Online teaching sessions?
 

What do you guys think, should I start doing online teaching sessions for rather cheap prices? I'm a little tired of seeing Aaron Fisher and Ellusionist doing and advertising those and in my opinion not helping as much as they could (especially because most of those magicians are true classic artists who seem to be a little stuck in the classic world of magic, if I'm very honest).

From experience I know that I can help people quite a lot. And I'm getting a little annoyed by the tons of people that expect me to have all time in the world to have a video chat with them and to help them out with whatever, whenever they want to.

So this is specifically on magic teaching, through Skype and private Tinychat sessions. So no hanging out sessions, which of course will be for free and only attempted whenever I got time for it and whenever I feel like it.

Let me know what you guys think. ^_^

Well, to be honest, i think the video chat thingy was partly our( your supporters and the people who believes in your magic) fault( i did remember a few people in the past saying something like "if you want to be proven wrong, you just have to ask Mark to show you it in a video chat session" or something of the sort).

And about the online sessions, as much as i like the idea, it might be a bit hard for a lot of people( you know, with the time zone and all), tho if you want this to be another DSZ style product( only available for a lucky few who found it on time), then it's a fine idea( tho selling a whole course with one online session every once in a while and then have those available for download for those who bought the course is also good)

It's a great idea! As long as you don't charge overpriced amounts of money. So how is this going to work? Are you going to be teaching people extensively? Or just starting with the basics and whatnot?

... but on the other hand... NO MORE HANGING OUT SESSIONS? D:

I think it is a very good idea! But for people who live in other coutries with very diffrent timezones may miss out (cough australia cough) if you do them, so maybe you should also record them and send them to people who are not avaliable if you do it that is.

Yeah, sounds great!! Do I get a discount? ;)

Just out of curiosity, are you planning on a 1 to 2 hour session?

Don't worry about the time zones, I will be able to do those all day and night long. Also, I don't expect tons of people to attempt those.

Basically, I will have people ask what they want to learn or improve on. If I can help them, I will. The sessions will be for either 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1.5 hours or 2 hours per session. A short summary including the lessons will be shot and sent as a private video afterwards.

I was originally thinking to ask $0.50 per minute, but maybe this is too cheap? Cheapest you can get at Ellusionist is $49.95. Maybe I should ask $0.75 per minute, that way an hour is $45 which is still the cheapest then. Sounds reasonable?

David, don't worry about the hang-out sessions. Read the top post again. It's just that I will be doing less of those.

And Albert, you're one of us. You may as well be doing such sessions yourself. ;)

i think that's a good idea, but i have no comment on the price.

It all sounds pretty good to me. I'd be very careful with the small print though and make sure you get it right. The last thing you want is someone asking for all their money back just because you had to pop to the toilet or go and cook some bacon. If anything, you should charge more for that sort of tutorial! Some people are so ungrateful.

Yay, I know. Thanks. Although, I would've never thought of cooking some bacon in between.. stop giving me bad ideas! :p

The name of the program will probably be eMprove. Improve, e = self-explanatory, M = magic. You guys like that? :rolleyes:

Nice pun indeed, i like it( not that my opinion matters much...)

So if you do this, what will you teach people? WIll you say what will be taught each lesson or not? Will people pay for private lessons and then say I wanna leanr confidental (or any other tricks) and you will go okay this is what you do.... or will it be based on improving things they already know?

eMprove is good.. improve, empower, empire-crushingly-good-sleight-of-hand, e-commerce (?) internet, M is for Magic and of course Mystery Mark, and of course.. bacon! It makes sense and sounds good as a title. But seriously, I think it sounds great. Such a good one in fact I wouldn't be surprised if someone has already nicked it?

Well, people can ask whatever they want but I have to agree with it first, before any appointment or payment is made. People could ask for help with their passes for instance, or with controls, or color changes, or presentations, all granted. But if they want an hour of me personally teaching them how to make 'The Flash', I won't agree with that. ;)

It will be mainly on improving things they already know, to make the best out of those. If another, new technique is needed to improve, I will teach them that too. And of course I'll throw in a lot of my modern magic theories and subtleties.

Glad you guys like the name! eMprove it is! :D

5,000 dollars for a 2 hour intense tutorial for 'Smooth!' Actually that is a ripoff... for you! 2 million dollars it is then!

so Mark... you're saying that if say, i, know how to do the smooth color change, but not very well, and then i show you that i actually know, you, may be, would agree to teaching me the Smooth so that i can perfect it if i pay you for one of these sessions?

