Is New Better?

Transcript

- Hey, welcome back to another episode.

- This is one of those ones that starts with a really short story, that caught my attention, and then there's a lesson, or comment, about how that relates to magic.

- So, I was watching something like, Countryfile, which for my international listeners, is a weekly farming and rural affairs programme.
- It's actually quite enjoyable!
- Anyway, they had this feature about one of the islands off the west coast of Scotland, where this lady was the third generation post master for the island.
- Her father and grandfather had done the same job before her.
- Then they mentioned, that while they did the job by horse, she uses a different kind of horse power now.
- Cut to a clip of her travelling around the island on some sort of quad bike, buggy type thing.

- I was watching this and I couldn't help thinking, wouldn't a horse still do the job?
- Yes, you have to feed it, and look after it, but you have to fuel and maintain a buggy.
- And I bet a horse can travel over rougher terrain than the buggy could.

- My prevailing thought was, just because something is new doesn't mean that it's better.
- And there's a lesson there that relates to magic.

- I often get calls asking about magic lessons, and when I ask what they know already, the response is often something like, they've learnt a few tricks from YouTube.
- Now, don't get me wrong, it's great that someone is showing an interest, and maybe you can learn a trick or two from YouTube.
- But it's not a great way to go about the true study of magic.

- In a recent blog post where I gave 25 tips for new magicians (yes, I'll include a link in the show notes),
- And I mention that the secret to all of magic can be found in books.
- To some you that might seem, like a very old way of learning how to do magic
- But it's still relevant today.
- The secret to all of magic is in books.
- And books have consistently shown to be the best way of learning because they force you to go through a process.
- You have to see the moves in your minds eyes, and then with the props in hand, you have to try them out.
- You might fail at first, or for a long period of time, but that's actually a good thing.
- It's called learning.

- The written word is also static, which means that you can re-read anything that doesn't make sense initially.
- With a video, you have to skip back, or rewind.
- In fact, when I want to learn a trick that is only taught on video, the first thing I do is transcribe the moves into my own notebook, so that I can learn from that, rather than from the video.

- Another major advantage of books is that many of them have a structure to them, allowing you to follow them step by step, building your skills as you go.
- When I wanted to learn to bake, I spent a long time researching which book to buy.
- I wanted a book that could act as a course book, not just give me 1001 recipes without any context or details about what worked and why.
- I eventually found that book, and in case you are interested, I will leave a link to that below too.
- at the very least it will give you an example of what I mean.
- I think, the best example in the magic world is, Card College, a fantastic resource that is like a degree level course in card magic, yet broken down into, books, then chapters, then individual lessons.
- You wouldn't go far wrong, if you worked through 5 to 10 pages a day over the course of a year.
- And that's a tip for the pro magicians too.

- Instead, what we often get these days are one trick downloads, that to me seem as if they are rushed out to meet a schedule,
-They seem more like a cool idea, rather than being the result of a lifetime's work.
- What's often missing is the real world subtleties that make them truly fooling for a non-magical audience.

- I know the next thing I'm going to say is like I'm wishing to pause the ever moving spheres of heaven, but in the past a magician would write one book at the end of their career.
- Or a few if they were particularly prolific.
- The point is printing 500 books costs more than making a 12 minute video, so you've got to make it better, and it was.

- And I would even say the DVDs and yes also VHSs that I learnt from were better than single trick downloads.
- My teachers were people like, Jeff McBride and Daryl and Lennart Green and David Stone.
- And their videos, again, seemed like a course in one genre of magic.

- I know that for some, magic will just be a hobby, either because through choice or because of other pressures such as work, family or other hobbies
- But even if magic is only something you do occasionally it's still worth making the effort to do it right.
- I firmly believe, you'll enjoy it more if you feel like you're making progress.

- In the last episode I recommended a book called the talent code and I want to shout that book out again.
- In it, the author encourages the reader to seek out difficult situations.
- We learn by going through a struggle, by having to figure something out for ourselves.

- We don't learn through baby brain DVDs that keep us busy, without teaching us anything.
- They entertain us with trick after trick and explanations exposed but rarely taught in any depth.
- This also by the way seems to be the case for most (but not all) magic lectures.
- That's another topic for another day.

- So, that's almost it for today.
- I hope this episode has given you some food for thought.
- If there's one thing to take away from it, it would be embrace the difficult situations, that's where you start growing!

- In an upcoming episode I'm going to lay out a plan to study and improve your magic, but I want to know from you, how do you learn, study and improve.

- You can contribute to the conversation by finding the page for this podcast along with every other episode at edsumner.com/magicians and if you want to hear future episodes you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from.

- Until next time, thanks for listening.