Learning From Magic Books. 10 Tips.

hi and welcome to real magic review my name is Steve fulet and today we're going to be talking about learning from Magic [Music] books before we do this like And subscribe if you like it and you want to subscribe to it um hit the little bell icon if you want notifications and all that kind of thing I know it's been a while I will uh I'm back he says I always say that don't I then disappear from over 3 weeks but no um everything is set up now life is slightly calmer and sometimes you've just got a retreat work on stuff develop yourself and then come back stronger that's what I've been telling myself so oh and um do check out online magic.co because this was actually as a result of a member of online magic.co getting in touch with me and asking me a questions and what I want this channel to be is not just uh about products it's about supporting the community so please let me know how I can do that do ask me questions and I'd like this content not just to be this is a cool a cool thing to buy but also something that would enable you to move forward with your magic um if I can help in any way so the sort of Crux of this email was about learning from books tips on learning from books um and about remembering routine and it it was really timely so this isn't just answering that question but it's it was because I've just worked through John gasta Faro's Nth Degree um it's not as often as I'd like you know that I get the chance to sit down and go right I'm going to do this or really get into a book and with all these books on my shelf it's ridiculous how many I haven't read and there are certain reasons for that and this kind of came up uh in this question really so I'm With You Phillip so these are tips really and and the stuff that most Magic books really don't go into the first of which is the time it takes to learn a trick even the most apparently easy trick in a book so you might read through it and it says do this do this do this if you do this this will make it better and you read that and go right you start learning it and then you might hit a few hurdles and there's nothing mentioned in the learning of the the trick or the explanation of the trick and then you might think oh is it is it or is this not for me and move on the other problem is is that we because books are full of Tricks we can forget sometimes as I said the time it takes to learn one so it can give us that psychological idea that oh I should be able to learn everything in this because the author has and the author's written it all down for me and I should sort of Cher through it and I know some people won't experience that but I certainly do I open a book thinking oh I'm going to learn loads from this and then very quickly I I kind of get into one and go this is this is going to take me a long time which happened with n Nth Degree and that isn't got 300 tricks in it it's got 26 I think and even after reading books for so many years my idea of of how quickly I can learn a trick is still very inaccurate so rather than kind of go oh you know I'm going to walk away from this I decided to do the second thing on my list and that is practice yoga magic don't worry it's not what it sounds like something that was really helpful to me when practicing yoga or meditation or any of those sort of things is this idea that you just do the daily process you focus on the process you don't constantly think of the goal it's useful to know where you're going and use that as a motivator but sometimes it can be too daunting you've got to learn so much to achieve you know you can't imagine yourself performing this trick so what I try to do now you know with John's book especially I was kind of there I've got to learn all these tricks just went no concentrate on where you are now get into the practice of it mindfully practice don't try and rush it and try and understand each bit and don't and kind of forget about the goal of learning the trick and now for me I know now that I like that process it doesn't mean I like it all the time it can be incredibly boring and taxing but I like that thing of actually the practice of it and I trust now that no matter how bad I am at something if I just check in with it every day or do every other day as much as possible the byproduct of that will be the ability to do the trick and why I say yoga magic is you know if you do yoga or stretching or strength training or anything like that you know if you look at the work you've got to do to become flexible it can be like I've got to do this and it doesn't really work like that you've just got to do it every day and then after a while you realize you go oh this is working so it's checking in with the final goal but making sure you stay with it and don't try and rush on which again is this idea of rushing through the tricks in a book number three is ReRe reread now rereading we will anyway because there are certain things we don't understand but I've read passages of books and I've reread them five times I've just thought I just don't get it and then on the sixth time I go oh right they mean that what's also really useful is is stopping rereading and coming back to it later on that can really help because you in the time between practicing that's when the process kind of happens and I've woken up in the morning sometimes and gone all right that's it and kind of it's it's come to me it is like a magic trick it's great sorry for looking at my notes but I haven't got the memory for it so reread it reread it if you still don't understand try and find other people that maybe know the trick or reach out to people and on my course we do this all the time someone just got in touch with me about tricking Charlie fries book I can't teach that on the course because it's a it's a market effect but I can help them with the bit that they're they're working on and try and clarify for them remembering can be the hardest part I always say you know a self-working trick for me is way more difficult than a slight of hand trick because I know the slides I know how they work so if I get into trouble I can get out of it remembering a process is very difficult with me with ADHD does that mean I can't do it absolutely not but it just means that I need certain tools to help me remember one of those boring as it sounds is repetition and I don't mean having to sit down in a room with a whiskey and a cigar you know like everybody thinks you've got practice it's just you every now and then just running through it it sometimes takes a minute or two and you can do this on a bus you can do this on a train a lot of public transport in that list isn't there of two um but you can do it anywhere and just have those cards on you if it's a packet trick which I find so hard to remember have them in your wallet don't worry about the cards getting all knackered up and beaten up don't try and look after them just have them on you all the time unless you paid a lot of money for him or stick him in a wallet and just as much as you can instead of getting your phone out get them out run through it once is usually enough for the memory bit and then muscle memory will take over the other way of doing it of remembering it and this is why it's great with books is again to do it mindfully but try and understand not only how to do the trick but why the trick works I have often you know known tricks for ages and going I don't actually know why this works Triumph is a classic for me you know I I never kind of knew how it ended up like it did I know for some people that's going to be ridiculous but I would I would just go if I get stuck halfway through I'm not going to be able to get out of this and when you learn how a trick works and why it works the way it does it becomes a lot easier to remember because it becomes more intuitive you're not just learning by rot you're not just learning a set of instructions you're learning why it works and therefore it makes sense why the next bit of the trick happens and again in Triumph that was a game Cher for me and also in packet tricks that involve Elmsley counts Jordan count you know what is this actually doing and how did I get into