Also recall that Mickey has talked about a "third level" of astonishment (which I have written about as 'echo effect'" This has nothing to do with sleights and can't be taught on video.
It has to do with psychological management of spectator expectations and internal reward system." In brief, an observer can get one rush by playing with the astonishment as a puzzle or appreciation of skill, a second by realizing "must be magic" in Whit Dilemma scenario, and a third rush when they realize that they set themselves up for the first two to occur.

In a desire to learn "what Mickey does" ask if you are prepared to study all three levels of astonishment. Learning to be empathically attuned to your audience or their expectations may be more important than the ROV. In a private exchange with Mickey I suggested that he did not have "practiced routines" but was os practiced that he automatically selected the best sleight/method/technique appropriate to the setting and audience. He just laughed. The key here is that there is much to "learn" from Mickey, but little that he can "teach" anyone.

Funsway said- "In a private exchange with Mickey I suggested that he did not have "practiced routines" but was os practiced that he automatically selected the best sleight/method/technique appropriate to the setting and audience."

I think this is an extremely astute observation. As someone who has been a successful paid artist in a number of fields, (cartoonist, painter, illustrator, computer gaming conceptual artist, writer, musician, and magician), I find myself applying "what I know" intuitively on- the -fly quite often. You acquire a practiced technique in music or drawing, and you apply it instantly without thinking about it too much when it's called for. It's an advanced way of working because you must not only be intimately skilled with the technique, but you also need the raw experience of using it thousands of times under your belt in practical situations so that you know when and how to call it to your fingertips in an instant.

I often perform magic in exactly this way with coins myself. Instead of having a set routine where you go from pass A to vanish B to appearance C, you instead learn the individual parts well enough to have a plethora, (I love excuses to use this word), an arsenal, a whole slew of parts that are interchangeable and that you can call up without the clutter of thinking about beyond an intuitional need for their use.

It's exactly the same as improvisational jamming with another musician. You pick a key, and go, and neither musician knows where the hell they are going, until the moments arrive and they are there, and beautiful, unexpected things happen.

I think funsway sometimes has quite pertinent observations on coin magic and this is certainly one of them. Too often, magi set themselves up for safe and conservative "tricks" using written instructions that are always followed verbatim, when we need to look at our various sleights as interchangeable, instantly accessible tools that we can improvise with on call. We should more often work towards that goal- because magic is, after all, an art.