Jason writes: The things I struggle with are finding the time to practice and learn magic card tricks correctly. How do you make time?
Yep, there never is enough hours in the day. Magic very quickly becomes an obsession and there are plenty of magicians out there that commit many hours daily or weekly to their practice of card technique. Good for them! Many burn out over time and drift away from their practice, but a few keep going and go on to become masters of the art.. The good news is you DON’T need hours each day to learn magic card tricks… well, you do need some time, but not hours… just 10 minutes, twice a day… that’s all!
WHAT!?!
It’s really true… I’ve been training magicians for the past 20 years and in that time I’ve discovered something very useful for anyone starting to learn card magic. You see, A funny aspect of skill learning is that we humans get more benefit from short frequent practice sessions than we do from long ones. Most of the benefit from a session happens in the first 10 minutes. After 10 minutes it’s a case of diminishing returns, as our attention decreases and fatigue from repetition builds up.
It’s exactly the same with fitness training.. Back in the day, fitness coaches told their students to do at least an hour of cardio.. But research slowly discovered that the gains from each workout came from the first 20 minutes of the session.. Many trainers knew this, but ‘customers’ wanted an hour long session to get their moneys worth and to perceive ‘value’. As this changes and research into training developers, the popularity of HIT training reduced effective training sessions into much shorter workout sessions. The same applies when we learn card magic. We can capitalise on this by practicing in short ‘micro sessions’ of just 10 minutes, with several hours between sessions.
10 minutes in the morning and 10 at night.. Everyone can get up 10 minutes earlier if they put their mind to it.
It’s easy for beginners to learn magic card tricks
Starting to learn magic card tricks can be a bit like starting a New Years resolution… It starts well, but simply doesn’t last. A process of short regular magic practice sessions every single day is infinitely better than none.
Quick sessions are easy to ‘fit in’ to daily life and therefore less likely to be skipped. Feeling pressure to take time out for a long period of training can lead to avoidance and excuses because of guilt that builds up. If you start associating feelings of inadequacy and guilt with your magic practice you’re not going to be able to do it as easily.
Tell me more about how to learn magic card tricks with short practice sessions!
If you’re interested to learn more about this, I’ve written a book on techniques and practice drills for learning sleight of hand. You can get a free copy of the book here: ‘approaching magic practice’
Hope this helps you
Dominic Reyes
Great article! I’ve been teaching simple magic tricks on cruise ships for 20 years, and I’ve been preaching these short sessions for the past 15years.
Myself, when I work on more complicated magic that involve slight of hand I don’t follow this rule so much. Once I dive in I get to the “deep work“ state of mind and keep going. Then once I reach the “conscious competence“ level I then go to the shorter sessions.
Nice article. It is a good idea to practice consistently instead of occasionally practising for longer hours. This is an excellent way to become an expert in a short period.
Learning card magic tricks is good advice for beginners. Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us.