In this magic blog post, let's look at why learning plateaus happen to magicians, and what we can do to push past them.

As magicians, we need to commit to a routine of magic practice, both to develop new material, and also to stay sharp and fresh with our working acts. However, sometimes we can be practicing as hard as ever but seem to be treading water and making no progress.

It's in your head.

Sometimes we can create our own problems within a magic trick, or with part of the practice. These 'problems' may be tiny errors, or adjustments that we become completely focused on, and in your minds they become huge road blocks. We may obsess over the timing of a sleight, or the exact placement of an object on our close up mats. These fixations can become all consuming, and much of our practice time becomes devoted to working on them, to the detriment of the rest of the routine.

It's important to examine on your whole practice program, making sure that you don't fixate on aspects that may not be a good use of your time. To help prevent this, we recommend that you drill the WHOLE routine repeatedly, rather than working on single moves one at a time. The aim is to develop the complete routine together as a single performance, rather than as modules that combine to create the magic trick.

Unreal Practice.

When you have a boring or repetitive task to do, everything becomes a distraction. It's easy to spot distractions like TV, music, facebook etc, but those are not the most dangerous because they are so noticable.

The most dangerous distractions and those that feel like real work! You may be devoting many hours each day to your magic, but how are you really spending the time? Watching magic DVD's, reading magic magazines, sorting out and cataloging your magic props is not practicing.

Magic research on the internet is not practicing.
Reading this magic blog is not practicing.

Make sure that you set aside a dedicated practice time, planned out in advance. This practice time should be work on a specific magic trick, with no other distractions. By doing this, you will find that you need to spend far less time on your magic as the work is applied where it really counts.

Getting help from a magic teacher.

Just about every sporting professional makes use of a coach. Coaching isn't a luxury, or just a way to motivate the student to practice. Coaching allows a third party, who is detached from the learning process, to examine the whole practice program from an emotional distance. The coach cuts through all the distractions and imaginary problems that can suck up practice time. By using a third party to oversee your magic practice, you stay on track over time and work towards ONE goal, avoiding distractions.

If you find yourself making no progress in your magic practice, it may help to book a single session of personal magic tuition. This session isn't to learn more magic tricks (You probably already know enough). The goal of the coaching session is to look at your current progress, oversee your practice program and identify problems that you may not notice yourself as you are too close to the process.

Find a magic coach that you can trust to give you professional tuition. Ask them to watch your current material and give you HONEST feedback.

If you can't afford a professional magic coach, you can ask a trusted friend or your partner to help you stay focused on the practice program you set yourself. The important thing is that you have someone independent to keep you on track.

Finger Exercises for Magicians – Free Ebook

by Dominic Reyes 2 Comments

How to add finger exercises for magicians into your magic practice, to protect your hands, and improve dexterity.

The aim of finger exercise is to build up finger speed, strength and overall dexterity. Through regular exercise, finger strength is also increased and you will see a marked difference in your ability to manipulate a deck of cards or a stack of coins.

Where the work happens

Your fingers don’t actually have muscles within them. The muscles which are used to work your fingers are located within your palms, and also on your arms. They are linked to the fingers by tendons, which control the fingers as the tendon ‘strings’ pull and relax.

The muscles in your palms are not very strong. They are designed to pull the fingers inwards to the palm. The stronger muscles that control the majority of your finger strength reside in your forearm. The tendons of these muscles travel through your wrist to your fingers. Because the power in your fingers is related to the strength of your arms, by toning these muscles, your gripping strength will improve.

For sleight of hand, the aim is to increase your suppleness by stretching the tendons to pull the muscles.

The Merchant of Magic has created a free ebook that will teach you simple, easy Finger Exercises for Magicians used by professional magicians as part of their sleight of hand practice sessions.

The 21 page ebook will teach you how to:

Develop dexterity, speed, and strength in your hands.
Avoid R.S.I injury.
Spot the symptoms of R.S.I
Improve focus and coordination.
Maintain healthy finger joints.
Improve your ability to manipulate playing cards or coins.
Understand how your muscles control your fingers.
Know when, where and how to exercise your fingers.
Much much more.

