ApproachingMagicPracticeDominicReyes (1).pdf

Approaching Magic Magic Practice By Dominic Dominic Reyes

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Copyright 2015 Merchant of Magic Ltd All Rights Reserved Reserved

About the author

Dominic Reyes, BSc (Hons) Psychology, Psychology, has been performing magic professionally for over 20 years. He is a member of the Magic Circle Cir cle and is the founder of magic shop - The Merchant of Magic. Dominic develops magic for the commercial market, consults for TV and film, and is the author of a range of guides on the performance and study of magic. Dominic is based in Hampshire, England.

Why this book is free This book was given to you completely free of charge. A reader asked me why I wasn’t charging for the book. Here’s my reply: 'I don't want to charge. My magic shop already has thousands of products I sell. This isn't a 'product'. I want as many magicians as possible to read it and maybe get a little benefit from it. Even if it's just a tip or tweak to their practice habit. A lot of people that love magic get disheartened by lack of progress. I think many of the people that need some guidance about 'practice' the most, don't focus on it. They spend their 'magic bucks' on new tricks.. Making it free, gives the best shot at them reading it.’ If you find this book useful, and feel that you do want to ‘pay something back’, maybe you could make a small donation to a charity MoM supports. Only if you really want to, and whatever you can afford. You can donate here.

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Copyright 2015 Merchant of Magic Ltd All Rights Reserved Reserved

About the author

Dominic Reyes, BSc (Hons) Psychology, Psychology, has been performing magic professionally for over 20 years. He is a member of the Magic Circle Cir cle and is the founder of magic shop - The Merchant of Magic. Dominic develops magic for the commercial market, consults for TV and film, and is the author of a range of guides on the performance and study of magic. Dominic is based in Hampshire, England.

Why this book is free This book was given to you completely free of charge. A reader asked me why I wasn’t charging for the book. Here’s my reply: 'I don't want to charge. My magic shop already has thousands of products I sell. This isn't a 'product'. I want as many magicians as possible to read it and maybe get a little benefit from it. Even if it's just a tip or tweak to their practice habit. A lot of people that love magic get disheartened by lack of progress. I think many of the people that need some guidance about 'practice' the most, don't focus on it. They spend their 'magic bucks' on new tricks.. Making it free, gives the best shot at them reading it.’ If you find this book useful, and feel that you do want to ‘pay something back’, maybe you could make a small donation to a charity MoM supports. Only if you really want to, and whatever you can afford. You can donate here.

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Important!

“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.” - World renowned magician, Michael Ammar

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Introduction I’m going to make three assumptions about you right now: 1) You’re You’re absolutely crazy about magic and want to make a commitment to improve your skills as a magician. 2) You You already own quite a few f ew magic tricks, instructional DVDs or books, but are unsatisfied with how well you perform many of them. 3) You You find that you jump from one new magic trick to the next, learning the secret, running through it a few times, performing perform ing it a handful of times, then moving on to something else.

Did I get a few right? It’s no big surprise really really.. Most people learning magic can identify with some of those statements. For the majority of magicians, magic is nothing more than an addictive hobby. hobby. It involves researching the subject, choosing new tricks, discovering secrets, collecting, socialising, and playing with ‘toys’. It’s addictive because there is an endless amount of information to discover, a feeling of progress, and lots of positive reinforcement from family and friends as you develop skills. That’s plenty to keep anyone happy and occupied for a lifetime… But That’s there is so much more that you can achieve, it only requires a careful look at how you approach learning your magic. Does this sound familiar: when a new magic trick, book, or DVD arrives A large large padded envelope has been delivered and you're standing by the front door, staring down at it. You know what’s inside…

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After all, you’ve been excited about this moment right from the second you ordered it.

Now it’s finally in your hands. It’ss at this point that you find something is missing from the package.. It’

You. The trick needs you to put your own time and hard work into mastering it’s performance. It’s It’s the time you commit to practice that will make the trick magical, and you a skilled magician. There really isn’t any short-cut, you have to make the decision to put in the required work.

There are tools you can use. In this book I will share much of what I’ve learned about practising magic over the past 22 years. The tips and advice are intended to give you three things: 1) A feel for what to expect, 2) Ways Ways to organise your practice into a effective program, 3) Practical tips that will make a huge difference to the results of your hard work.

