Hi,

When you are learning from a book or video, do you learn all the sleights and tricks, or just those that appeal to you?

I'm currently (still) in the first chapter of Royal Road to Card Magic, but out of the seven or so tricks presented in that chapter, but only two of them appeal to me. Is it better to focus on learning the tricks I like or to learn all tricks in that chapter (or in any chapter/book/video for that matter)?

Thanks!

:)

No reply? Anyway, I think I'll learn the sleights, then choose only a couple of tricks that I like most in that chapter and practice them. I might as well spent the time learning the tricks I like and will more likely to perform. Moreover, if I don't enjoy a trick myself, then how do I make my audience to enjoy the trick?

Learn all the sleights u will need them somehow,someday.

A man cannot master all trades.

Let say, does a teacher learn all the subjects to be good? Or learn those that he is good in? But how about the rest then?

So, it really breaks down to whether you want to be jack of all trades, master of none, or master of one.

I myself don't learn all the tricks in the world, nor I select effects that are only for me. I do abit of both, I read up effects, study the videos. The purpose of them is to see how the performer perform, and the small techniques that he use, even a hand gesture can inspire you.

Those effect that I work myself on, I will improvise and use other people's idea into them, making it more personal to myself.

So my view will be, read up as much as you can, expose yourself to people's magic, and then adjust your personal ones.

Larry

Hmmm... not exactly a very easy question to answer.

I know of people who is good at almost any genre... cards, coins, mentalism, ropes etc. They simply love any forms of magic and excel in them. I would term them as natural talents.

But if you are like me, not terribly talented... don't try to learn everything at one go. As Larry said, you would end up a master of none. Choose easier sleights or routines to perform first to build up your confidence.

When you are at a advanced level, you can start to expose yourselves to other things (either genre or more difficult sleights) and then you can decide which is more YOU and continue down that road.

I mean, some people are just better at certain things than others. You got to find YOUR thing.

My personal stand is to learn as fully as possible the sleights that are on the material that you have, but choose only a few effects (NOT tricks) that you really like and master them well.

This way, you have the relevant techniques to help you out when you are 'in trouble', and also, the basis to build upon when you later want to learn something that is more complex. Of course, the sheer amount of sleights may be so overwhelming, so pick the important ones first, but learn the others as well.

When i firt started, I found it hard to resist the temptation to look only at the effect i liked then learn only the relevant sleights. I found out soon it really wasn't a good way to learn!!

As they always say, performing one solid effect is better than showing three that made no impact.

Cheers.

A. ^_^

Thanks. It seems that I'm on the "correct" path. ^_^

Personally, I would learn and try to master 1 effect first. (Try to learn the one you like, cause you will have the interest in learning it) And from that single effect, it would would lead you into learning a couple of sleights (to accomplish that particular effect). Once I can master the sleights and the effect, than I will move on to my 2nd effect. From there, move on to the 3rd, 4th 5th, etc etc.

Because of this, not only will you be learning new effects and sleights, by the time you are comfortable with 10 different effects, you have already acheive a couple of things.

1.) You would have build up your own repotoire
2.) You would have a decent knowledge of sleights
3.) You would have a decent knowledge of effects

And from that you can use different techniques to acheive the same result. Because the beauty of magic is that nothing is fixed. All it takes are your ideas and individual creativity. From there, new effects or a variation is created.

However, this is my humble 2 cents, I believe there will be others who would beg to differ. At the end of the day, the choice is still up to you!

Cheers!

dry_gin

I would assume that what u mean by learning all tricks means learning all tricks in the book, which is a great mental feat.

Personally i prefer learning effects that interests me first. Because there are many effects in card magic such as counting effects, spelling effects, card location effects etc. So if u like engaging your audience through a spelling effect where everyone spells along, then u should browse through and learn more spelling effects. Then as u go along, add other varieties of card magic to ur bag and construct a routine!! :lol:

Just my $2 worth---->this is a pun off macdonald's latest actions. B)

Aaron