I learned this principle from music, and it took me years to realize it applies to magic.
When I was younger, before magic, before consulting, I played guitar. Not seriously enough to perform, but seriously enough to develop some discipline around practice. And one of the things my guitar teacher told me — a quiet, methodical man in Vienna who had trained as a classical guitarist and somehow ended up teaching rock chords to teenagers — was this: “Learn the last phrase first.”
I thought he was crazy. Every piece of music has a beginning, and it seemed obvious that you should start learning from the beginning. You start at bar one, you work your way through, and when you can play the whole thing from start to finish, you are done.
He disagreed. “If you always start from the beginning,” he said, “you practice the beginning a hundred times, the middle fifty times, and the ending ten times. The part the audience remembers most — the ending — is the part you have practiced least.”
He had me learn the final phrase of a piece first. Then the second-to-last phrase, connecting it to the final phrase I already knew. Then the third-to-last, connecting it to the two I already knew. And so on, working backward until I reached the beginning.
The result was revelatory. As I performed the piece from start to finish, instead of moving from the most-practiced territory (the beginning) toward the least-practiced territory (the ending), I was moving from the least-practiced territory toward the most-practiced territory. Every step forward took me closer to ground I knew intimately. The piece felt like it was accelerating — gaining certainty and confidence as it progressed.
When I started applying this same principle to magic routines, the improvement was immediate and dramatic.
The Problem with Forward Practice
Before I explain the backwards method in detail, I need to explain the problem it solves. And the problem is one that almost every performer shares but few recognize.
When you practice a routine from beginning to end — which is how almost everyone practices everything — you develop an asymmetry. The opening is rock-solid. You have rehearsed it dozens or hundreds of times. The first line, the first action, the first spectator interaction — these are automated, smooth, bulletproof.
The middle is good. You have rehearsed it many times, though not as many as the opening, because you do not always make it all the way through a practice run. Sometimes you stop to fix something in the middle. Sometimes you restart from the beginning when you make a mistake. The middle benefits from repetition, but not as much repetition as the opening.
The ending is the weakest part. You only reach the ending when you complete the entire routine from the beginning, which means it gets the fewest repetitions. And when you do reach it, you are often mentally tired from the effort of the preceding sections. Your focus is depleted. Your energy is lower. The ending — the part the audience remembers most vividly — is performed with the least practice and the least energy.
Darwin Ortiz addresses a related principle in Strong Magic: “If you’re going to change an apple into an orange, minimize the time between their last glimpse of the apple and their first glimpse of the orange.” The ending is the audience’s last glimpse of your orange — the final impression, the moment they carry home. If it is the weakest part of your routine because it is the least practiced, you are undermining the entire performance at the exact moment it should be at its strongest.
How Backwards Practice Works
The method is straightforward once you commit to its counterintuitive logic.
Start with the last beat of the routine. The final line, the final action, the final reveal. Practice this single element until it is flawless. Not good. Flawless. You should be able to deliver this ending in your sleep, while distracted, while under pressure. This is the foundation.
Now add the second-to-last beat. Practice this beat, and then flow directly into the ending you have already perfected. The transition from the second-to-last beat to the ending should be seamless, because the ending is solid territory. You are moving toward strength.
Add the third-to-last beat. Practice it, then flow into the two beats you have already mastered. Each time you practice this expanding sequence, you are moving from the new, less-familiar material toward the established, well-practiced material. The feeling is one of acceleration — of gathering confidence as you go.
Continue adding beats in reverse order, always connecting each new addition to the entire chain that follows it. When you finally add the opening — the first line, the first action, the first moment — it is the last thing you learn, which means it gets the least individual practice. But it does not matter, because from the opening forward, every step takes you deeper into territory you know intimately.
The Emotional Contour Shifts
The most surprising benefit of backwards practice is not technical but emotional. When you perform a routine that has been practiced forward, there is a subtle but perceptible decrease in confidence as you move through it. You are moving from the most familiar territory toward the least familiar territory. Each step takes you further from your comfort zone. This creates a barely noticeable tension — an undercurrent of “I hope I remember what comes next” — that builds as the routine progresses.
When you perform a routine that has been practiced backward, the emotional contour reverses. Each step takes you closer to your comfort zone. The confidence increases as the routine progresses. By the time you reach the ending, you are in the most familiar, most practiced, most confident territory of the entire routine.
The audience feels this. They may not be able to articulate it, but they sense the performer’s increasing confidence. A routine that builds confidence as it progresses feels like it is building momentum. A routine that loses confidence as it progresses feels like it is running out of steam.
This emotional contour matches the ideal dramatic arc. A routine should build toward its climax. The energy should increase. The certainty should deepen. The performer should appear more and more in command as the stakes rise. Backwards practice ensures this happens naturally, because the ending is always the strongest part.
