What's the difference between a skill and a trick?
Spinning a staff from side to side is already tough. It does take skill to do it without hitting your head or any other part of your body near the path of the staff. But the more I do it, just spinning the staff has felt more like a trick to me.
Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but this new way of looking at it has started to teach me something unexpected.
Over my life, I've collected a lot of random tricks.
Magic tricks, juggling tricks, drawing tricks, computer tricks.
These have been a source of immense joy and engagement for me. Lately, though, I've been craving the next level.
That point where you can turn a trick into a skill, I now believe, is when you can flow with it.
Back to staff spinning, I started trying to learn how to spin it in front of me, then turn sharply to face the opposite direction while the staff is still spinning.
Once I kind of got the hang of it, I wondered: "Can I walk with it?"
As soon as I started taking a few steps, doing an about-face, and walking back to where I started—all while maintaining the spin—I could feel the trick starting to turn into a skill.
Note: I still think you need skills to perform tricks. Tricks are super cool. But something about this extra step of integrating the trick has unlocked something for me, which is why I'm making a distinction with the vocabulary here.
In a lot of ways, this mimics the process of learning that the brain uses: Each trick is a neural pathway emerging. The connections between neurons and other paths increases the speed at which we can access those tricks and eventually gets to the point where we can call upon them with less effort.
Flow
This is that state you get into when you get really focused and are working at your best. Time passes without notice and you are "in the zone."
Flow can apply to pretty much any task.
My new goal for all of these disparate tricks I've collected over the years is to be able to use them in flow. Meaning both the psychological state of flow, but also in the sense of a connectedness between tricks.
For example, being able to do one magic trick is fine, but being able to build an experience for people with magic is that flow state. Maybe that means only two magic tricks, but they're combined in a way that flows, that feels natural to me as the performer.
Taking it one level further is the ability to change plans in the middle of the performance and make decisions on the spot. Maybe something goes wrong, or maybe the context is asking for something slightly different than when you started. A magician knows how to read their audience, how to react to others' reactions, how to change pace or tie things together.
That improvisation factor within flow (maybe because of flow) is where I see true skill underlying the individual tricks.
Practice Makes Permanent
Flow and improv sound like they are talent-driven. Something that is hard to access for average people; something that is available only to those with a special gift.
This is false.
I've heard many professional speakers remark that the way they became smooth, articulate, and polished is by practicing. Even improv comedians are practicing, refining, and exploring all the time.
The gap between what you do and what they do is just a matter of practice time. (And there's also the risk of widening the perception of that gap with comparison and self-judgment, so be wary.)
The point is choosing what skill you want to practice. There are infinite skills and choices, so what do you want to invest your time in?
Cyborg
For me, I still want to invest in a breadth of tricks. It's good for the brain to practice things I'm unfamiliar with and especially to try ambidextrous or bilateral skills like juggling.
I also want to make connections between these tricks—these techniques—so that I can start to pull them into my flow.
This is the same thing I do when programming. I've learned so many tricks in web development, and I'm finally getting to the point where the skill is emerging. I can call on the right tricks at the right time to fit into or support a larger system.
We can all do this in our own domains and fields.
Starting, as always, with the basics. But the step that we don't always follow through with is forging the connections to other skills or processes or patterns or goals or outcomes.
Building up this expertise is important because it elevates your impact, broadens the view, and creates new opportunities.
I wonder if this is the new way of learning in the age of technology and AI?