After reading through the New to Magic category I've noticed a lot of upcoming magician's trying to figure out how to learn magic by knowing what moves to practice and how to practice them, which is great, having a list of moves to learn in the early days is a god send but the 'method of practice' is often overlooked or when mentioned, only breifly touches on the importance of repetative practice. I'd like to reinforce this idea of practice with what we can learn from neurology and how the brain actually learns things.

Spoiler: To get better at anything, it requires repetition.

Yeah der, we all know that, but why? Your body is essentially a nervous system, with organs to support it and bones to help us stand upright. The nervous system is made of cells called neurons. Between each neuron, is a synapse (for this explanation, think of the synapse as a hand shake). Whenever you experience something for the first time, the neurons in the related pathway shake hands. Each time you experience the same thing, the same neural pathway shakes hands again, becoming stronger each time. It may be easier to remember Donald Hebb's famous quote: "cells that fire together, wire together". So the more you do something, the action of doing that thing becomes easier and requires less effort. Once upon a time you didn't know how to walk, talk, or text your mum, but now these are things that you have done repeatedly over time until they have become a skill, something you can do without trying.

I just want to say one more thing on the topic of learning, and that is concerning difficulty. Anything that you learn will be difficult, for if it is easy then you must already know how to do it! Therefore, expect difficulty, desire difficulty, because if it's difficult you are learning, you are training your neural pathways to shake hands without trying.

Applying this theory to your magic will surely assist in your competency, in fact it will assist you in all that you do in life. Do not be affraid of difficult tasks, embrace them and become better than you were yesterday, one hand shake at a time.

Here is a book that is worth reading: "The Ostrich Factor" by Gerald Edmundson
Check out the description and reviews.

https://www.geraldedmundson.com/BooksbyGerald.htm
https://www.geraldedmundson.com/TOFExplained.htm
https://www.geraldedmundson.com/TOFReviews.htm

This is well worth the investment for the serious student.

Mark

As a corollary to this, I think it's important to note the importance of practicing correctly as well.

Learning how to do complex sleights badly takes a long time to UNLEARN, and it's an extremely frustrating process. Ask me how I know...

Thanks, fellows for your continued interest in The Ostrich Factor. I do appreciate it!
Best regards,
Gerald