Comments on: That move is way too hard!

By: Tassen

Tassen — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 21:21:18 +0000

I think that hard moves are performed best under pressure, because easy moves often gives me too much confidence, way too fast and then i screw up easy moves because i think i know how to perform them correctly and i don’t do the move properly. when i perform hard moves though i really focus and think through all that i am doing. for example, the wichita card force by jay sankey, i find it hard to perform cause it looks fishy… but once i performed it and no one noticed.

By: gg

gg — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:35:10 +0000

i always move the selected card to the bottom instead of the top

By: gg

gg — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:32:00 +0000

i find the pass hard

By: Gerion

Gerion — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:26:03 +0000

Difficult moves…
I’d like to say that no move is difficult in itself (meaning that no move is impossible to master, tough it can take a good deal of practice before you can actually hope to get away with it in front of an audience)…

More than on the difficulty of moves I like to focus and concentrate on the effect that i intend to produce…

To the audience the method you used to find a card is totally indifferent both if you forced it from the beginning through a totally easy force and if you had to do a triple somersault over a pool of crocodiles.

I think the perfect move is the one that brings your card (or anything else) right where it should go, goes unnoticed, and gives the space of building beauty over it… all the rest is vanity,.. and if we want to show off we have flourishes.

With this i mean that we should absolutely practice on hard moves, but that it is pointless to put totally hard moves in a routine to obtain effects you could manage with easier/safer moves.

By: Phi

Phi — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:40:15 +0000

Commenting a bit on Scott S.’s post…difficulty is in the hands of the performer. Some moves that might be harder for some are easier for others. Some people’s hands aren’t built to do certain things. Some people might have small hands and would be better doing a side-jog-control type move to “appear” to put the card in the middle rather than actually place (or have the spectator place) the card in the middel and do some sort of “pass move” to actually get it to the top. Practice is definatly important without a doubt. I have been practicing the different passes and feel myself getting better every day. I’m not saying don’t practice any harder moves, but do be realistic about what you can do and what you can’t do. I would rather practice and perfect moves that don’t discourage me to do magic rather that keep practicing moves I can’t do and throw my hands up and give up all together. Good topic, guys.

By: Roger-Pierre

Roger-Pierre — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:30:46 +0000

I still think that this chestnut says it all – Derick Dingle, after doing 6 minutes of unbelievable magic for Barbara Walters, does the Brainwave Deck – Ms. Walters says, “I can understand how you did all of that other stuff, but that’s amazing!!

By: Xavior Spade

Xavior Spade — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:20:37 +0000

Perhaps you should try them and see how it feels to do them in action. Sometimes the “pressure” makes things click sort-a-say.

By: Mystic Mike in SA

Mystic Mike in SA — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 03:50:41 +0000

The only thing I dislike about “hard moves” is that I always want to fast forward through the time it takes to learn them well enough to use them. There are some moves I have been working on for years that I never quite feel ready to use.

By: Scott Starkey

Scott Starkey — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:10:50 +0000

Wonderful magic can be achieved without any hard moves. I also think it can be a devastating side-track for beginners, who might get discouraged if they can’t do the latest XCM spin move with their left nostril and big toe.

In fact, in my early magic practice (a few years ago) I wasted time on “hard” moves, when I could have been doing great tricks with much simpler moves. I think that concept is lost on the beginner, who might think, “If I only learn this one move/trick, I will fool even magicians!” I struggled with that thought myself. I still have some magic which I bought from that early period which I have still not been able to master the moves.

That being said, I did eventually conquer some of the tricky moves I had been trying: the Pass, the Top Change, the One-Hand Top Palm. I was only able to do this with occasional practice of a few minutes. Built up over time, it will create the muscle memory which will allow you to repeat it without thinking.

My advice to my younger self would now be: Sit down with “Mark Wilson’s Complete Course” (or Tarbell, or Harry Lorayne’s Magic Book) and don’t buy any magic until you perform FIVE effects out of it. Do it! There’s brilliant magic in them-thar books! After five tricks, you will know something about the fundamentals of presentation, patter, and sleight of hand to start branching out into more complicated “hard” magic. I wish I had listened to my future self! I would have saved a lot on magic which is now sitting in a drawer!

By: Brian J. Parker

Brian J. Parker — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:07:17 +0000

I think one should always strive to improve, learning new moves so as not to be limited in the effects they can achieve; but also unafraid to achieve an effect via the simplest means possible, cutting moves when they can, so as to focus on the overall effect rather than the mechanics. These aren’t contradictory, but it is easy to get caught up in one and neglect the other.

I have to respectfully disagree with Marc C.’s phrasing that hard moves “shows your strengths in magic,” as the spectator should generally have no idea how easy or hard the moves involved with the magic were. I suspect many think I’m working much harder with Invisible Deck than Triumph, for example.