I'm in: Troy Hooser's Charming Chinese Challenge 15 minutes per day and 5 days per week. I have been practicing it sporadically for several months and am making little progress. I have not even attempted the final vanish. I think with some consistent practice, I can achieve my goal of performing it with confidence.

Posted: Jan 30, 2011 7:21am
Small adjustment to my previous post. I have decided to focus on effect that I have done no work on learning yet. I will certainly continue to work with the Charming Chineses Challenge, but I wanted to see with 20 minutes five times per week how long a new effect would take to become proficient at performing. Thus I am going to focus on learning Simplex 3 Fly by Eric Jones.

Hello, whiteoakcanyon- Welcome to our group!

Being a big Eric Jones fan, I think you will love your choice. I would wish you good luck, but with your practice schedule predict you won't need it- prepare to be amazed at your progress!

Andrew- although I wouldn't wish 12 hours in an airport on anyone, what a way to get in some good performance practice! Just returned from MagiFest, and the magic was superb! My heaven, there are some great artists out there- and this year lots of names I had not heard of before. One name was Greg Wilson- the guy is the real deal, and has me psyched on impromptu magic- great for airports! Oddly, I was stuck in Dallas for 4 hours coming back from PV and didn't think of doing some magic- missed opportunity. 'Course, it would have been a bit of a risk, people where NOT in a good mood...

Take care all...

Jim

Jim - thanks for the welcome. You have started a great thread on the forum. I look forward to being a part of it.

WOW! This is a really good idea. So in the spirit of things I'm in. My first goal is to finish the 4 scripts I am writing. I will work on them 30 minutes a day 5 days a week and want to have them all done by two weeks from now. At which time I will start practicing one of the scripts till it shines.

Will it be OK to share my scripts and get some feed back once I have finished them?
Red

Jim - Greg is fantastic. We used to live just a few houses apart from each other in Newport Beach, and I had the chance to spend a little time with him when he was over here in the UK last year. The things he can do with cards...spectacular (and SUCH a nice guy!)

Red,

For what it's worth, I'd certainly be interested in seeing your finished scripts.

Laurie

Red-

Me too, and Welcome!

Andrew-

I never thought of Greg as a card man, but he did some jaw-dropper stuff at the Fest. What a great guy he seems to be. You have certainly, thru luck or determination, rubbed shoulders with some great ones...

Jim

Thanks guys this really does mean a lot to me, I worked my first session today and I'm feeling good about my goal.

Red

Week one complete and I have definitely made some progress. I think I will keep the day job, but definitely improving. Not having worked with coins previously I am really enjoying it a lot.

I've got a house guest in town (when you live in Europe people seem to want to visit a lot) so my practice schedule has been a bit off. Hoping to get back on track once she leaves on Thursday.

Oh, and I need to go to the store first. She ate one of my final loads.

... those live chicks like Johnny Ace Palmer uses??? How rude...

She didn't even cook it first, Jim. It was like watching an episode of Fear Factor.

You guys are just too funny!

Here we go- just ordered a set of knives from Joe Mogar, so will be starting on that later this week. Have set a weekly date with two magician friends to practice. Will work 20 minutes 3x per week on my own and then 1 night for feedback from the locals. No date set as a target yet.

Hudson

Definitely nice to have some buddies to rehearse with, Hudson!

Welcome to:

Rainbowrangers, I have great respect for Pat Page but I've never seen any of his rope moves. I'm into ropes so I'm expecting it would be a treat to see that.

Redwulfe, what sort of scripts are they, Magic Effects?

whiteoakcanyon, I got the Set but not the routine (DOH!). The Charming Chinese Challenge is a very beautiful piece of Magic.

Lately I've fallen back on my old ways, lots of practice but all over the map. I'm writing the new Library Show which takes a lot of running through possible effects, plus a few social events that require material and exploratory practice.

I believe in the mission statement here but I'm having trouble living up to it.

-Mary Mowder

I hear you, Mary. Always good to know we're not alone in our struggles, be it performance or otherwise!

Hello,

I hope all is well. I have been tied up with work, but I did make it to our January Ring meeting. We each performed one of the first effects we learned. It was great fun. I haven't had much to practice on as far as a goal in mind. So I have been just working on this and that. I have come up with a couple ideas and once I finish getting all the pieces I need I am planning on devising a practice regiment for those. For our February Ring meeting we each are supposed to present something new that no one has seen before, so I am going to work on a sponge mushroom routine that I started last summer, I plan on starting to practice tomorrow! For March, we are suppose to present something we have newly acquired since January. This will be one of the two aforementioned ideas once I have all the materials. So that practice will be happening soon as well. Once I have a half hour in I will report. Take care, and stay on track, it just makes us better!

Pete

Finally gave in at 1am and fired off a video of my progress on the cups and balls to the originator (of this routine...I couldn't find an email address for the guy that invented the cups and balls.) He was pleased and gave me some good feedback, so it seems as though I'm making some progress anyway! I think I'm too hard on myself...anyone else find that to be true? That the routine is never quite good enough to perform?

Peter, you sound like a fun gi. Sorry, I just had to say it.

Andrew, you're very brave. I know what you mean about being too hard on your self. In a couple of cases I'm sure I have been (I had a good DL for a couple of years before it saw the light of day) but in general it pays to be careful because once you add nerves to a new routine you really want to be sure you've done extra homework.

I saw a photo of Robert Neale's Impossi-bill in Magic Magazine a while back and had to figure it out which I did. Lately I've been going for speed. I'm down to 1 min 26 seconds fold, cut, and weave included. I believe I could go faster but I'd have to change my order of operations . It's hard to give up on a method that is working to pursue a method that may or may not work out.

I think this fear or laziness keeps me from doing a lot of things that might (or Might not) improve my show. Just an observation this project has brought up.

-Mary Mowder

I finally had the chance last night to sit down and watch David Stone's Real Secrets of Magic DVD (this first disc) and it was quite good. Out of everything I saw, the thing that stuck with me the most was his method of doing something 100 times without messing it up. Be it a DL, a mercury fold, or a full routine, he stated (if you haven't seen the DVD) that even if he got to 85 and messed it up, he'd have to start over from the very beginning. While it may seem intense, I think that's a great way of looking at rehearsal (at least for me - I like to have all the insurance I can get.) If I can do something 100 times in a row without screwing it up, I'll feel like I'm in great shape.

I think I'll start with that tonight using a Joshua Jay card trick I've been working on. It's a straight forward routine which feels like a good way to start...slowly. I don't think I'll shoot for 100 (it's 11pm here in the UK) but I'll see what I can get to and report back

Posted: Feb 15, 2011 9:00pm
Update: Made good progress with the card trick this evening.
Also realized that if I choose to do this "100 times" thing with my cups and balls routine, it will take me seven hours. That's assuming a 30 second reset and no errors. Maybe I should break it down into small chunks. I like the cups and balls but gimme a break.