Sure, but there is a risk you're taking then.. because you pay for the session before I see you do it. This means it may end up with me helping you perfecting the technique in question which may not be exactly like 'Smooth'. It's not that 'Smooth' is the answer to every color change or alike change.

true, but it IS the subject of interest of a lot of "matured" magicians like myself. But wait... i thought you saying:
means that they can show you the things they want to improve on before the appointment and payment is made? or did i understand it wrong?

Well, yeah, basically they could show it in a video before any appointment or payment is made, but not on webcam because that is only after the appointment and payment. If they can make a video of it and it's close enough to 'Smooth', further help on 'Smooth' will be provided. If it's not close enough, it might end up being 'AToMS' or something alike.

Please realize that this is not about learning a specific effect. However, if you have problems with the 'Pass', it's likely that I will end up teaching you the 'Practical Pass' or some of its subtleties to have you improve on the 'Pass'. In case you're having trouble with an effect you purchased, you will definitely be helped too.

You really wanna learn smooth dont you la0o9?

oh i see what you mean now Mark

@Kieran: yep, it's my current goal as a magician, with one mean or another, to know the secert behind it, and be able to perform it perfectly, tho i know it's NOT the answer to everything, it's one of the more impossible things that could happen in someone's hands without the need of aid, and that's what makes it alluring for me

Smooth360? Meh! Miracles happen all the time, so what! :rolleyes:

But on a serious note, la0o9, I don't think Mark is in a hurry to divulge the secret behind Smooth360, and more importantly I'm quite sure that his goal in launching eMpower is more based around general teaching of moves and improvement of technique. I don't think he will respond to people who he thinks are looking for the diabolical secrets to his more infamous effects.

Part of being a magician is about not knowing ALL the secrets. There have always been magicians who kept their best tricks rather than selling them, some have even taken their secrets to the grave. It's an important part of magic that some secrets are NEVER divulged, or at the very least, only taught to a select few close friends.

You may have to keep dreaming about Smooth, or keep trying to work it out yourself! But in my humble opinion your best bet is to use this gift we have of Mark offering us his time, to help you improve all your magic, or even just the most important moves, for instance your Pass, second deal, ambitious routine, etc. These are the building blocks of card magic. You'd do so much better to learn stuff like that from Mark than to obsess over just one move (even though it is incredible ;) )

lol, i'm not obsessed over one move, it's just that i will take every shortcut i can, and if the short cut turns out to be a roadblock, it's fine with me, i do not think i am obsessed over one move, it's that i don't really need help with the others, all i think i need to do is practice a lot to get them down completely.

I think its good la0o9 has a good clear goal, even one that simple. I dont have any right now I am working on riffle stack (STILL HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO MASTER THIS), betwixt by helder, and a few other tricks. I have no clear goal so I keep straying on trying to learn new things when I havent fully mastered previous stuff.

---------- Post added at 09:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 AM ----------

Also I am working on repulse control and svengali control

Mark, I have a question. What if your webcam is awful quality and we can't see you or we can barley make out what we are saying or visa-versa?

Sorry dude, I'm sure you're not obsessed; I guess I didn't mean it quite that strongly. And this coming from me who's been doing nothing but the clipshift for about 3 weeks, lol. :eek:

I think I can easily answer this for Mark :D

No worries since Mark has a good webcam, great enough to see and hear. Of course, a really good one will help a lot more ;).

If he uses a crappy webcam that makes him look either like Minecraft or Picasso's cubism paintings, then I'll punch him for you kitty :)

Okay, by the power vested in me as moderator, I WILL MOVE THESE POSTS

I don't know whether that was just a joke or if you will really be moving then, but just to be sure.. keep them here. We talked enough about Minecraft already. ;)

I will always be using my HD webcam for this so the problem wouldn't be on my side. And both Tinychat and Skype have text chat possibilities so in case you wouldn't have speakers or a microphone, we can still use that.

However, I'm pretty sure you didn't necessarily mean my webcam, but just any webcam in general because of the vice versa you added. In case your own webcam quality is too bad I still hope it's good enough to see what you could improve on and whether you are taking in the lessons. Some weeks ago I had a chat with someone whose webcam was quite terrible but still good enough for that.

If your camera is really bad and you can barely see whatever you're doing, it may as well be worth it to get a new, better webcam. Great quality webcams are very cheap nowadays.