If you have any questions, would like to give me some feedback, or maybe some tips that you feel should also be included, I would love to hear from you. You can reach me at: www.DominicReyes.me Drop by the blog at: http://blog.magicshop.co.u http://blog.magicshop.co.uk k Best wishes and good luck with your magic, Dominic Reyes

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Help someone else If you find this advice useful, don’t keep it to yourself. If you know someone who is struggling with their magic practice, or just seems to be stuck in an endless cycle of learning, without actually developing a set of usable tricks they feel are ready to perform, please tell them about this book and send them a link to get a copy.

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Approaching Magic Practice By Dominic Reyes

The practice drill OK, let’s start off with one of the most valuable tips I can give you about practising your magic. You don’t want to have to wade through the whole book before you start making some practical changes to the way you practise your magic, so this single page will give you a technique you can start right now. If you ignore everything in this book, yet commit to using this practice drill method, I promise you will still be delighted with the results. I use this method with all of the students that have private magic lessons at the magic shop. It’s tried and tested over many years. This really is worth it’s weight in gold:

Choose just ONE trick to work on. Put aside everything else. Practise everyday, in small quick sessions. Use a drill principle: running through the complete moves 20 times in the morning and 20 times at night for 20 days. If you can’t do that, just try to do two 10-minute practice drills every day. Short regular sessions are best. After the 20 days of drilling. Film your performance and watch it back with a critical eye. If it still needs work, repeat the drill for another 10 days before filming again.

One trick Two short sessions Every day For 20 days 7


When you practise magic using this drill technique, don’t try to increase your speed, let that happen naturally. Slow is better when you are learning. Speed will come all by itself as you progress through the 20 days of drilling.

If you make an error:

Stay relaxed Stop Identify where you went wrong, so you don’t keep reinforcing the same mistake. Start the move or routine again from the beginning.

If you practise magic this way, it will fast-track you as it builds in motor-memory for the trick or move. Setting a practice drill works because it removes the CHOICE from your practice. Choice is your enemy when it comes to getting things done. You need a fixed path, with no option other than the set practice over a set period of time. Using a drill will help keep you on target and consistently working towards a single goal.

Little and often is best The secret is to practise in short bursts, over several weeks and have 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.

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In cognitive science there are two forms of learning: •

Massed learning – when you practise and rehearse the material over a short space of time (cramming);

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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 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.

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The practice drill for a single move You may want to focus on a specific sleight of hand move or technique rather than a full routine. You can choose a group of core techniques that you plan to work on, then create a structured drill practice schedule. Let’s look at the process:

Step 1: Choosing the technique(s) Start by creating a list of core moves that you would like to develop. This should be quite short, as each move will be the subject of a long period of focused work. Scale your list down to 5 or 6 key techniques that you REALLY want to master. For example: • • • • •

The Double Lift The Elmsley Count The Cull The Double Under-Cut The Classic Palm

These will be the foundation for your practice over the next five months of magic training. Once you have a core list, pick one of the techniques to start your training.

Step 2: Creating a timetable Now we have selected a sleight, we can build an effective program to give structure and a set pace to our training. At this point, it’s easy to rush in and start practising every moment you can. For some people this works fine, but it can lead to ‘burn out’

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from boredom or impatience to move on to something new. If you find that you struggle to commit to serious practice, and jump from technique to technique without mastering anything, you will find that a structured practice schedule will greatly help you.

I recommend daily practice, in short sessions.

20 repetitions or 10 minutes practice in the morning 20 repetitions or 10 minutes practice in the evening.

Choose the first technique that you will work on, and focus on only that move for the next 20 days. Drill the move SLOWLY 20 times for 10 minutes every morning and 10 minutes every evening. Practice slowly, just focusing on performing the move accurately and smoothly.

Speed Your practice should be SLOW. The goal is to achieve perfect technique rather than speed. If you rush the moves, assuming that faster is better, you will be making small errors, which become reinforced by repetition. Speed is a side-effect of good technique, not part of the technique itself.