this position you know stick face you know blank face cards and things like that in there and I'm I have to spend a lot of time really going through the stuff and actually by trying to understand it it means you practice more and it will will fit in on the side note to remembering which I didn't write down here film yourself doing it as if you're going to post it on social media even if you're not one of the best things it's almost like an audience's day you've got to get it right and you it will drive you to get it right and then you watch the video that doesn't look quite right you'll go back to it and at the end of an hour or so you'll realize that you've got that nail it's just in your head so and then you can use pneumonics and things like that you can tell yourself your self a story but I'm not going to go into that but great book I've just read is a moonwalking with Einstein by someone um great audio book as well and that's a story of someone learning memory techniques but also it gives you the techniques within that and then you can go on to look at you know the the main Publications on memory work of which there are many adapt and change what it says in the book an author or creator of a trick isn't always correct about their own trick and that sounds weird I know and one of my favorite movie reviewers Mark kermode always says this about films you know he'll he'll perceive a film of as saying something to him and the director will say no that wasn't the attention at all and he'll say that's irrelevant that's what got for it you're not always right about what your film your book your your piece of music does and you may see a move and they might say you you've got to do this move it makes it better it makes it more streamlined but you might think actually I know some a way I can get to that a little bit more easily for me and that's totally fine I get kind of obsessed with doing it the right way and actually once I kind of got rid of that idea and going you know what would I do in this situation would I use the pinky though would I use the index finger or you know could I do this that misdirection rather than having them burn the deck could I change the place of the move or the timing so you know question everything you read even if it's from someone you you absolutely and totally admire know that learning from Magic books is an improvable skill the more you do it the better you get at it I still find it very hard to learn from books I kind of like that challenge though that gets me into flow if you look at the science of happiness and that flow feeling when you lose all sense of time and you're really in the moment part of that comes from the kind of of decoding of it I kind of like that it can be incredibly frustration frustrating but you do get better at it so again not just practicing with the cards every day or the coins or whatever but actually taking out the book take a photo of a bit you're struggling with and just reread it reread it and you'll get better at at kind of breaking that code sometimes it can be difficult also on that sometimes it just can be badly written some books are really badly written they're written by people who perform some sometimes not by authors they are not people who write instructional books so it's okay again to question the quality of the writing if it's really not that clear it's not that well written and I would say sometimes reach out to the author they might not get back to you and say look I don't understand this but again as a backup there are people like me even if you're not a part of the course that if you see me struggling with a thing I would be glad to help you and sometimes already didn't go I don't know what they're going on about um and that's okay to challenge that and again if you've got your chops or you know a few moved you can switch the bit out that you don't understand to try and get to the same result on that going back to the understanding of the time it takes to learn a trick is Choose Wisely you know go through read the the tricks that you're kind of interested in I find that so boring um to actually read without the cards in hand mostly with most books I find it really challenging process but if you just read the the sort of most books have a summary of the trick you know imagine yourself doing it and think is this the trick for me is that going to fit even though it sounds cool with anything I do on my Persona or my prop management I've got a rule that I don't you know carry any other gimmicked cards or anything like that sometimes not even a a card of another color pack if the Trick's good enough I will because it's just too much for me to think about with all the other stuff what I'm doing a gig and of course this is not just for people doing gigs there seems to be this Purity with if you read a book you got to stick with a book and it's either books or video I found it so beneficial if I'm struggling with a move to go I can't work out what this is I'll Google it and find that someone's performed the move on YouTube hopefully not exposed it or but said this is what the mve looks like and you kind of know what the move looks like all the trick you're learning sometimes Google the trick and you'll find someone performing that trick and this was really helpful to me in one of John's tricks it very clear what happened but I can visualize the effect of it and then when I saw someone do it I Googled it I went that's what it looks like that's great because in Reading I was I was thinking is this going to look decent and it clarified it for me so you're not necessarily using the video for the learning you're just seeing what the end product looks like and I think that's the most challenging thing or one of the most challenging things about learning from books it's it's hard to visualize the effect of the trick sometimes it will sound okay in a book but when you see it it's stunning so again that's sometimes down to poor writing it definitely wasn't in John's thing uh but it or sometimes comes back down to the fact you just can't visualize it without that visual for one of repeating the word thing so that's a few things I think the the most beneficial for me really is to understand again going back to the first one is that it takes a long time to perfect a trick I learned everything in this book and then realized I wasn't doing any of it to the standard want to I still am not but in the process of kind of going well actually I'm going to put more time on that trick cuz I can see myself performing that so understand that understand your learning style if you find it a struggle to learn from books it's okay to learn from video but don't think that means you can't and it's a very different experience and I love the fact that books make me take the time that the trick deserves so don't lose faith I think books are so valuable there's a reason why they're getting a massive Resurgence people will say no it's all going to get a video the writer and Joshua Jay says said this to me make by writing tricks up it makes you as the creator of the trick understand the trick more as well a lot the time that is conveyed so I hope that helps uh Philip thanks for writing in I know that wasn't just you know all about that email but if you've got any more questions do let me know I'd love to make more of these videos tell me if they're helpful tell me if they're too long I know for some of you they will be but I'm not going to make five minute things it's uh it doesn't work this is I think there too much to talk about here and of course I've only skimmed in the surface so any more questions put them below do please check out online magic.co we get together most weeks and I'll answer any questions there um and we have special guests come on that sometimes teach the tricks from their books and I've just had permission to teach a a lovely trick from John which I performed on social media with poker chips um so you you you'll learn a lot anyway that's the end of me Shilling that have a great one take care like And subscribe if you like and you want to subscribe to it and have a lovely lovely weekend if you watch this today he [Music]