I was being quite serious! The Playground forums need something new! :D

Your a moderator david?

exactly 1 month of doing nothing but the move for 2 straight hours everyday, and a long long long period of live performances after that ^__^( yeah, that might have been slightly exaggerated, or not...). I've also been trying to do that move for a while( it's working nicely for me in magic performances, but actual card games are a bit harder, after all, i originally started learning to break the rules in case i want to save some face... JK, or am i?)

Mark, there are HD webcams? =o

I wish I had one :P

Is there some sort of attachment I can put onto the computer to make it better quality?

---------- Post added at 09:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 AM ----------

Oh, and I never got to introduce myself. My name is Kelan (Pronounced KEH-LAN). It's an altered spelling to Kellen. Anyway, I've been doing magic for about a year. I'm 13 years old and I'm striving to learn more. I'm in the midst of practicing the Repulse Control (which I think is genius).

I can tell me and Mark (or would it be Mark and I... ^.^) have different views on revealing magic. I reveal only MY tricks, mathematical principles, and tricks/sleights that are often performed bad. I respect your views so I hope you respect mine :). I want to be friends with all of you on here, so I hope my views on revealing magic don't effect that... :). I'm a boy who has a lot to learn XD

Cheers!

@Kitty

Yes, there are HD cameras. They are just more pricey than regular webcams. The quality is equal to that of a video camera. Some of Mark's videos were recorded with an HD webcam.

Seems like you got the same view on revealing magic as Albert, so I guess I'm used to it. ;)

However, we still don't approve exposure on this board. We do have some hidden place where we can talk more freely about secrets though. ^_^

Depends on how you look at it. An HD webcam is just as expensive as a regular webcam used to be before those HD cams came out. For instance, the Logitech C270 (720p webcam) costs $39.99. I remember that some years ago I bought a 1.3 MP webcam, not nearly as good as the C270, for $45. :)

I have the C310 which cost me £30 and is ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT, HD quality!

@la0o9 THis is off topic by the wya. I have been practcing riffle stacking for about 4 months and I havnt mastered it :(. I dont practcie two hours a day I usall practcie riffle stacking for about ten minutes and there was a peroid where I stopped practcing it competly but Now I am working at it again. I am currently working on stacking for 6 players my goal is to learn to stack for 9. I have cheated in card games before against friends (we where not using real money or bets or anything just games for fun, and I wanted to test if anyone would see me cheating) and I much prefer overhand shuffle stacks much easer to do

While it's true that it's much easier to do, stacking for 6 people with it is a drag( you need to keep the sight and time of your stack to a minimum, and it's quite hard to do so in a home game with 5-6 people( home game= no or small table= small circle= maximum visibility of all dirty work), and doing for about 9 is a bit...


Riffle stacking i've seen a guy did it for 7 people and still got away with it( tho, idk how long he practiced to get that good), i can do for about 6-7 in 2 shuffles atm( the most amount of people i've ever played against here is 7, 8 including myself, i'm aiming to be able to stack for 7 people in one single shuffle), i myself don't practice 2 hours a day like when i posted that, i only do around 1h30 max, and i mix it with false shuffle and blind shuffle practice as well. I've never really cheated in a game, but i have done some demonstrations before, and i've never been found out before even tho i warn them in advance that i'd cheat( tho, i mainly stack for Black Jack so it was easier than stacking a 4 of a kind for a poker game). Mastering the thing is tough... i think i heard the people who can do it said that you need to be able to do the basics when looking in the mirror like you are looking at someone else shuffling the cards for you( in other words, being able to do it without really thinking about doing it) before actually going out and practice talking normally and cheating at the same time before you can be called a Master at the thing.


P.S: man that was a lengthy post...

Back to the topic of teaching sessions, would you be happy to help with things such as double lifts, or maybe teach some that you use? WOuld you alsohelp people with effects of yours that they have worked out. (I worked out one0handed morphues I think, and If I pmed you the method and it was correct would you help wiht it?)

like he said Kieran, he will take a look at what you have, and if the method you're doing is NOT the real thing, he will teach you to use that method to it's fullest, but not showing you the real thing( you're practically asking him the same thing i did)

Yeah I am arnt I ;). I still want to know about the double lifts though because I can do a couple with breaks without any worrys of detection but I cant do any without a break without worrying about falshing so I want to know if he would be willing to teach stuff like convicing no-get-ready double lifts, because his are awesome