If the 90% consistency rule is the diagnosis, the two-steps-forward, one-step-back method is the treatment.
The method is simple enough to describe in a few sentences. Getting it right — trusting it enough to actually follow it — took me considerably longer.
The Method
Step one: Practice Move 1 until you reach approximately ninety percent consistency.
Step two: Instead of grinding the last ten percent, move to Move 2 — a technique that is roughly ten to fifteen percent more difficult than Move 1, but similar in nature.
Step three: Practice Move 2 until you reach approximately ninety percent consistency.
Step four: Take a step back. Return to Move 1. You’ll find that the remaining ten percent has largely resolved itself. Polish what’s left with minimal effort.
Step five: Repeat with Move 3, Move 4, Move 5, and so on. Indefinitely.
That’s it. Two steps forward to the harder material. One step back to the previous material. The last ten percent of each level solves itself through the adaptation created by the next level.
Why the Step Back Works
The mechanism is clear: by coming from something much harder to something easier, with very little practice, the move easily becomes one hundred percent consistent.
The reason is adaptation pressure. When you practice Move 2, which is ten to fifteen percent harder than Move 1, your brain adapts to the higher difficulty. This adaptation involves all the skills that Move 1 requires, plus the additional skills that Move 2 demands. The adaptation to Move 2 pulls Move 1 up as a side effect.
When you step back to Move 1 after this adaptation, the technique that was at ninety percent now exists in a context where your overall skill level has risen. Move 1 is below your new baseline. The last ten percent — which was stubbornly resistant to direct practice — yields with minimal effort because you’re now approaching it from a position of elevated ability.
It’s like a weightlifter who’s been training at forty kilograms returning to thirty. The thirty feels light. Not because it’s lighter, but because the lifter is stronger.
The Selection Criterion
The method lives or dies on the selection of Move 2. It can’t be just any harder technique. It needs to be specifically chosen to create the right kind of adaptation pressure for Move 1.
The key criterion: Move 2 should be “at least about ten to fifteen percent more difficult than Move 1, but still very similar in nature.”
Similar in nature is the critical qualifier. The harder technique must use the same fundamental skills as the easier one, just at a higher level of demand. If Move 1 is a basic card control, Move 2 should be a more difficult card control — not a coin technique or a rope manipulation. The skills must overlap so that the adaptation to Move 2 transfers to Move 1.
The ten to fifteen percent difficulty increase is also carefully calibrated. Too much harder and you’re not getting productive repetitions — you’re just failing chaotically. Not hard enough and the adaptation pressure is insufficient. The sweet spot is the range where you fail more often than you succeed but can still identify what success looks like and work toward it.
My First Two-Steps-Forward Cycle
My first attempt at the method involved a card technique I’d been grinding at roughly eighty-eight percent for three weeks. The technique was a specific sleight that required precise finger coordination and timing.
For Move 2, I selected a more advanced version of the same sleight — same fundamental mechanics, but executed at higher speed with additional complexity. This version was clearly beyond my current ability. My success rate was maybe forty percent.
I spent two weeks on Move 2. My success rate with it climbed from forty to about seventy percent. Not ninety — I didn’t need to get Move 2 to ninety before stepping back.
When I returned to Move 1, my success rate was ninety-five percent. The improvement had happened without a single direct repetition. Two weeks of zero practice on Move 1, and it was better than it had been after three weeks of grinding.
The feeling was genuinely surreal. The technique that had been stuck for three weeks was suddenly, almost effortlessly, sharper than it had ever been. Not from practice. From growing past it.
The Infinite Game
“The beautiful thing in any skill is that you can never outgrow it,” the author wrote. “There’s always going to be a next level to explore. It’s a game with infinite levels.”
This reframing changed my entire relationship with practice. Instead of seeing each technique as a discrete challenge to be conquered and then maintained, I started seeing an endless ladder where each rung naturally strengthens the ones below it.
Move 1 leads to Move 2. Move 2 leads to Move 3. Each advancement strengthens everything that came before. There’s no finish line, no final level, no point where the game ends. There’s always another step forward, and each step forward creates a step back that consolidates everything you’ve built.
The infinite nature of this game was liberating rather than daunting. In the grinding approach, the absence of a finish line was depressing — you could grind forever and never reach perfection. In the two-steps-forward approach, the absence of a finish line was exciting — you could always advance further, and every advancement made everything below it stronger.
The Confidence Bonus
There’s a psychological side effect of the two-steps-forward method that I experienced repeatedly: returning to previous material and finding it improved is an enormous confidence boost.
After weeks of grinding and stagnation, the experience of effortless improvement is almost intoxicating. You step back to the move you’d been struggling with, attempt it, and it works. Smoothly, cleanly, consistently. Without having practiced it at all.
This experience reinforces trust in the system. It provides tangible evidence that leaving a skill at ninety percent and advancing to harder material isn’t abandonment — it’s investment. The return on that investment is visible and immediate when you step back.
The confidence compounds. Each successful step-back cycle makes the next advancement easier to commit to, because you’ve now experienced the payoff multiple times. The fear of “losing” a skill by moving on diminishes as the evidence of automatic improvement accumulates.
Common Mistakes in Application
Having used this method for months, I’ve identified a few common mistakes that can undermine it:
Moving too far ahead. If Move 2 is thirty percent harder instead of ten to fifteen percent, the adaptation pressure is too high. You spend all your time failing without making productive progress, and the transfer back to Move 1 doesn’t occur because the skills don’t overlap sufficiently.
Moving to dissimilar material. If Move 2 uses fundamentally different skills than Move 1, the adaptation doesn’t transfer. The method requires skill overlap — the harder technique must contain the easier technique as a subset.
Not spending enough time on Move 2. If you only practice Move 2 for a few days before stepping back, the adaptation hasn’t had time to develop. Two weeks seems to be the minimum for meaningful transfer, though this varies by skill and individual.
Testing Move 1 too anxiously. When you step back, do it with curiosity, not anxiety. If you’re testing Move 1 with the desperate hope that it’s improved, the performance pressure can mask the actual progress. Approach the step-back as an experiment, not an exam.
The Pattern for Life
The two-steps-forward, one-step-back method has proven so effective that I’ve started applying it outside of magic practice.
In my consulting work, when a project reaches a level where I’m comfortable with the approach, I deliberately take on a harder project that stretches my capabilities. When I return to projects at the previous difficulty level, they feel more manageable.
In my fitness routine, when an exercise reaches the point where it’s comfortable, I increase the difficulty. When I drop back, the previous level is noticeably easier.
The pattern is universal because it’s based on adaptation, and adaptation is a universal biological mechanism. Challenge yourself beyond your current capacity, adapt to the challenge, and watch your previous capacity increase as a side effect.
Two steps forward. One step back. The step back is where you find out how much you’ve grown.