Why short practice sessions? This allows time for your brain to consolidate the information you have learned, and for the muscle-memory to become embedded. 11


British “memory champion” Ed Cooke (who can memorise a full deck of playing cards in under two minutes) agrees that short practice sessions are more effective: Learn in short bursts, testing yourself on the technique over several weeks and making sure that there are sufficient rest intervals between each practice session and the next. “The best thing to do is break up your studying of a subject – 10 minutes, test yourself, then again on day two, then day seven and day 14. The biggest mistake you can make is just to keep practising it over and over to yourself.”

Step 3: Assessment After 20 days, video your performance of the technique and watch it back. Have a critical eye and make note of: • • • •

Mistakes in your technique; Hesitation; Unconscious ‘tells’ that you might not have been aware of; How the flow of your actions look natural.

If you are completely happy with the technique, you can now move on to put it into action. If not, repeat the drill program for another 10 days.

Step 4: Application and rehearsal Once a technique has been drilled, you can’t rest there. You need to keep it fresh and familiar over time. Any move you learn is a waste of time if you don’t have an application for it. You need a magic trick that you WANT to perform that requires the technique.

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As you start rehearsing the full trick, you reinforce your performance of the techniques within it. This keeps your skills active over time. Repeat the practice drill for the WHOLE magic trick, repeating it several times in the morning and again in the evening. This replicates the experience you will have performing the trick professionally. A working magician may perform a trick many times every day, and this constant work builds in a deep understanding of the trick and its performance. Once you are happy with your progress through rehearsal, you are ready to start again at Step 1 with the next technique you wish to master.

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10,000 hours There is a rule for becoming a master of anything. It’s called the 10,000-hour rule. Proposed by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson, the 10,000-hour rule claims you need 10,000 hours of practice to master any skill. That’s around 10 years of consistent magic practice!

Have you got time for that? Would you like a quicker way? Let’s look at some ways that you can cut that time down, and still get the same results. The 10,000-hour rule refers to practice through simple repetition. Is it possible to look at your practice technique, and introduce some smart behaviour into your routine that could cut the time needed to master a magic trick?

Practice your magic tricks just before you sleep Sleep is a lovely thing, and it’s very good for you, but it’s also a time when your brain processes the information that it has taken in through your day and sorts it for long-term storage. Information is consolidated during sleep as memories are created and associated with previously stored information. If you study your magic shortly before you go to bed, you should find that you retain much more of the information than if you studied earlier in the day. Bookending your day with your magic practice sessions can greatly boost the effectiveness of your practice.

Commit to formal magic practice What do all those kung-fu films teach us? The Zen masters know a thing or two about mastering skills! Instead of just going through the motions as you perform your moves, focus on every detail. Slow your 14


practice down so you can pay attention to the process just as much as the result. Practise in the present, thinking about what you are ACTUALLY doing, not about the past or what you hope for the future. Continually ask yourself how you could adapt or change the process to improve the final result. This is a move away from mindless ‘reps’ as you examine each step of the movement and timing the technique requires.

Know your strengths You can get anywhere you want, with enough hard work and commitment. But some people have an easier journey than others. We can develop skill over time, but you will have a natural talent for some aspects of magic. Perhaps you are a natural actor, maybe your mind is hard-wired for creativity. If you have a talent, find it and use it to your advantage. Channel your time and effort towards magic tricks you already have a natural ability for, build a compatible set of skills to complement it. You will be practising magic that you already have an aptitude for.

Stand of the shoulders of giants Pretty much everything in magic has been done before. New magic is often a variation of previous techniques with a new spin added. The core principles are classic principles – adapted and refined from magicians who worked on designing magic tricks long ago. Read as much as you can, and study the classics from famous magicians. Learn from other magicians’ successes and their mistakes – you can learn faster by avoiding errors that have already occurred.

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As you build up your core knowledge. Seek out new magic tricks that take the principles that you already know, the core sleights from your already mastered material, and build up a working set of material around those moves. It’s possible to do a wide range of different coin magic tricks that secretly all use the same two or three moves. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel every time you add a new magic trick. The 10,000-hour rule isn’t set in stone. You can create short-cuts in your practice by spending time designing a strong practice drill program.

Take just 1% of the time you spend browsing the internet for new magic tricks, and spend it organising your practice regime. By practising smart, you can get to the mastery of any magic technique or trick, much faster than you ever thought possible.

