Do you guys ever do coin "exercises"?
What I mean by that is doing a certain number of palm to palm changes in a row a day without the coins talking, a certain number of coin rolls or muscle passes, or anything like that?

I do 1 skill until I perfect or to say performance level. Getting down EG2EG, I set my mind to EG2EG. Doing nothing but it. Might take days and weeks. But I do singular stuff.

Will,

If there is one thing that I do to keep my hands and chops in shape is .... proper stretching before work. This prevents me from cramps, and keeps my hands flexible.

I normally do at least 80 percent of my coin stuff 5 times a day . That alone is quite a workout. After doing these stuff for years, I still practice every single day. All ot the palms and sleights are utilized. I then spend extra time to work on problem sleights. "Problem" meaning... difficult sleights for me like the Tenkai palm and The Classic Palm that I still want to improve.

I think we all vary in style of practicing because we all have different goals and jobs. As a regular performer and a lecturer, I have no time to really sit down and work on a particular move. I would rather use the time to make my "workers" better or work on new stuff or REST and do other stuff to keep things fresh. Actually I find myself palming a coin even when I cook or work in the studio LOL!

The "workers" out there would probably relate.

If you have the luxury of time.... I suggest that the student practice one move at a time but reward yourself with time to play around with the other fun moves.

I also suggest that the student of coin magic....spend enough time to observe actual passes and actual transfers so that the mimicry of the move later on would be more natural.


Rannie

I have always been motivated to learn and practice slights because there was a certain routine that I wanted to perform. I have never had much success with learning a slight just because it was 'cool'(apart from the Himber Vanish).

I've messed around with loads for that reason, but never managed to really perfect them like the ones that I use in real routines.

I normally start with the slights that I need to learn and then once they are down I put them all together into a routine. This generally takes a few weeks for each stage, but it has taken way longer. When I was learning Geoff Latta's 'Trick With 3 Coins' it was the first time that I had really tried to work with coins in Edge Grip and took around 3 months to really get the feel for the slights and then anther month to get the routine. Boy was it worth it!

I will regularly run through older routines that I have and check if they are still smooth and intuitive. If they are anything less than perfect then I work on them until they are smooth again. Generally it doesn't take too long to get them back 'in the groove'.

Regards,

John

Practicing is almost like meditating to me

ANY TEXAS OR LOUISIANA HIGHWAY PATROLMEN ON THE Café PLEASE STOP READING THIS POST:

I practice most the things I can practice during the hour and a half to two hours I spend on the road every day.

I practice daily the things I use most and the routines I'm learning or developing.

I have a few things that I don't use that I do want to remain familiar with in case I do want to use them someday...example Shankey's Slick Splits. I practice these on occasion.

The only thing that I am practicing daily that I don't know how I will use is a coin production into the fan from edge grip. This is my own modification of Bertini's production....I might put that one on video today to see how it's going (then I'll look through my car again and try to find the coins that are somewhere under or in my seats.)

Who's jay Shankey?

He's Jay Sankey's evil twin.
I practice daily almost all of the basic sleights, always carry a coin or two with me to practice during those far too many idle moments.

I was lucky enough some time back to have Mano send me his practice regimen as to sleights. It was quite rigorous but it led me to developing my own regimen of practice. That led me to develop my own works and gave me a good structure on staying in shape, physically and mentally. I do it everyday to some extent, it's happily part of me now. On my next offering I'm thinking about taken this exact idea and offering a bonus practice effect that runs you through some of the sleights, the use of misdirection, and using timing in an effect. I got so good at the actual practice, that it eventually became somewhat of an effect in itself that I call "Ike & Mike." The overall practice of this sure helped in developing other effects for me.

Anyway, practice is important in this stuff, actually in anything. -Mb

Hey, some of us can't afford Sankey.

Probably also a good idea to practice that sleight in context - as a static switch and also choreographed like a CP2CP where you pick up a coin (or coins) and switch them on the way over to your other hand or a cup. See where your imagination goes and maybe you can get some ideas for good uses of the sleight which will suit you. - hint that's the way doing a HPC switch out of EG got discovered

John, lately I've been constantly doing your repeating spellbound move, to see how many times I can do it without the coins talking.

Well my regular daily exercise plan would be putting coins into and out of all palms and palm to palm changes. This I do every day. I also spend some time with flourishes like the coin roll but not much (lets say half and hour a day). But palming and palm transfers, I do all the time
Then I focus on practicing whichever move I like to learn.

Yes...as stated above ..the raw moves as well as in context...

Also playing with different things..Latest toy...

a washboard tie and glockenspiel..to add music to my coin routines....

Playing with production and each coin "hitting a note" to play a "fake" song.
(from The Fake music sheet music books)

Harris "OCD except cleaning" Deutsch