Hi I'm Simon from Lincolnshire UK. I started my interest when I was < 10. My passion for close-up (cards in particular) only increased from their, progressing to a few residencies at various restaurants in a nearby city. Personal changes and a medical issue forced me to stop. Now all the dust has settled, at 34 ... I'm starting again. Back to basics for me ... Elmsley Count to Mercury Card folds ... Hopefully some helpful advice from people on here will get me back on my feet.

If I could start my whole first start of learning again, (Which it seems you are!) I don't think I would spent as much time practicing individual slights. Instead I would finds tricks I like. Build a routine that I want to perform. And then learn it trick by trick. Learn only the sleights you need for the routine you want!
Best of luck to you. And welcome to the Café.

Thanks for the advice Nicholas. The sleights are me reminiscing and re-learning some of the older 'classics' (Rainbow cascade etc). I seem to be lacking in my manipulative dexterity and I hope that some of these sleights will help. If nothing else, they "should" build my confidence (which is severely lacking).
Thanks again

Welcome supersooty,

If you were doing Magic at a few Restaurants (even just for fun) in your youth you should have more confidence. The Restaurants wouldn't let you do it for long if you were too bad. It would alienate customers.

Nicholas is right though. If you want to practice a sleight, practice it in the context of an Effect (once you have the basics of the sleight down). When you do a sleight in an Effect live you will not have just done it over and over so you need to be able to do it cold. (Good advice from Gene Anderson).

See you in "The Workers". You'll fit right in.

-Mary Mowder

Welcome! --I just joined this outfit a few days ago! But,I've been "around" since the '40s (and made a living with magic most of my life.)

I hope you don't get caught up in practicing a "move" just to be able to do the move! Moves and/or sleights are just techniques which make possible the performance of a trick (that requires the sleight!)

Along with practicing basic sleights, learn the principles that make it all possible.

TARBELL,for example, is an OLD (1920s)course, (the patter ideas are "hopelessly" out of date)but the various principles are still valid.

When Karrell Fox died,he had sold most of his library,except for Harold Rice's Encyclopedia of Silks and the TARBELL COURSE.

Hi Simon,
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