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Take care of your hands If you find that your fingers hurt or your hand aches when you are practising: STOP. Be aware that you are developing the strength and dexterity of the muscles in your hand, whilst still looking after the joints. You REALLY don’t want to develop Repetitive Strain Injury due to your practice, so listen to your body. If your fingers or hands hurt, it’s time to rest them. The drill method of practice should help prevent R.S.I. because it stops binge practice sessions. Many magicians use a good hand-moisturiser to keep them in the best of order. Your hands are the tools of your trade as a magician. Invest in hand care and consider having a manicure from time to time.

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Committing to magic practice 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 Many magicians 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 18


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 it. 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 to a minimum builds a routine that will allow you to focus a lot better. Setting this up will help others 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. 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.

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The Practice Mirror Using a three-panel close-up mirror can be a valuable tool for magicians, especially during the practice drill process.

Most three-section mirrors have a problem: they tend to be housed in a frame, so the mirror doesn’t go right down to the table surface. This can get in the way when performing directly on the table surface or close-up mat, especially with coin magic routines. The good news is that it’s easy to make a perfect close-up magic mirror, that packs flat, covers all the angles and gives you a full view right to the table surface. Here’s what you need: Three square bathroom mirror tiles. These are available very cheaply

from most DIY stores.

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Simply take three mirror wall tiles and tape them together with black duct tape. The tape is flexible,so if you leave a small 3mm gap between each tile as you tape down their edge, they will be able to fold the mirror flat to go in your travel case or car. The mirror looks clean, clear and gives you the most mirror surface possible, right down to your close-up mat. OK, it doesn’t look like a piece of furniture, but your close-up mirror is a private thing, it’s not really for show, but rather for your own private serious practice. Practising regularly with a close-up mirror can dramatically improve your performance. However, you need to make sure that you don’t close your eyes, or blink when you perform a move. There’s a tendency to avoid noticing when you perform a sleight if you practice exclusively in front of a mirror, so make sure you also drill your practice away from the instant feedback a mirror gives you.

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Filming your performance One of the most useful tools for developing your magic is the video camera. Filming your performance of a magic trick will allow you to critically study every part of your routine. You can understand what your audience actually sees when they watch you. It’s an invaluable learning process and we recommend you seriously consider making this part of your training. When I talk about filming your magic, I don’t mean quickly filming a half-mastered trick and uploading it to YouTube. That’s not going to teach you anything. The only feedback will be flattery or even rude comments, that will do you no good at all. This is not about selfpromotion or feedback from others, it’s about having a cold, hard, and dispassionate look at yourself.

It strips away any ego, and shows you what’s actually really there, rather than what you hope to find. That’s where the true value is gained, and it’s priceless. Which magic tricks you choose to film doesn’t really matter, but ideally you should be performing to spectators and not to the camera itself. You want to be able to study how you interact with your audience just as much as how well you can do the moves when nobody is watching.

Once you have some footage, the painful part begins You need to sit down and prepare to take notes as you watch the footage back several times. The first time you watch it, you probably won’t learn much. That first viewing will be spent either feeling uncomfortable about watching yourself, or enjoying the routine and patting yourself on the back for how clever a particular part of it is. The real value comes from the second, third and fourth playback.

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Make a careful note of the following 10 action points:

1) Do you look relaxed and natural? 2) Do you look happy to be there and enjoying performing the magic tricks? 3) What does your body movement say about you, the situation, and the magic you are doing? 4) Are your hand movements natural, relaxed and clear? 5) Is your speech rushed. Is it clear and engaging? Do you vary the tone and pace? 6) Do you make eye-contact with the audience? 7) Do you hesitate when executing a move or sleight? 8) Does anything look awkward or out of place? 9) How is your audience reacting at each point during the magic trick? 10) Are you performing your sleight of hand at the right moments, when the misdirection is the strongest? You should have made quite a few notes after running through this process a few times, and it’s very important that you act on every point you find. Use what you learn from this to eliminate all the weak points and reinforce the actions that are working well for you. Make a conscious effort to be aware of the problems you have identified. When you next perform, you will be much less likely to repeat those problems if you know they are there. Each little adjustment will make your magic far stronger. It’s a better long-term investment than simply adding more and more new magic tricks to your knowledge base. You have a tool at your disposal that

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ApproachingMagicPracticeDominicReyes (1).pdf

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