Juggling magic and life

[West0]

I've been racking my brain for a first post to make that isn't too bone or will make me look like a complete idiot (I only like people to get to that conclusion after a couple of weeks rather than on the first day).

I'm interested in coin tricks and am very new to this. As I mentioned briefly in my introduction, my intended audience is my four year old son shows no interest in colourful childrens trick, instead likes seeing coins disappear.

For the last week I've been playing with coins in my very limited spare time and whilst it has all been enjoyable (sometimes frustrating) it does take a lot of practice to get things looking good. Now this isn't such a problem for me as I do not consider myself serious, I just like things to being done properly.

So finally getting to my question, how do you more serious practitioners balance magic, life and relationships? This is a practice that takes huge amounts of time to get things right. Even the simplest of gimmicks needs to be practiced with.

Are your partners involved as well? Does your non-practicing partner find the time you devote to your art frustrating, or do they except that you have another love in your life?

[haroldross]

It can be a tough balance. My wife has next to no interest in the art of magic. I am fortunate to be able to perform magic as part of my job. I practice quite a bit at the office.

I practice cards and coins when I'm just sitting around. When we have family gatherings, I pull out a few tricks to do to keep the younger ones out of trouble. You just have to find that balance to life and magic that fits your life. Around the home I try to use the magic to build relationships instead of isolating people.

[West0]

Well this is a new avenue for me and as such it hasn't taken over my life yet, but I do have another past time that takes up a lot of my time. My wife isn't involved with that either and sometimes she finds it hard having to share my time with another passion. Unfortunately, that hobby doesn't pay the bills so I can't do it in office hours.
I saw her shaking her head when I started down this track. Time to buy her more flowers.

[OwenGraven]

hi,

Well, I'm self employed and work vary from month to month, sometimes I got lots of work and sometimes a week passes without a work.

So that leaves me plenty of time, a real luxury in these days, to practice magic. Around 6 a 7 hours a day surely. And the rest I devote it to my beloved and people around me.

My wife doesn't find it frustrating because whenever she's around I'll be putting my cards aside, but sometimes when she watches tv (the most disintresting thing in a household.) I grab my cards and practice some more.

I also tend to only show her new tricks once in a week, like 2 tricks a week. So they are practiced before and she don't get bored by me everyday saying LOOK AT ME! !

Greetings,

Owen Graven

[West0]

Thanks Owen. So having the practice as your career helps as you're keeping on top of your game.

Ok, so were you practicing before you met your partner or was it a craft that you starting following at a later stage?

[OwenGraven]

Well, a bit of both.

I had a hobby that's called papercrafting, making models out of paper. pretty amazing and time consuming. She always finded my creations beautyfull but other than expositions It was a useless art.

I started that papermaking before meeting her, and made her lots of things before she finally stayed at my place.

When I started magic I used to dimish the time to do papercrafting and used it for magic as finally magic took over and I forgot papercrafting.

So I went from one hobby to another, now I can show my work to a lot of people and I got praised, something I value and need out of a hobby.

[haroldross]

I guess my situation would be similar. The interest in magic was there but I had no reason to be serious about it.

My other hobby, horology (the art or science of measuring time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, clepsydras, timers, time recorders and marine chronometers are all examples of instruments used to measure time), took up much of my time 9no pun intended). I have amassed a large collection of watches ranging from the high end (Rolexes) to the cheapest Chinese models. I prefer the mechanical type of watches. As magic became something that I needed to devote more time to, the watch collection has taken a back seat.

I do have another hobby that my wife takes an active part in and that is photography. I don't end up in many photos since I am taking them.

My wife doesn't have an interest in magic but she does attend some of my shows and has been supportive of them.

The key is to set the proper priorities. You can do anything that you set your mind to- if you want to do it bad enough.

[Boomstick]

Agree with you Harold, magic is so time consuming (well if your serious and want to do it right) that youll probably have to put asside some hobbies to improve execution, and still have to practice to keep them right.I quickly realise the more i learn, the more time it take.

[West0]

Sounds like the two of you had fairly intricate, precise hobbies before magic. It seems like a fairly logical step in that regard, moving to a very precise art where attention to detail is everything.

[Novembre]

I have several hobbies... I'll usually get into one thing and focus on it intensely until I've gotten really good. Sometimes, my hobbies have consumed a lot of my time, but I've never had any real trouble balancing them with my life.

Magic is my latest fascination/hobby and I've been spending most of my free time practicing or at least just playing with a deck of cards. But, this is the way I usually am and most of my friends know it -- so it's not that big of a deal. Most of the people I spend time with find it interesting that I've got so many different things I'm skilled at.

The way I see it, if you really like something: you'll be able to find time to practice it, no matter what.

[Demonbrn]

I also 'suffer' from little time. I have muliple hobbies that get cycled in and out. Guitar being my main hobby that I attempt to not stray from for to long because I write and have been doing it about 19 years. But I do origami, drawing, card magic, video games and guitar. And the cycle usually goes every couple months. Origami and drawing usually suffer the most, though those 2 are most useless in my opinion.

Even now it's been a few days since I've picked up a deck of cards and actually practiced anything. If I get the chance to sit and watch TV, that is when I usually have a deck of cards in hand to practice with, but the last few months I've been writing songs, so with lyrical content and song structure taking up mass amount of time (on top of job hunting) my card magic has been diminishing as well. It's just as mentioned, there must be a balance. I'm generally a manual laborer, so once work starts coming steadily, the card magic will be tough to incorperate into my life.

[Boomstick]

My girlfriend is leaving tomorrow for a month, she's going to help rebuild a school in India. Although I know I'll miss her a lot, I'll try to practice as much as I can during that month. When she's there, it's difficult sometimes to practice but being a hobbie, it must not jeopardize relationship with friends and family. I know that she accept that I spend a lot of time at it cuz I always have been passionnate when I do something. Its gonna be a long month