My recent post urged you to slow down a little when learning sleight of hand. When I made that post, I wondered whether I’d receive responses from move monkeys like myself who were concerned that they would get bored of learning just one move. And that’s exactly the response that several people emailed me.
But, there’s something I deliberately didn’t address: the difference between practice and play. I play with moves, tricks, concepts and ideas on a daily basis. However, along with those kind of play sessions I also sit down and practice. A practice session for me is when I sit down and focus on one thing in particular. I block out everything but the move or trick that I’m working on. This last week, for example, I’ve been practising the One Handed Top Palm with my other hand as I think it’ll be useful to learn it with both hands. I play with ideas for hours, but I’ve only been focusing on that one move in my practice sessions.
Just like practice, play is essential. As you get more experienced in magic it gets harder to do, but I urge you to try to play with ideas as often as possible. Playing with lots of moves, for example has its uses. As does playing with old apparatus (unless you’re Rich Aviles).