The Finger Exercises for Magicians ebook includes video tutorials of each exercise.

‘I found your exercises book and I can’t tell you how amazing my wrists and hands feel right now. I’m a writer/artist so I use my hands a LOT and I have always had a little trouble with pain in those areas from constantly typing (I type fast too so it can be a lot of strain) as such I tend to write for a bit and then have to stop, sometimes for several days at a time. When I read through the exercises I wondered if it might help with the typing as well. I haven’t done it long term yet but it really loosened the stiffness in my wrists and hands even just doing it once. I’m so grateful for you sharing this, I just wanted you to know. Thank you so very much!’ – Stephanie Valis

Help – People Want to Examine My Gimmicked Playing Cards

by Dominic Reyes 3 Comments

Christian is worried about people asking to examine his gimmicked deck of playing cards. He writes:

'I use a Pop Eyed Popper deck. The spectator maybe ask for a closer look at the deck of playing cards. That's not possible.'

That's a really good question, and one that is asked quite often, when magicians are worried about using gaffed or gimmicked decks of playing cards. Here are 5 tips for what to do when you find yourself in the situation when a spectator asks to examine your deck of playing cards.

1) Why they are asking?

If a magic trick has been routined correctly and the magic builds to a suitable climax at the end, your spectators should be reacting to the magic that they have just witnessed. It's an issue of 'engagement and reaction'. The magic trick should entertain them, and draw them into the experience, so the magic isn't perceived as a 'puzzle'. If you find that spectators just ask testing questions, at the end of a trick, look at your presentation and think about ways to make the magic have more impact or for their reactions to be increased. Are you unintentionally presenting the magic trick as a puzzle? Are you signalling that the magic trick is just a 'question' that prompts the spectator to think of 'answers'. Changing a few lines of presentation and see if that fixes the issue.

2) Look for gimmicked decks of playing cards that can be switched in and out of play.

Many gaffed decks only need to be introduced into play for a short period of time. Once they are used, they can be put away or switched out for a regular deck. Think about ways of switching your decks, or ditching out the gaffs when they are no longer needed. There are many devices on the market that will switch a deck easily if you prefer to avoid sleight of hand methods.

3) Build in convincers.

Many of the better gimmicked or gaffed decks of playing cards have built in systems to convince spectators that the decks are normal. The Pop Eyed Popper Deck is designed to be spread both face up and face down, so all the cards are shown to be normal. Try to avoid making a big deal about the fairness of the playing cards you use. It should be assumed that they are normal, so over proving the point can work against you and raise suspicion. The routining of the magic trick should be developed, so the playing cards are shown as much as possible in a natural way throughout the trick.

4) It doesn't happen often.

Much of the worry about spectators asking to examine your cards happens before many beginners start performing. They think that spectators will automatically be looking to try to catch them out. Part of this feeling comes from being a magician. As you have been focusing on the method for the trick, it's easy for you to forget that the method is not central to the attention of your audience. They only see the presentation and magical effect that is produced. This feeling can be reinforced for beginners as they tend to perform for their friends in informal situations. Your friends probably enjoy nothing more than trying to tease and catch you out, because that's what friends like to do generally. It's just as much fun for them to challenge you because they are not in a situation where you are there to perform for them. The normal rules of play are very different between a group of friends having fun, and a group of spectators watching a magic performance. In normal performing situations, it's actually VERY rare that people will stop the show to examine props.

5) Relax about the situation.

The most important thing to remember is to relax about it. There isn't anything wrong with simply putting the deck in your pocket if you start to get challenged and giving the spectator a big smile. In just the same way as a stage illusionist wouldn't let everyone rush up onto the stage and examine their illusion equipment. If you find yourself in the situation where a spectator asks to play with the deck, simple pop it into your pocket as they ask the question. Laugh and move on to the next thing that you want to show them.

Got some advice about how you handle people asking to examine your playing cards? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below: