Motivation

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Motivation

Postby The Magician » Feb 4th, '04, 21:42



Hi all, I am new to magic and what i would like to know is how do you all motivate yourselves to learn magic.

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Postby Happy Toad » Feb 4th, '04, 21:52

I'd say if you need to motivate yourself, go and find something else to do.

"Hodge scored for Forest after 22 seconds - totally against the run of
play" (Peter Lorenzo)
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Postby whizzkid » Feb 5th, '04, 00:19

happy toad has a point, however, if you were already quite motivated but had days where you were not, or if you were once motivated but had lost your enthusiasm and you wanted to get back into it then it would be worth going to see a few magicians perform to inspire you.
but seeing as you are new you must be aware that magic is not something to take lightly, you must decide for yourself if you are willing to put in the "work" to become anything more than a novice. I say "work" because its not really work if you enjoy it. If you dont enjoy it then its probably not worth it.
I hope this will help you in making your desicsion.

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Postby magicdiscoman » Feb 5th, '04, 02:16

Age and Status in your Profile
To help other members form a more visual picture, it would be nice to include your age and 'magic status' as a small signoff in your profile.

We're standardising this to an additional bit of info in the Location panel in your profile... and the format is

(??A : ??S) where as the ??A = your age, and the ??S = your status, chosen from the list below...

EN = Eager Newbie
AH = Amateur Hobbyist
SH = Skilled Hobbyist
WP = Working Professional
CP = Career Professional

So, for example - your Location could be

"Kent, UK, (30:WP)", meaning you're a 30 year old working pro...

This is NOT obligatory, but may help during conversation!

Visting Professional Magicians - it would be much appreciated if you could please make yourselves known to one of the Moderators
!

this will help us a lot when tailering our posts for you so for now i will asume you are a relative newcomewr and exstol advice accordingly, when I'm working its very hard to stay focused on doing the same magic tricks shoe after show same as it is for comedians trying to make the same tried and tested joke sound fresh and new.

what i do is carry around were ever i go a few reminders:-

a haunted key, this reminds me that the simplest of tricks can and do get the biggest reactions.
a piece of crystal, which reminds me that magic and mystasism has deen and will be around long after my fans have poped there clogs.
and lastly a silver english penny, which reminds me that you can put a shiny new coat on things and change there appearence but when all is said and done its just an old penny, or the old values are just the same today just repackaged every so many years.

all thease things remind me to remember my roots and not to forego the basics at the cost of my act.
hope this helps in some small way.

magicdiscoman
 

Postby taneous » Feb 5th, '04, 07:56

If you're asking how I motivate myself - well generally I need to motivate myself to take a break and get some sleep rather than practicing all night :D .
I have a really inquisitive mind and so part of what really motivates me to get new stuff is that I can't handle not knowing how something is done. I know many will argue that's not a good reason - but it's only one reason. It also makes me a sucker for a lot of the magic ads..
I also enjoy the challenge of stretching myself. I get bored very quickly and so as soon as I finish learning something and I'm happy with how I do something I wan to try something new. This is actually a bad habit because i always have a whole lot of stuff I'm working on and I forget stuff that I can do. I've started to try and master a few things and then focus on performing them really well.
Watching other skilled magicians also motivates me. I see something they do and I want to also do that.

If you're asking what you can do to motivate yourself then I would say to start off with some easy stuff that gets really good reactions. Read some of the reviews and figure what those might be. I find that my audience reactions are quite addictive and provide a really good motivation for learning more.
Then maybe move on to the more difficult stuff. The key ingredient to pulling off some of these is patience. If you stick at practicing something you will probably eventually get it right - but you need to set yourself up for a long process. The goal at the end is the motivation and if you want something bad enough you'll keep at it. I've been practising the muscle pass now for 4 months and I'm only starting to get it now. There are other things that will take even longer - but if you want it bad enough you'll put in the work.

Ok - I written an essay :shock: - hope I haven't bored you too much. Hope that helps :lol:

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Postby Dar_Kwan » Feb 5th, '04, 11:34

Another good way is to join a magic society (such as The Magic Circle) the guys there should help inspire you, if like me you can't find a club, join a couple of forums & speak to the guys there.

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Postby mistress of magic » Feb 5th, '04, 18:29

If I'm not feeling very motivated it's probably because I'm forcing myself to do magic. As soon as I make myself do something, my brain sees it as something I don't want to do. Usually, I find if I leave leave it alone for a few days, I feel more motivated. I don't try and practice to a schedual or I loose my enthusiasm, so I just practice when I feel like it, and this stops me getting like that. I also find watching other magicians is great for inspiring me.

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Postby Jing » Feb 5th, '04, 20:28

For some reason almost every post has to have something about Derren Brown in, Suppose he is to Magic what Peter Vardy was to Philosophy and Ethics!!

Anywho, in his programme from his tour he talks about how he spent 12 years perfecting his routine. He says you've got to work at things, you couldn't sit down tomorrow and be a concert pianist within a week. Practice, practice, practice, but you've got to be the right type of person who enjoys learning and progressing with new skills.

Oh, and it helps if you can occasionally drag yourself away from magic forums...
My computer broke for a few days and i've learnt so many new tricks!

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