Hi all. I've registered with this forum some time ago, but never had the guts to actually post up on it but well here I am!

Ok my name is Karwee (or just call me Maddened), 23, Student at NUS, and I had previously being a magic enthusiast when I was about 15-16. Back then I was into card magic and a little coin, but I never got very good at it probably because I was overwhelmed the amount of stuff to learn and didn't really know how to go about it properly.

For various reasons I stopped magic (mostly because it's REALLY expensive) but now that my vacation is coming up, I thought maybe I'll pick it up again.

So to get the initial questions out of the way:


1) How should I go about learning magic? As in which sleights should I start with, then which ones to move on to etc.? How long should I practice each one?

2) Alright, I know we can't discuss shops here, except online dealers, so any recommendations for online dealers or places online to buy from other people?

Thanks a lot guys and sorry for this long intro post. I hope that I'll be able to restart my passion for magic in these three months and continue it. Cheers! ^_^

Firstly, welcome to SMC and enjoy your stay here ^_^

you might want to grab a copy of The Royal Road to Card Magic and BoBo Modern Card Magic.

They contain most of the basic to advanced sleight of hand you will ever need in the card and coin magic segment. (although some of the really impossible sleight of hand are not available e.g the second deal, raise rise, etc :off: )

They are cheap and personally i feel it is easy to read. just need to visualize a bit.

The learning curve and time taken depends on individuals, you may take a couple of hours to get a thumb fan going but i may take weeks. Just keep practising until you can do it with your eyes close.

All the dealers here are approachable, they are illusionist, cyngapore, exohordon just to name a few.

Lastly, all the best in your magic-ing :wub:

Thanks for the welcome bigbadwolf!

Where can I find these books? Do I have to go specially to dealers or will places like Kino and Borders have them too? Right now I just have Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic, but I'm itching for more card-focussed stuff so your recommendations sound like just the thing.

Haha... I still can't do a pressure fan no matter what. My hands are rather small actually (so p****** is a real b****) so maybe that's why I'm finding card manipulations harder to pick up.

Alright thanks again and I'll go surf around the forums. B)

yup..go look for it in borders or kino (i saw RRTCM at bugis kino 1month ago :P )

or just approach the counter at borders and ask them to order for you at no extra charge.

if you still cannot find the books, try Here (Courtesy from Aloy), Here or your community library.

hope that helps.. ^_^