Working out better than tutorial?

[Kieran Oloughlin]

Sorry if I am posting this in the wrong place I am not sure where I am ment to post this sought of stuff.

I recently worked out Mark's Dear Mr.Scientist trick:)!!! I can do the full routine with no variations and I belive it is the correct method.

WHat I would like to know is that in your opinion (I would like to know Mark's the most) is it better to work out a trick then watch a tutorial of it? It is better if the trick is taught through a dvd or personal lessons but if there is none avalibale, is it better to work out a trick then watch a free tutorial?

[Albert]

Sorry if I am posting this in the wrong place I am not sure where I am ment to post this sought of stuff.

I recently worked out Mark's Dear Mr.Scientist trick:)!!! I can do the full routine with no variations and I belive it is the correct method.

What I would like to know is that in your opinion (I would like to know Mark's the most) is it better to work out a trick then watch a tutorial of it? It is better if the trick is taught through a dvd or personal lessons but if there is none avalibale, is it better to work out a trick then watch a free tutorial?

Hi Kieran! Welcome to MTG! This is the right place to post this kind of question :)

Regarding your question, there really is not right or wrong answer, but there is a better answer in my opinion. I say the better answer doesn't really lie in the options that you gave however.

Working out a trick by watching it is an extremely good thing! It provides you with a wider range of perception of magic and improves your insight on magic as well. DVDs, however, have the advantage of teaching you techniques you have never thought of or learned, which helps you build your repertoire far more easily.

If working out a trick or learning from a professional gives you the same result, it really depends on your objective. Do you want to learn more faster or do you want to experiment and have fun that way? It's really up to you. But as I have said, working out a trick independently has its own benefits of building your imagination.

As for the best answer, in my opinion, is personalization. Regardless of where you learned the trick or how you learned it, if you can take that and make it your own, you have truly have done a great job. If you are wondering what I mean by personalization, I mean that you should take a trick or a sleight or technique and you want to tune it up to fit YOUR needs, not necessarily other people's needs. There are several benefits of doing that:

1) It improves your magic since you constantly practice.
2) You will be creating a variation of a trick that no one has ever seen before. This doesn't mean just simply change up the patter, but how you perform the technique. Just change the hand position of a certain move will be personalizing it. Of course, it has to work for you the best to be effective.
3) You will be improving your scope in magic. You will soon realize in no time that if you continue to do this, there are endless possibilities that are so obvious, yet people didn't bother doing.
4) You have probably heard the statement "magicians are easier to fool than others". That can be very true, especially if you personalize your own techniques. Mark is an amazing example of this. A lot of his techniques are fine-tuned to fit his needs and it works amazingly well. They are deceptive and effective.
5) If you personalize it to make it work for you, your handling of the cards will automatically become smoother and more natural since you are handling the cards the way it is comfortable for you.

So all in all, learning something from figuring it out or from watching a DVD really gives you the same result, but each has its own ups and downs. I hope this gives you some insight about this question. Now let's let Mark have some additional input on this. I'm interest as well :D

[la0o9]

Personally, i believe that you should do a hybrid of both, first looking at the trick, try and guess the handling of it, and then if you think you need to, watch the correct tutorial for confirmation.

If you ask which is better, i think Albert already said what is necessary, working it out makes your mind and eye better( and to an extend, your hands), and the paid tutorials( the ones you have to pay to get) gives you the magician's experience with it as well as the technique, which saves you around a month or more of messing around with it to master it( but sometimes the month of messing around with it isn't that bad, it sometimes give you a variation or application of the technique(s) that no one really ever thought about using).

[Mark]

Hmm.. not much to be added to this. I think the other posts answer the question very well.

However, I'd like to add that both figuring out from videos and tutorial DVDs and videos have a big con as for the way people tend to perform the tricks after seeing those. Most people think it's best to imitate the magicians and the motions they make as they function as role models and "if they know what to do, all the motions they make must be the best too". Be sure not to step into this trap.

This is the reason why I find books much better to learn from than videos because they only go over the techniques and you have to add the performance to it yourself. It's difficult to imitate a piece of paper with words and images, and that's a great thing.

However, working out a trick rather than watching a tutorial opens a whole lot for you. Of course it depends on how you watch tutorials too, if you watch from the beginning till the end, if you just look for the techniques, if you just look for tips and tricks, etc. If you are sure and able to add your own input to what you have seen in a tutorial, go for it!

Personally I'd go for figuring out a trick as this is how I learnt all of the things I do. I check tutorials just for tips and tricks, and sometimes to see if I was right about something. This doesn't mean that you have to do it like that too.. it's just a personal thing.

So tutorials are fine as long as you know what you are doing and don't imitate everything you see. Just for that, we won't put actual performances on our upcoming releases. We want to force magicians to do their own things with it and thus have them turn into much better magicians.

Hope this helps. ^_^