Early Struggles

That always happens, and not just in magic, but in all aspects of life. Things just don't click at first.

Focusing on magic, when you're starting out, even self-working tricks don't always go smoothly... because we forget a step, miss a count, or turn something over incorrectly. But self-working tricks are easier to perfect since they don't require much dexterity, just learning specific steps.

For effects that require skill and specific sleights, everything hinges on practice. Depending on who you read (or watch), they'll give you different guidelines for studying an effect, but they're all pretty similar.

To sum it up, to learn a sleight, you need to practice it ad nauseam until you can do it blindfolded while singing your favorite song 😉😅 – that's when you'll have it mastered.

When it comes to an effect, some steps might be:

• Understand how the effect works
• Practice all the sleights WITHOUT the patter
• Practice all the actions and movements that accompany the effect without the sleights or patter
• Practice the patter WITHOUT the props used for the effect
• Do a 'full run-through' (preferably filming it to review later, or at the very least, with a mirror that shows multiple angles)
• Test presentation with feedback
• Correct and official presentation
• Accept feedback and correct again if necessary

The last two points will always be relevant when you perform an effect, because there's always room for improvement 😉

Hope this helps 😊😊😊

I think initially, your hand needs some time to get accustomed to the deck. I usually recommend doing small shuffling exercises, spreading cards on the table, cutting and completing the deck, tossing the squared deck from one hand to the other... all to learn how to truly control the cards beyond just the actual sleights.