Challenge Yourself

I’m a card guy. I love card tricks, card puzzles, card math, card history, card everything. I’ve been doing card tricks for over 30 years. I’ve performed tons of effects and moves from Ace Assembly to the Zarrow Shuffle and everything in between. I love that a borrowed item (deck of cards) that everyone has kicking around their house has the potential to entertain (or bore) people for hours.

I love that by knowing a handful of simple methods, I can perform some real miracles. Yet I, Jeff Stone, lover of all things cards, am creating a close up act composed completely of non-card effects. Yep . . . not one card trick in the act.

Root:

Let’s remember our roots. This month’s root is . . . challenge yourself. I love other areas of magic but I’ve only performed just a few different types. Mostly I do mentalism effects and card effects with a small handful of “other” things. The problem is that I pretty much suck at coin work. I have a few effects in my repertoire that are coin effects I can do, but very few. Further, most of the card magic I do is not very visual. It’s good and powerful I think, but just not visual. Further, my mentalism repertoire is several different ways to accomplish the same thing . . . read a mind or predict the future.

So as you can see, my repertoire is very narrow. I’m not saying that this is a good thing or a bad thing. However, I remember as a young budding magic enthusiast, there were effects that I loved that were much more visual (e.g., ball and vase, pencil through frame penetration, linking rings, et al.). Somewhere along the way, I lost my way. I’m not suggesting that we all need to perform the ball and vase. However, I am suggesting that we get back to our roots (hence the name of this monthly column). For me, one way to get back to your roots is to challenge yourself to learn a style or genre of magic that you don’t normally do.

This is where my non-card show comes from. I’m constantly debating the kind of material I want in this act. I’ve added some visual effects like a growing dollar bill, a dollar bill changing visually into a credit card, and lots of other things. I’m still working on finding the right mix of material. It’s been a challeng to find material that I feel I could learn and fit into my personality. The beauty of this is that it’s got me looking at effects I would never have done otherwise. This causes me to study and learn about these effects, how they work, why they work, etc.

Branch:

Let’s build our branches. I offer you the same challenge. For the next 30 days, look at your overall repertoire and find an effect or two that just doesn’t “fit in” with your current arsenal. Maybe you never use ropes . . . try adding a rope trick. Maybe you mostly a coin guy or a mentalist . . . try a card trick.

Maybe you’ve never done magic with keys . . . try that. The point is to find something that’s out of your comfort zone and go after it. Challenge yourself. You’ll find yourself learning more about our art and learning more about yourself. You’ll become a better magician overall.

Now go study the classics and go discover your true magical self.