I am 30 years old and used to do magic as a teenager. I did basic tricks mostly relying on gimmicks and/or self working card tricks. I gave up on it for a period of time, but now I am interested in pursuing the art further. I have been working really hard with cards lately and I'm about to start working on good sleight of hand routines. I own the Royal Road to Card Magic DVD set, and I am pretty decent at most of the moves taught there. I have been working really hard to make my classic pass, double lift, glide, and other card manipulations look well. I think they are performance ready as I have tried them out for my wife. She told me she never saw anything suspicious happen when I executed the moves, so I guess that means I'm doing something right. Right now my primary focus is on cards, but I am also going to invest some time in learning basic sleights using coins and other things.

I currently live in Shreveport La and I am intersted in finding a local mentor. If anyone knows any recommendations I would greatly appreciate it.

Welcome Snoogansgt,

You'll get a lot of helpful advice here.

Do an advanced search (just below the Café banner) of "Our New Arrivals" with Shreveport in keyword.

Some local names should pop up and you can P.M. (private message, upper right, orange letters) someone for some local contacts.

If you don't fine a mentor, DVDs, downloads and Skype lessons are all good options.

Be sure and check out the Café advertisers.


I'll see you in "The Workers" and "Table Hoppers and Party Strollers".

-Mary Mowder

Thank you Mary for the tips and the response. I did PM some folks, and I await their responses. I look forward to all the helpful advice I could receive in this forum.

My first real dilemma, I'm finding out, is what my goals are with my magic. I currently work a Full Time job in a hospital M-F. I am investing a lot of my free time right now learning the handling of cards and various sleights. I'm trying to decide what I will do with these skills once I have acquired them. I am mostly learning them now to show family, friends, and possibly coworkers. How does one know that they are good enough to call themselves a professional? At what point can a person seek out doing shows for audiences? These are some questions that I can't seem to answer myself. Also I haven't had much luck finding a decent and solid magic community in the Shreveport area. I'm hoping that this may change in the near future though.