John Petrucci, the phemon guitarist from Dream Theater, talks about it being a bad idea to approach practicing guitar without a practice plan. Obviously, this applies to guitar but the principles are the same.
Petrucci categorizes practice routines into 4-5 categories; legato, sweep picking, string skipping, etc. He starts with 10 minutes of stretching and then he picks one or two exercise from each catagory and spends 15-30 minutes on each category. His theory is that with a practice regimen such as this, you make better use of your practice time, you don't wander in many directions with little real improvement and you continue to work on a broader range of skills.
I think we could come up with a similar approach in practicing magic. I don't think you could come with a single set of categories for everyone but I think you could come up with a modular practice regimen.
Warm-ups Categories
- Stretching your arms, hands and fingers
- Florishes
- Shuffles
Skill Categories
Skills would be a list of the most common sleights and sequences for a particular school of magic such as cards (DL, TL, palm, back palm, shuffles, controls, passes, color changes, etc) or cups/balls (basic palms, vanishes, opening sequences, middle sequences, ending rhythms, wand spins, etc).
- Card sleights
- Coin sleights
- Cups and Balls sleights/sequences
- Thimble sleights
- Billiard Ball sleights
- Ring/string sleights
- Sponge ball sleights
Routine Categories
Routines would include single tricks and multiple sequenced routines.
- Card tricks and routines
- Coin tricks and routines
- Cups and balls - full routines
- Thimble routines - tricks and routines
- Billiard Ball routines
- Ring/String routines
- Rubberband tricks
- Sponge ball routines
Practice/Rehearsal Categories
- Mirror practice
- Video practice
- Routining (putting full routines together in a sequence, making routines your own)
- Rehearsal practice (full dress rehersal performing a set of routines)
Document your skill categories and your routines. These would be living, dynamic documents in that you could add new skill and routine categories over time. In each category you would add new sleights and tricks over time. So you find a new routines or sleights that you want to learn, add them to the list so that you have a method/plan to add the new skill to your practice sessions.
So a 90 minute practice session might look like this:
- 15 minutes of streching, shuffling, mental preparation
- 15 minutes card sleights (today I pick the Strike DL, classic pass, turnover pass, and back palm productions)
- 15 minutes card routines (I pick 1 or two tricks involving the sleights I worked on in the card sleights session)
- 15 minutes on Cups and Balls (wand vanishes, click move, final loads)
- 15 minutes on my Cups and Balls routine
- 15 minutes in front of the video camera
There you have it. A regimen that is flexible, customizable and focused.
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