My Own Practice Sessions
I now use backwards practice for every new routine I develop. The sessions happen in hotel rooms, which are my primary practice studio — the consequence of spending two hundred nights a year on the road for consulting work.
A typical session starts with the ending. I practice the final reveal, the final line, the final gestural sequence, until it feels automatic. This might take ten minutes or it might take thirty, depending on the complexity. I am not rushing. The ending is the foundation, and foundations cannot be hurried.
Then I add the preceding section. I practice this section, flowing into the ending, until the connection feels seamless. I pay special attention to the transition — the specific moment where the new section hands off to the established section. This transition is where the audience will feel either flow or friction, and it needs to be as smooth as the sections it connects.
Over the course of several sessions — sometimes spread across several days, each in a different hotel room in a different city — I build the routine backward until I reach the opening. By the time I practice the complete routine from start to finish for the first time, every section from the second beat onward is already well-practiced and interconnected. The opening is the new element, and it connects to a chain of established, confident material.
The first time I perform the complete routine from beginning to end, it feels different from any routine I have practiced the traditional way. It feels like falling forward into certainty. Like a river picking up speed as it flows toward the sea.
The Cross-Disciplinary Validation
Austin Kleon writes about the power of cross-pollination between disciplines — applying the principles of one field to the problems of another. Backwards practice is a perfect example of this kind of transfer.
In music, this principle is well-established. Piano teachers, violin teachers, vocal coaches — many of them teach backwards practice as standard methodology. McCabe’s Scripting Magic does not explicitly recommend backwards practice, but his emphasis on opening and closing lines supports the underlying logic. He writes that the closing line is what the audience remembers — it is the last impression, the final emotional beat. If backwards practice ensures the closing section is the most practiced element, it directly serves McCabe’s priority of crafting powerful endings.
Combining Backwards Practice with Speed Practice
I have found that backwards practice and speed practice complement each other powerfully. Here is the combined process I use:
First, I build the routine backward, as described above. This gives me a routine where the ending is the strongest part and confidence increases as the routine progresses.
Then, once the routine is assembled, I run speed practice on the complete routine. This identifies any remaining hesitations, weak transitions, or unnecessary material.
Finally, I target the weaknesses revealed by speed practice and rebuild them using backwards practice — starting from the material immediately after the weak spot and working backward to the weak spot itself. This ensures the weak spot connects smoothly to the strong material that follows it.
The combination of these two methods has cut my preparation time for new routines roughly in half. More importantly, it has dramatically improved the consistency of my endings. Before I adopted these methods, my endings were variable — sometimes strong, sometimes shaky, depending on how the rest of the routine had gone. Now, my endings are consistently the strongest part of every routine, because they are the most practiced part.
The Psychological Insight
There is a psychological dimension to backwards practice that goes beyond skill building. It addresses one of the most common sources of performance anxiety: fear of the ending.
Many performers are most anxious about the finale — the moment where the promise of the routine must be fulfilled, where the audience’s expectations must be met or exceeded. If the ending is the least-practiced part of your routine, then this anxiety is rational. You are anxious because you are least prepared for the most important moment.
Backwards practice eliminates this source of anxiety entirely. The ending is the part you know best. The ending is the ground you have walked a hundred times. The ending is home. As you perform the routine and approach the ending, you are approaching your greatest strength, not your greatest vulnerability. The anxiety transforms into anticipation. Instead of dreading the ending, you look forward to it.
This psychological shift is visible to the audience. A performer who dreads the ending unconsciously communicates tension and uncertainty as the climax approaches. A performer who looks forward to the ending communicates confidence and excitement. The audience mirrors these emotional signals, which means a performer trained with backwards practice produces stronger audience reactions at the climax — not because the ending is objectively better, but because the performer’s confidence in that moment is genuine.
Start at the End
If you take one practice technique from this entire blog and apply it tonight, let it be this one. Take a routine you are currently developing. Identify the final thirty seconds — the closing line, the final reveal, the ultimate moment. Practice only those thirty seconds until they are bulletproof.
Then add the preceding thirty seconds. Connect them to the ending you have already mastered. Practice the connection until it flows.
Continue backward. Do not rush to the beginning. Let the beginning be the last thing you learn.
When you finally perform the complete routine from start to finish, you will feel the difference immediately. The routine will feel like it is gaining strength as it progresses. The ending will feel like arriving home after a journey — familiar, confident, certain. And the audience, who remembers the ending more vividly than anything else, will remember a routine that finished with authority rather than uncertainty.
My guitar teacher in Vienna was right. Learn the last phrase first. The rest will follow.