Many hold Joe Mogar as the thimble Guru and say this DVD is the one to get if you want to learn
thimble magic.
You should note this is NOT an encyclopedia of thimble work. This is moves Joe
likes. So you will not learn all the moves or devices, So do not expect any discussion on holders
and traditional steals since he does not like them. He feels they are not needed as his method with
his thimbles does not require holders.
You REALLY DO NEED TO BUY HIS THIMBLES. He tells
you the size of his thimbles and really you can not translate all his moves with other magic
thimbles and 99.5% of stores and internet will not have the thimbles of the size he uses.
The
DVD is lacking some production value. It is hard to navigate and jumps around. That is, they take
some routines and reuse them to teach other moves.
MANY of the slow motion segments are
missing. Only a few have the slow motions.
Joe does not really teach you. THIS IS SHOW AND No
TELL. This is similar to a lecture where he shows you want he is doing but not teaching the find
points. So he might say "You do it like this." And he does the move at speed a few times. He
does not describe WHAT he is doing. That is, he leaves out the find points and it is up to you to
work it out.
There are some routines not fully demonstrated. He goes right into
explanations. It would have been nice to see some of the routines done live or at least in full as
he would present in public.
Some of the moves flash on camera and they took a weak approach
flashing text on the screen that the effect is "angle sensitive". Sorry this is an excuse. He did
not perform it well and they were too cheap to reshoot the segment.
Maybe having his book will
go into more detail. While you can learn from this DVD, having his written notes, might give you
more insight to some of his moves as he would have to describe the methods differently than doing
it on video. I can recommend it as part of your library but with the cautions above.