Quick question about practice

[Turbay_Travis]

Hey guys I have a question. As magicians we all know that we may have tons of tricks in out arsenals. My question is how do you Practice? Do you go over every single trick that you know every time you practice? Or do you allow yourself to forget how to do certain tricks and only practice them when you know you will be performing that trick soon? Also often do you practice your magic in general? How many times a day and for how long? Thanks for the help to anyone who responds to this post!

 

[FormlessMars22]

Most people probably don't practice the way I did, I spent two years perfecting my technique before taking my magic public, therefore it became massively easy to pick up new sleights or tricks. I also subconsciously practice my sleights while watching a movie or walking around the house so I'm literally practicing as much as possible.

 

[Marco C.]

To be honest, I don't have tons of tricks. I try tons of them but then I tend to settle on a few (maybe 20 or something). I rehearse, which would include practicing, 9 effects daily (the ones I perform in my formal close-up and formal parlour acts). It takes an hour or so, and I do it in the evening in front of a mirror. And, yes, I do follow David Williamson's advice of rehearsing for an audience of puppets, because I do agree it makes the whole thing closer to reality.
The rest of the tricks, I practice loosely in front of the tv, maybe after dinner. I do it neither regularly nor intensively. I'd say these are either old tricks I don't perform regularly anymore or new things I stumble upon. Nothing consistent, though. It's more of a treat and a technique to spark creativity than it is anything else. Finally, the weekend I rehearse my stage acts. Complete different story, though.

 

[Tam Laugher]

Most people probably don't practice the way I did, I spent two years perfecting my technique before taking my magic public, therefore it became massively easy to pick up new sleights or tricks. I also subconsciously practice my sleights while watching a movie or walking around the house so I'm literally practicing as much as possible.

I do the same thing. I learn tricks, and if they get good reactions after I've practiced them, I keep practicing and remember them.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

When I'm practicing the card tricks I like to do (which I do not do in a professional setting) I am generally sat at my desk and I go through each routine in its entirety four or five times. I also tend to do a couple dozen runs of any sleights I feel like doing which are not in the context of any trick.

Practicing my professional material is a different matter entirely and also a bit unusual. Due to the nature of the way I perform I can't really practice my material without an audience. So I simply mime the whole act. Usually I just go through quickly a few times, then at proper speed once or twice, depending on how I do with transitions and remembering my lines.

Then anything I'm developing I tend to obsess over so I script and mime-rehearse it pretty often. I also do what I call mental rehearsal where I just visualize performing everything.

The key to proper practice is that you want to work at it enough to make an improvement, then stop. Drilling the same thing over and over for hours is actually ineffective in that we can only develop so many neural pathways in any given time. If you keep hammering away once you've gone past that point you'll just muddy the waters and won't progress efficiently.

 

[meggisonj]

Great advice so far, let's see if anything speaks to you.

Thing one: If you are waiting for something... practice. I once heard Gary Darwin say we wait one quarter of our lives. Find something to fill that time with.

Thing two: If I'm browsing some books at a bookstore, I take one of my half dollars out of my coin pouch and walk around transferring the coin from various palms to various palms. Trying to hide the coin from view to everyone "spectator" around. Make sure you transfer hands using some hand washing techniques too. I found that it someone is walking behind me, I must classic palm and hold my lapel.. It's truly the only thing I found to find the item and be natural. If someone looks at me like I'm crazy, I know I need more work on being more natural. I make sure to pick up a few books and read them with the palmed hand and read a little.

Thing three: I try and practice my full close up show I am writing at least once a day. (mainly at around 2pm.) More than likely it turns out I practice the show about 5 times.

Thing four: Also have something new to practice. When you are bored, hop to the new item. Never have everything "finished".

I like the puppet idea. It will feel odd the first few times.. but we all suffer a little for our craft no?

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

I personally don't subscribe to the "practice whenever you're not doing something" idea. Proper practice means dedicating your mental processes to the task at hand. If you're waiting for someone to show up and you're practicing, that practice is not focused and therefore inefficient.

Proper practice involves specifically focusing on what you're doing for maximum efficiency. I prefer to even have a space dedicated to practicing.

 

[Philipp S.(4)]

Here is how I study:

1. Learn the trick properly.
In this step you simply learn the trick with every single nuance.

2. Rehearsal.
This is the numb part of practice where you just need to repeat over and over again. This can be done anywhere as it doesn't require any mental processing. You just need to get used to the mechanics. If you are having trouble with a paticular sequence break the trick/routine/sleight down in small chunk and learn them bit by bit but never leave the whole picture out of sight.

3. Review.
Now comes the refining. Correct all the mistakes you made and then practice it til you perfect it.

I hope that helps.
Cheers
Philipp

 

[CruiseH]

Most people probably don't practice the way I did, I spent two years perfecting my technique before taking my magic public, therefore it became massively easy to pick up new sleights or tricks. I also subconsciously practice my sleights while watching a movie or walking around the house so I'm literally practicing as much as possible.

this is essentially what I do but I would say don't "practice" do it for fun! (But still practice) hard to explain - I know I don't have TONS in my arsenal and yes! Buy tricks and such from theory11 and others but come up with your routines and sleights and cardistry and such before making it public. About 2 years ago I was to excited and made my magic public too early. I'm reforming my magic to recover from that. Anyways hoped this helped!

 

[Turbay_Travis]

Thank you All for The Help!!

 

[meggisonj]

Not a problem, Turbay.