Nothing puts one back into the position of a novice more effectively than a bit of learning and growth. Last year I started the blog to chronicle and reflect on my re-immersion into magic after a long absence. My goal was to polish and present some of the routines I did years ago, and to learn and perform some classic routines which contained the chops any decent magician should be familiar with. Every Friday I performed a new routine for each one of my 5 classes. The successful effects went into a working repertoire while those that didn’t go so well were analyzed and bumped down to a lower cell on my spreadsheet for future refinement. Each week I made a blog entry as a self-reflection on my personal process and progress of practicing, building and presenting magic. This of course was not intended to be instructional to anyone but myself. By putting my journal “out there” it forced me to keep up with it and not get too sloppy or lazy.
That was my first step back into the art of illusion. I really don’t know why I love it so much. I’m not an attention seeker. In fact, quite the opposite is the case. It just feels like something I must do. At ant rate, the purpose of continuing the blog has changed in some respects and remained the same in others. Some entries will resemble those of the previous year. But my goal is not focused on learning new illusions and routines. The goal now is to take the effects I know and elevate them (and my presentations of them) to a higher level. I expect future entries to be more about the subtleties and philosophy of performing magic than anything else.
Although for two or three real stinkers, last year’s experiment was a great success. Most of what I presented went adequately, to very well. A hand full of effects played as strongly as anyone could hope, while (as I said) a couple of them were epic failures. But these too were very useful in that I was able (after some analysis) to determine what went wrong and flag them for future refinement. So by last June I had worked my skills back up to an almost acceptable level. I felt that I had succeeded in my self-challenge. My passion for magic became even stronger than it was when I was young. (I didn’t see that coming!). The experience was exciting and humbling. But there was so much I still did not know. But that was about to change.
