Simeon Wilkins, Author at Ambitious With Cards

Learning card tricks isn't hard. Finding the right resources to learn card tricks is! There are so many sites and YouTube channels, all claiming to have the latest 'REVEALED' miracle, that it is becoming increasingly hard to distinguish between genuine teachers and view grabbbers. In this post, I will break down the best Website, Channel and Book for both beginner and advanced magicians. Beginner: Without a doubt, most of the available tutorials and channels on the web are targeted at beginner magicians. In this way, you're lucky. However, the downside of this is that you have to trawl through all the scam sites and clickbait. Not so lucky. The most important thing to bear in mind as you search for advice is this: Becoming a great card magician will take time; any site that claims they can turn you into a pro with no effort on your part is lying. With that said, let's explore the best Website, Channel, and Book for beginner magicians. Website: This is a tough one, there are WAY too many good sites for beginner magicians to narrow it down to one, but I think the mention has to go to http://www.themagiccafe.com/fo.... The Magic Cafe essentially is a forum for magicians of all styles and caliber. It includes thousands of pages of advice for prospective magicians, links to worthwhile videos and books, and generally provides a great community for magicians. Everyone is incredibly friendly and helpful, and genuine professionals also post regularly on the site- allowing people like you to interact with them on a one-to-one basis. The Magic Cafe is my Google of magic, and I would advise you to treat it the same way. Channel: There are also A LOT of video channels dedicated to teaching magic, and most of them deserve a visit from you. For me, the two titans of this category are 52Kards and Mismag822. Mismag822 has literally hundreds of readily available, free card trick tutorials, and they are generally aimed at a beginner audience. There's nothing not to love about Mismag and his classic "Hello again everybody!" intro. 52Kards, in contrast, focuses less on creating a hoarde of tutorials for tricks, but on breaking down the individual moves and sleights that go in to them, and building a really strong foundation of technical skill. Book: The most commonly referred to book when discussing amatuer card magic is 'The Royal Road to Card Magic'. It is the No.1 pick of many magicians as the greatest beginner magic book of all time, and provides a clear 'road' from novice to a very well rounded and promising magician. It is not expensive either, pricing at around £9 on Amazon. Advanced: Here things get a little more complicated. Personally, I believe that the same websites, channels and books mentioned under the beginner category are still more than applicable for even professionals. The Magic Cafe offers quality advice that is tailored specifically to advanced magicians, for example! Channels like 52Kards offer different playlists for intermediate and advanced moves and they definitely deserve checking out, even if all you learn is a new variation or position of something you already know. The important question to ask yourslef as you learn advanced moves is this: Is this needlessly complicated? Can I achieve the same effect through a simpler method? Often, people will learn advanced card tricks just because they're advanced - DON'T DO THIS; never be fully satisfied with only one way to accomplish a trick. Try mixing and matching different moves, and who knows, you might discover a variation that works much better for you personally! With that said, here are the top websites, channels and books for advanced magicians. Website: For advanced magicians, the best website is going to have to go to www.penguinmagic.com. Penguin Magic is the hub of all magic products, and the No.1 shop for magicians on the market. It includes books, decks, gaffs/gimmicks, big stage equipment, small street magic props, and countless other categories. They also offer Penguin Live lectures, which involve some of the world's greatest magicians giving hours worth of advice, tricks and general stimulation. I recommend checking out lectured by David Walliamson, Dani DaOtriz, and Shin Lim, if you really want to take your magic to the highest possible level. Channel: For me, the best channel for advanced magicians is Xavior Spade's. This is a guy who really, and I mean REALLY, knows his way around a pack of cards. He focuses on teaching sleights and moves that are extremely difficult, but when mastered, can make you stand out from a crowd of great magicians. He uploads consistently, and has a very likeable personality, as well as a gift for teaching. Check him out! Book: The best book for advanced magicians who want to break out onto the professional scene has got to be Strong Magic, by Darwin Ortiz. It doesn't contain any teaching on card control, but what it does teach you is AUDIENCE CONTROL. Often, the difference between a good magician, and a professional magician, is not their technical ability. Many magicians have an incredible mastery of the cards, but struggle to make it, whilst some professionals rely solely on basic, beginner moves to achieve their effects. This is becuase they know how to work an audience; perhaps THE most useful skill a magician of any kind can have. Strong Magic teaches you exactly how to win over the audience, and why it is so neccesary that you do. It is a great read, full of humourous anecdotes and gems of genuine wisdom. If you want to really make it as a magician, BUY IT. Final remarks: Overall, even if you decide not to pursue any of the avenues outlined above, as long as you are constantly learning and improving, you can't go far wrong. That being said, I do genuinely believe that the best way to learn card tricks is definitely through the websites, channels and books mentioned; they will 100% improve your skill and charisma as a magician, and they are all worth looking in to. Thanks for reading, and now go out there and practise! The Top 100 Magic Books: Of all time? Wow. The Daily Magician have written an incredibly article on the top 100 magic books for magicians. It’s incredibly informative and each book is amazing in it’s own right. If you haven’t seen it yet I’m going to throttle it down your throat with a call to action link below… Top 100 Magic Books