When Dating New Tricks Stops Working

When Steve Reynolds taught his landmark Zarrow Shuffle course, we saw fifty magicians of every level transform over three short sessions. What happened in that room became one of the clearest demonstrations I’ve ever seen of how to move from effort to ease—from frustration to flow.

When I first saw a Zarrow, I was fifteen, outside Al’s Magic Shop. A local magician—who’d taken a few lessons from Darwin Ortiz—riffle-shuffled on the table and I saw nothing. Not a twitch. It was perfectly invisible. I chased that for years. Books, tapes, late nights. Still never looked like that first one.

Every magician worries about looking natural. We obsess over it. We film from every angle, hunt for flashes, and try to move the way “real” people move when they aren’t thinking about being watched. And yet — after decades in this craft — I’ve learned the irony hiding in plain sight: The harder you try to look natural, the less natural you’ll ever be.