Card Magic and Misdirection

To be honest, I would rather call this blog post “Card Magic and Misdirection”, even though it is a reflection on my understanding of Declarative, Procedural and Metacognitive Knowledge, and the different types of knowledge and intelligences. Have you even seen a young street magician or a magician in a restaurant or club walking up to you and go “Hey do you want to see a magic trick? Its called the Ambitious Card!” He then proceeds to fan a deck of cards, forces you to take a card and sign it. Pretend to slip the card in the middle of the deck and with a flourish magically brings the card to the top. Wincing you thank him for the short entertainment and hope that you never see another magician again.

Then a few days later, you happen to see a professional card magician. Dressed formally, he performs the same card trick, but instead of being left with a bad taste in your mouth, you are left speechless and in awe of what had just happened. One of the other things you notice is that he is a lot older than the younger less experienced magician. In fact, giving one an insight into the world of magic, all of the best card magicians at the moment are above 50. In fact, if you were part of the magic faternity, names like Vernon, Tamariz, Darwin Ortiz and Ascanio are legends in the fields of magic.

Declarative Knowledge

So how do we learn to do the Ambitious Card? We look at a video on youtube, watch a DVD and/or read a magic text book (Yes, they do exist). If you are like me, I will study the very basics of magic card technique, learning more advanced techniques as I go. Like mathematics, there are hundreds of formulas in magic. And no, not the Harry Potter type.

So when you first learn the Ambitious Card, a schema is formed. The schema will look like this;  how the cards are held right hand, the placement of our left hand, the type of cards we are using, the technique we are going to use. We read another book and learn another method and learn about timing and misdirection. This new information gets assimilated into our schema of the Ambitous Card. We also learn about how the Ambitious Card was developed, its history and why it was developed. The “magician” like Goetz et al. (1992), surgeon needs all this knowledge to effectively perform.

Procedural Knowledge

It is recommended that we learn the “Ambitious Card” or in fact all Card Magic in the following familiar stages. In fact, Goetz at al (1992) use the following labels declarative, procedural and automatic.

Stage I – Learn the individual techniques – the double lift and the classic pass, and how to put them together to form the schema of “Ambitious Card”

Stage 2 – Practice in private and correct, then do again and again

Stage 3 – Make it muscle memory.

Just like Goetz et al (1992) example of learning to drive a car illustrates this as well. We pick up the rules and regulations, read and memorise the rules and jump into the car and start to drive! Well not really, there is that running checklist we have. Then we practice and practice and practice. We correct our mistakes and try not to have any bad habits. Seek feedback on our driving, correct if we have to and practice again. We practice first in the car park and then on the roads. And the more experience we have, the better we are at it. Our personal space expands with our car, we have some “special sixth sense” and we master automatic driving. (Seen anyone on the freeway driving while having breakfast, putting on make-up or reading a book recently?)

Now our knowledge of the “Ambitious Card” does not stay stagnant. New methods to perform it are constantly being published. We learn from friends, colleages, mentors and through experience. The schema constantly evolves or is, in this case tuned.

Metacognition Knowledge

How are new techniques to doing the “Ambitious Card” developed? What is the difference between a magician, a good magician and a Master Magician? I believe Metacogition Knowledge answers parts of those questions. The understanding and knowledge of the cognitive processes of one’s cognitive processes and that of others, an understanding of the different demands of different tasks and the understanding of that of strategies (Goetz et al, 1992).

As I said, there are many techniques to learning the “Ambitious Card”. The double lift, the classic pass, the butterfly pass, the side steal, the palm, and the list goes on. What if you were particulaly weak in any of those sleights? Have you ever showed card magic to a blind girl? Or performed in a nightclub where the music makes listening to the one impossible? How about entering into the personal spaces of a group of people wanting to entertain them with the “Ambitious Card”? Understanding all of this and developing the strategies will either make or break a magician.

Then of course there is tacit knowledge…..emotional intelligence…..social intelligences….

Thoughts

Do we actually take time to consciously have the Production System in our heads going IF THEN…

Never do a card trick while playing cards with friends or in a country where performing magic can get you burnt at the stake.

References

Goetz, E. T., Alexander, P. A., & Ash, M. J. (1992). Educational psychology: A classroom perspective. New York: Macmillan.