Honestly, grab some cheap rope and practice during boring shows. Your fingers learn by doing the same dumb loop over and over. I messed up a million square knots before my camping trips. Now I can tie a bowline without looking. It's all muscle memory, like learning to type. Don't compare your first tries to their polished show.
What is it with calling everything magic now? People get good at stuff by messing up a bunch until they don't, that's it. It's like watching someone cook without a recipe and saying they're a wizard, no they just burned a lot of dinners first. We turn simple practice into some big secret when really it's just boring old time and mistakes. Thomas's uncle had it right, you just do it wrong until your hands figure it out, there's no hidden manual.
Why do people always call skilled work magic? It's just years of practice until your hands remember the moves without you thinking. My uncle was a rigger and said the secret is doing it wrong a thousand times first. Those fair demos skip the messy learning part we all go through. Keep trying with your shoes and one day it'll click like nothing.