Magic Tricks

I am so appreciative of Penguin putting this program together. What an incredible opportunity to have small group instruction from the very best thinkers and performers in magic. Signing up, I expected a few hiccups, but the benefit of the instruction outweighed those small nits. I participate in every Vanishing Masterclass and while they are excellent, you can’t get the immediate feedback and opportunity to ask questions about a sleight during the instruction. This makes a huge difference for these Penguin classes.

Jeremiah was awesome. Great sense of humor and excellent instruction. He took the time to really dive into finger position and movement and he gave great tips on practicing. The opportunity to have him explain things in detail and to go over difficult sleights was valuable. The class was made better by the fact that we had a good group of attendees who asked appropriate questions and didn’t interrupt the instruction needlessly.

I signed up for Jeremiah’s class because I wanted to start working on some coin magic, which I don’t typically use in my corporate training (mostly because it doesn’t show up well on Zoom in my set up). This class exceeded my expectations. The material was top-notch, challenging but well-taught. The opportunity to hear the thinking behind decisions made in building a routine was so valuable. And we were able to have discussions about alternate sleights to use in places with immediate feedback from the originator. What an unbelievable opportunity! Jeremiah definitely deserves five stars.

One big difference I noticed between my Zuo class and my Ammar class was that in Zuo’s Zoom, when others asked questions, they weren’t spotlighted. This was important because in my Ammar class someone would ask a question and then forget to mute themselves and would constantly be shown in Speaker view when Michael Ammar was demonstrating the answer to the question. Not sure if this was a difference with the Penguin host, the setup of the call, or something else entirely, but the Zuo class was much more effective for this seemingly minor detail. Erik Tait hosted the Zuo session and he was, as always, a consummate professional. Even deflecting a compliment to make sure the focus was always on Jeremiah and his magic.

There was one BIG drawback to the way Penguin chose to run these classes which almost made me want to deduct a star or two. But in the end, it was unfair to punish Jeremiah for this horrible decision from Penguin.

I’m referring to the decision to run the classes with a constant repeating watermark on the screen. I know why they did this (to deter recording and presumably reselling of content), but it is regrettable that everyone is treated like a thief and made to suffer for this deterrence. The watermark was repeated all over the screen and definitely made viewing the zoom class more difficult and less clear. I can’t emphasize this enough – this was a horrible, horrible decision.

I hope they will figure this out and change this going forward. The fact that they didn’t say anything about this ahead of time, nor explain in class #1, was equally poorly received. This one aspect will affect my decision to sign up for more classes.

But aside from that decision, the class was well done, Jeremiah was the best, and the material is stuff I will be working on for months to master and incorporate in the work I do.