Hello,

My son asked a logial question which for everyone may be a little different but thought I would ask it of all and anyone of you.

He Said:

"Conventional wisdom holds that it takes between 250 to 350 hours of dedicated study to reach a functional fluency in the Spanish language. This means you will be able to express abstract ideas and communicate in a manner consistent with an educated, professional adult. It does NOT mean that you will possess a native-level fluency as only prolonged study in a Spanish-speaking country."

They have determined guitar at 600 hours to be somewhat profcient...

So how long "on average" to learn each basic card slieght.. Please answer the question as best as you can and lets not just debate without giving an answer.. I thought it was interesting...

First. How old is your son? Doesn't seem like a "kid " talking. LOL

These are actually very common questions:
"How long did it take to learn how to do that?"
"How many tricks do you know?"

Neither of them can really be answered. For one thing even when we "Master a move" we're still going to improve on it over time so it's never really mastered.


There's no way to answer that question. Take for example there's a card move I've been practicing for years and still can't get it right. Other moves I could do perfectly right away.

It's not like learning a new language or playing an instrument where as a word has a "Correct" pronouncing and an E flat sounds the same no matter who plays that note. With card sleights we're all going to do it a little differently and some will be easy for one person and challenging for another.


Ron Jaxon

I have been working on the shift and the dl for about 10 years. I feel like my dl could still use a lot of work. At the same time, I use it all the time anyway because it flies with my spectators, it just isn't up to my standards. A few months ago I learned the Elmsley count. Within a few minutes of learning it my buddy was saying "Hey, that looks good!" I am sure that all my work on the dl helped my count look awesome. If I had tried to learn the Elmsley first it probably would have taken longer but my dl might have been better.

I hate to say "it depends" but it does, it really does. It depends on what sleights you already know. It depends on the sleight and it depends on you and what you are good at. Some are just easier and some are easier for certain people.

You have mastered a sleight, in my mind, when you can do it in performance conditions and be sure that it will work everytime. You must be able to do it without looking, it is often a good idea to be able to do it in both hands but many people perform sleights for real people before they can do this.

I guess there is a difference between being able to do a sleight for real people and true mastery as there is a difference between being able to communicate in Spanish and being fluent. How much time? I still have to say "it depends." I can say that it has taken me many hundreds of hours to get a good shift and dl but other sleights come much easier as a result.

I am not so sure I agree.. My son is 11... I am not sure I agree as people who learn languages, instruments etc.. Are always learn to get better but there is a point where you are somewhat proficeient.. I had a feeling this questiona may start to go this way.

I'm sorry. I agree with the others.

Most card sleights took me 10 seconds to learn. I have yet to master any.

I thought my Elmsley count was really good. It seemed to fool every laymen. Until Justin Style saw a video of it and he thought it was really bad. I re-evaluated it and agreed. I reworked it until I thought it was passable. Then I met Lawrence O at a convention, and he showed me a completely different and much better way.

I learned the pinky count from 1 or 2 paragraphs in an Ortiz book. He rightly suggested it would take a year to get it proficient.

I've seen amateurs that handle cards beautifully. And pros that stink.

What kind of answers were you hoping for? 17.5 days?

The problem is that there are many different types of sleights. Some, like the Biddle Steal, should take on average 5 minutes to master. Others, like the Pass, may take many months or even years to master.

Being sensible, 5 minutes per day for a month seems to be enough for me to unconsciously do a relatively simple sleight (not looking at the cards). Then I put them into my show (DL etc). I then keep practising between shows.

Others like culling or the pass take many more months of practice.

Of course using gaff packs saves time but also allows the audience to catch you out. My 6+ packs are now locked away in a tin. Not sure when I'll use them again. But double-faced or double-backed cards are normally in my armoury.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do know that part of it is the ability to do a sleight CONSISTENTLY well.

You may be able to do a great DL in the mirror, but if the specs catch you every other time, you are not able to do it consistently. To me, that's the mark of a good performer -- that his/her tricks almost always work the same way, every time they are performed.

The other variable is this: most sleights also need at least some misdirection to cover the move. In fact, even if your sleight is a little sloppy, you probably won't be caught if your misdirection is good. And misdirection is something that is mostly learned by performance. Learning how to "direct" and control the audience's attention takes time, patience, and also a fair amount of nerve.

Fortunately, the learning curve isn't all that steep if you pay attention to the cues you are getting from your audiences, but it does take time. How much time? Hey, it depends! And as others have said, your technique is always improving, even after it becomes "good enough." To parapharase a famous quote, "You can never be too rich or have too much misdirection."

For example, I am primarily a coin worker, but do a Svengali Pitch and had to learn a DL, which was completely foreign to me. I started with a fairly crude method and was getting caught about once every 3-5 times -- not good!

So I went back to the drawing board, read the DL literature and experimented with a few different techniques, finally finding one that I was comfortable with. But I was STILL getting caught about once every 5 times, because my technique was sloppy and my handling was stiff and unnatural, a sure giveaway.

With more practice and more confidence, I was able to handle the cards much more casually and naturally. I would say the entire process took about six months. But it was worth it, because I haven't been caught since, in probably over 200 Svengali pitches. Since nobody's perfect, I'll take the 200-to-1 odds and be satisfied with that. But if I can push it to 500-to-1, I'll certainly keep trying!

Hope this helps. And congrats to your son for asking such a thoughtful question, and one that turns out not to be so simple! SETH

How long does it take to learn to sing a song?

Depends on the song, depends on the singer. Depends on the range of notes; depends on if the song style is something the singer sung before; depends on the words.

After you hear it a few times you might be able to hum along, but will anyone want to listen?

I go to karaoke sometimes with my friends. It is very interesting how some people think they know the song, but they really just know the chorus and often find themselves confused when they are trying to perform the whole thing for other people. Same way with magic. You might know how a sleight is done but it depends on you and the sleight how many hours of practice it will take before you are ready to show it off.

How long is a rope?

As has been pointed out already, it is obviously impossible to answer how long it takes to learn a sleight. A sleight does not equal a sleight. However, once you DO know the mechanics of something perfectly, there is research on how many times you need to repeat it in order to be able to do it completely without thinking.

An army instructor once told me that in order to do something like reloading a rifle, literarily (I know I spell that wrong) under fire, you need to repeat the movement a certain number of times. I think it was 30.000 times. After that, the hecklers could lob grenades at you without you forgetting your patter.

Now that is a moving target! In two years or less you will have most of the basics at least to where you recognize them and can stumble through them well enough to please most spectators. At some point after that you will be asked about new card sleights especially by beginners. Once you bother to buy media and tricks to learn them, you'll realize that you do know it by another name and don't use it for all the right reasons!

Unless someone else is buying the drinks, you don't need many. The rest is just bragging rights with people who don't know. But it will keep you interested in magic and make paying audiences increasingly hard to get. As a hobby, that is OK.

Enjoy!

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander