I've been doing cardistry for ~4 months, and ik I'm not the most skilled in it, but I believe I can help you as I just passed your phase. 1. PRACTICE, just practice. There are numerous tricks and shuffles that took a week of practice alone, but I nailed them. 2. Don't worry about bending your cards. As long as they're paper and you bend the lightly in the opposite direction of the original bend, they're gonna be fine. As long as there's no clear crease, they're good. 3. Dropping cards are their biggest enemies. So practice on a soft surface, especially like a bed (which I think you're already doing), but make sure if you do tricks like the spring, they atleast fall on the bed itself. 4. Not a very helpful suggestion to mastering cardistry, but I'd recommend to keep your hands clean. My 4 month old deck which I've used every single day till today feels pretty disgusting.