Magic Practice Like a Pro in Just a Few Minutes a Day

Daniel Q writes: 'I'm mainly struggling with finding the time to practice my magic tricks regularly enough.'

Hi Daniel,
I feel your pain my friend. There's never enough time in the day for practice, but it's SO important!
From working with hundreds of magicians over the years, I've found out a few things about how to schedule regular practice.

Little and often is best.

The magic secret is to practice in short bursts, over several weeks and intervals between each practice session. The last thing you want to do is 'burn out' so pacing yourself with a practice program you can maintain is much more likely to be stuck to than a massive full scale practice binge when you remember to do it.

In cognitive science there are two forms of learning:

Massed learning – when you practice and rehearse the material over a short space of time (cramming)
Spaced learning – Small bursts of practice with lengthy spaces between sessions to allow you to consolidate the material.

Massed learning is very hard to sustain over the long term, and daily life is full of over distractions and commitments. By spacing your practice, you give your fingers a chance to rest, your mind can mull over the material you have studied, and you will be less distracted by all your other tasks planned that day.

I tend to recommend two practice sessions per day. 10 minutes in the morning and 10 at night. Focusing on just one magic trick at a time. Start by drilling the mechanics of the trick a few times, then run through a whole performance.

That's it for the day. Repeat this for 21 days

After that first magic practice sequence, record yourself performing the trick and assess how you are progressing.
If you have days when you can fit more in, go with it. But don't burn out! Just make a commitment always to spare those two quick 10 minute practice sessions.

Everyone is busy! But it's pretty easy to find just 10 minutes in the morning and 10 at night, even if you have to set your alarm clock a bit early during the 21 day period.

But, what's the best way actually to plan the work that I do in those practice sessions?
Well, here's some advice on practice practice from Noa Kageyama, Ph.D.

Best wishes and good luck with your magic practice.

Dominic Reyes

Focused Magic Practice – 4 Quick Tips to Improve Your Magic Training

by Dominic Reyes 2 Comments

By Dominic Reyes

Dan writes: ‘My biggest problem is committing to my magic practice. Why is it so hard for me to practice as often as I feel I should?‘

Distractions are all too common in the modern world with so many things around us designed to do just that, distract. Magazines, television and the internet are all capable of drawing you in and zapping your focus in a heartbeat. Losing your concentration when trying to get anything done is never a good thing, but when it comes to magic practice loss of focus can be enough to make you want to give up altogether.

Tyranny of the New.

It is for this reason that I thought this post topic would be especially relevant to magicians as we constantly feel the need to learn new tricks and techniques to stay up to date. However, it can be this desire to stay at the forefront of what is happening in the world of magic that can be the biggest distraction from your magic practice. We’ve no doubt all experienced the feeling of excitement when a new trick is brought to our attention, we can’t wait to try it out and we drop everything to do so. This is fine if you are looking for something new, but what if you are in the middle of magic practice on another technique or trick? You’ve dropped something before you have mastered it. Often, by the time that you resume your practice on that particular skill it is almost like you have never even looked at it before, such is the power of distraction.

So, with this in mind, what can we do to minimise these distractions and help us to get some quality, focused magic practise done? Let’s take a look at a few pointers:

Make a decision (and stick to it) – Choose just one or two things to be the centre of your magic practice at any one time. These can be either new magic tricks, techniques or a mixture of both. The important thing is to stick with your chosen task and resist the urge to move onto something new before you have completely mastered them. Turn the psychology on its head and use it to your advantage. If there is something new and exciting that you are itching to work on, use that as an incentive. Tell yourself that the sooner you get to grips with ‘A’ the quicker you can move on to ‘B’.

Have a goal – Setting yourself a deadline can also be a great way to incentivise your task. However, it is important that you are not overly hard on yourself if you don’t meet the deadline, providing you have put sufficient work in. Sometimes it can be difficult to judge just how long it will take to learn a new trick.

Be consistent – Choosing a time and a place where you know that distractions will be kept at a minimum builds a routine that will allow you to focus a lot better. Setting this up will help others can get used to the idea as well. If your family know that you are going to be using a certain room, at a certain time, on a regular basis it will be far less likely that you will incur accidental disturbances.

Meditate – Maintaining focus is very much a state of mind and something that can improve with time. Practising meditation can help with focus as can other relaxation techniques. Of course, this is something that is going to differ within each of us, but it proves that with practice the mind can be retrained to concentrate better and work in a more productive fashion. Take breaks and use a peaceful alternative activity to relax and take time out from focused practice. Read, paint, build Lego or FunWhole models. The key is to change pace, unwind and reset before continuing practice.

By using the tips above you will find that your magic practice sessions will soon become far more fruitful, which means that you will learn more in a shorter space of time. Now, who doesn’t want that?

Beginning to Learn Magic Tricks – Advice For When You Are Finding it Tough

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

If you are a beginner and finding things tough, here's some great advice from Ira Glass that may help you.

One of the interesting parts of running a large online magic shop is the ability to look at trends within the customer base of the shop. We look at the buying cycle of magicians to identify trends. It's important data for the magic shop. If we can tell on average how long a customer will remain shopping for magic, we can use our knowledge of average visit rates and average spend, to calculate the likely sales volume each customer will bring to the shop during their relationship with us. We can use this information to know exactly how much to spend on advertising to bring in new customers.

Whilst crunching this data, we've noticed an interesting data point about beginners learning magic tricks. If you have just started to learn magic, here's something for you:

It's statistically likely that no matter how passionate about magic you might be right now, in 6 months time you will probably quit.

At the 6 month point, there is a huge drop off for magicians who are buying magic that matches the profile for total beginners. Magicians who are ordering more advanced material, don't suffer that drop off. Established professional magicians tend not to drop off at all. It's just the people that have only just started out. Why don't they transition into more advanced products?

I think the video above hits the nail on the head as to the cause of this. Beginners start with high hopes, but it's a long process to become good at anything. Most magicians feel that they 'suck' at first, and hope to work through it as they gain experience. That's a hard thing to do. You have to work through a long period of time where you don't feel that you are any good, and it's so easy to quit at that point.

The way to succeed at learning magic, and the way to move past being a beginner, is to work through that and keep your energy up. Fight the nagging doubts in your head that tell you that you will never master it. Keep going and push past the beginner phase. Every expert goes through this, and every expert makes it through to the other side.

If you need any help of advice about how to do this, just get in contact and my team will do everything they can to help you. – Dominic Reyes