abilities, personality, speaking style, etc… Like martial arts, practicing one without the other, practicing one before the other, practicing one more than the other, will only limit your greatness, will only keep you from reaching your true potential.
Some people will naturally be better at one stage than the other. I had a good mind for the mental aspect of fighting, more so than I did for obtaining thousands of useable fighting techniques. This just meant I had to train my techniques more compared to some other students in the school. However, this does not mean I went unprepared for tournament fights, nor did my students. You can bet that I trained my a** off to be prepared for an actual rated fight.
The point of all this. What a lot of magicians see these days is kind of a problem with the younger generation of magicians. Although the boom of new magicians entering the field is quite amazing and a very good thing for the industry, what can commonly be seen, put into an analogy, is like a kid who wants to fight in a tournament, so said kid buys a karate book, looks at the pictures, mimics the techniques until they are personally satisfied, maybe tries them at night before he sleeps, shows his friend, then goes into the tournament, not truly knowing how to use them, and with a body that is not prepared to do them instinctively when the body needs to do it. In the end, the kid gets creamed, hurt, sent to the hospital, laughed out, etc… However, the big difference between martial arts and magic is that if this happened to the martial artist, he would get the picture. Broken bones hurt, but you don’t get many of them in magic. Young magicians (some old ones too), sometimes don’t get the picture and will repeat previous mistakes with “new techniques from a new book.”
(contd)
Magic is like martial arts.
I have been thinking about this for quite some time, and wanted to find a different way to express my opinions on “magic” in general.
I have been doing martial arts for near 21 years now, and when I look at it, learning magic is very similar to a martial artist’s pursuit of perfection.
Anyone else who has experience in this area would agree that, getting your black belt is the easy part. The real challenge starts after you get that long sought after black belt. The time it takes you to get your black belt is spent on learning techniques and theory, and training your body so that it will be able to do those techniques on demand. A black belt is issued once you have reached a proficient level in completing those techniques, and once your body is in a condition to do those techniques on demand, with little to zero thinking time (reflexive).
Once you get your black belt, is now time to learn how to appropriately use those techniques to their fullest potential. In a way, there is no manual for this, no direct one way to teach this to any one person. This takes time, experience, personal development, research into the human body and human mind. You hit and miss, you get hurt, and you naturally develop your own true style of fighting that utilizes your potential, unique abilities, body shape, etc…
Fighting is not 100% technique alone. Fighting at a high competitive level, at a natural level, involves reading your opponent, leading your opponent to do certain things sub-consciously, finding and exploiting your opponent’s weakness, and reflexively/instinctively being able to instantly process through a list of priorities in relation to how you move your body, breath, and execute a technique. Training your body and mind to reach this type of fighting level takes years of practice, but with out a doubt, could not be accomplished without having endured through the years of learning and repeating the techniques thousands of times until they were natural for your body to do.
Now onto magic. Magic is the exact same way. There is learning and practicing the technique, and there is training to be able to execute those techniques flawlessly in a performance style that suits your special abilities, personality, speaking style, etc… Like martial arts, practicing one without the other, practicing one before the other, practicing one more than the other, will only limit your greatness, will only keep you from reaching your true potential.
Some people will naturally be better at one stage than the other. I had a good mind for the mental aspect of fighting, more so than I did for obtaining thousands of useable fighting techniques. This just meant I had to train my techniques more compared to some other students in the school. However, this does not mean I went unprepared for tournament fights, nor did my students. You can bet that I trained my a** off to be prepared for an actual rated fight.
The point of all this. What a lot of magicians see these days is kind of a problem with the younger generation of magicians. Although the boom of new magicians entering the field is quite amazing and a very good thing for the industry, what can commonly be seen, put into an analogy, is like a kid who wants to fight in a tournament, so said kid buys a karate book, looks at the pictures, mimics the techniques until they are personally satisfied, maybe tries them at night before he sleeps, shows his friend, then goes into the tournament, not truly knowing how to use them, and with a body that is not prepared to do them instinctively when the body needs to do it. In the end, the kid gets creamed, hurt, sent to the hospital, laughed out, etc… However, the big difference between martial arts and magic is that if this happened to the martial artist, he would get the picture. Broken bones hurt, but you don’t get many of them in magic. Young magicians (some old ones too), sometimes don’t get the picture and will repeat previous mistakes with “new techniques from a new book.”
(contd)
