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Card Magic Core Skills, Moves and Sleights For Magicians

by Merchant of Magic 3 Comments

card magic core skillsSleight of hand is something that can become a life long and rewarding journey. To get off on the right foot, and stand a chance of battling this monster, it’s best to be prepared!
There are some fundamental card magic core skills you should first learn with a pack of playing cards before focusing on tricks that are achievable with sleight of hand. These skills are transferable across many different card magic routines, so are really essential learning.
We will cover these in a chronological order. Move through them in turn, as each skill builds upon the previous one.

Dealer Grip

– This is the standard way to hold a deck of cards, EVERYTHING stems from here, so learn this grip well, it will become a great new friend!

Biddle Grip

– This is a grip that your non dominant hand will use, learn to successfully and smoothly transfer the deck from hand to hand using these two grips.

 

Card Magic Core Skills: Shuffle work

It is very important that you can competently shuffle a deck of cards without dropping cards. This displays skill and when done properly any lay man will be happy that the deck is legit. Here are some shuffles to look up and learn.

– Overhand Shuffle

The classic ‘running cards’ shuffle, this is the most common of all shuffles.

– Riffle Shuffle (and bridge)

This is the shuffle everyone wants to be able to do. Standard in casinos and all over the world this is the fastest way to randomise an order in a deck of cards.

– Hindu Shuffle

This is a variation of the over hand shuffle. This is a useful shuffle to know as it can be used as a shuffle, a control AND a force.

 

Pinkie Break

If you want to have cards legitimately selected and revealed the first step to conquer this is the Pinkie Break. It is a secret way of always knowing where the selected card is within the deck. One of the most valuable techniques used in most magic card tricks.

 

Card Magic Core Skills: Controls

The next step in finding a spectator’s legitimate selection is to learn some controls. These are card magic core skills used to ‘control’ the spectator’s card to wherever you want it.

– Double Undercut

For most magic card tricks, this is the most common of all controls, this is not only a simple technique but also a very deceptive one.

– Overhand Shuffle Control

One of the simplest controls to learn as far as technique is concerned, the overhand shuffle control is a very useful tool to have.

– Hindu Shuffle Control

A rarer control but even more deceiving than the double undercut. The card is controlled whilst shuffling the deck.

Card Magic Core Skills: Forces

The ability to coerce a spectator into selecting a card of your choice (not theirs) in a supposedly fair selection process is a core component of so many magic card tricks. So many magic tricks and routines are possible once you have mastered a good force, so use it!

 

– Riffle Force

The easiest of all forces to learn, this should be the first force you learn to perform well

 

– Backslip Force

Much like the riffle force this is a simple force to learn and very convincing when performed correctly, there are lots of traps you can fall into when learning this force so beware. Practice it when you perform magic card tricks that don’t depend on it, so you gain experience.

 

– Hindu Shuffle Force

This is a great force that is easy to do. If you have mastered the Hindu Shuffle successfully then this force will be a breeze!

 

– Classic Force 

Although not necessary to lean, I have included the Classic Force here as the sooner you learn the classic force the better you will become at it. The classic force is not technically not hard to perform, however to perform it convincingly and with confidence takes a lot of practice. Use the technique as much as possible whenever you perfrom your magic card tricks so you get practice, when it’s not vital to the outcome of the trick.

 

Double Lift/Turnover

This sleight is a great utility tool for EVERY card magician, you can make cards change, vanish, transpose and so much more with this sleight.

 

Triple Lift/Turnover

The triple lift or turnover is an extension of the double lift/turnover. Technically similar to the double lift the triple variation on this sleight opens up some new doors in your card magic.

 

Top Change

Magic card tricks like the top change can be a hurdle for many magicians, as it is a sleight performed under their noses and under misdirection it will seem like you will never get away with it. If you do learn this sleight successfully you will have a great string to your bow.

Card Magic Core Skills: Miscellaneous Sleight

– Elmsley Count

The Elmsley Count is widely regarded as the most versatile false counts in card magic, a lot of mars tricks utilise this great sleight.

 

– Erdnase Colour Change

Performing a colour change well is one of the most magical card tricks you can do with a deck of cards. The Erdnase Colour Change is one of the easiest colour changes to learn

Palm

To palm a card from a deck is a very useful tool, it can be utilised within many card to impossible location routines as well as a way to secretly add or remove playing cards from the deck. Again many people palm cards badly, if you learn the nuances of the move and examine your technique, you will be fine.

 

– Top Palm

The standard palm, this is usually the first palm a sleight of hand artist will learn. Although not used in many magic card tricks, it’s the core move in palming and should be mastered.

 

– Gambler’s Cop

This palm is called the gambler’s cop for a reason, it is a very deceptive palm that was very common in the gambling scene. It jumped over from ‘cheating’ to be used for many magic card tricks. The gambler’s cop takes advantage of how you would stand naturally, allowing you to retain a card in palm whist your hands look entirely natural.

Card Magic Core Skills: Flourishes

– Springing the Cards

This is the action of literally ‘springing’ the deck of cards one by one from one hand to the other.

 

– Dribble

This is like springing the cards but instead of forcing the cards from one hand to the other you use gravity, letting them fall one by one from one hand to the other.

 

– Charlier Cut

The Charlier Cut is a one handed cut that is a nice display of skill, accomplishing nothing more than a cut of the cards this is a nice flourish to perform as a casual display of dexterity. Adding a Charlier Cut adds finesse to most magic card tricks.

There are lots of other card magic core skills and sleights you can learn. However, if you learn these core sleights and techniques well you will be able to easily study most magic card tricks you will come across. Of course, the journey of sleight of hand is never ending, but these fundamental techniques will set you off in the correct direction making it as easy and manageable as possible.

 

NEXT:

Why do people collect playing cards? 

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Filed Under: how to do magic tricks Tagged With: beginners, Card Tricks, learning magic, sleight of hand

Comments

  1. Doug Peterson says

    September 27, 2015 at 3:10 am

    Hi,

    I am just starting out learning card magic. Should I apply the 20/20/20 practice system to each of these as I learn them? And when I have finished learning one and move to the next, how should I keep practicing the ones I have learned?

    Reply
    • Dominic Reyes says

      September 28, 2015 at 11:23 am

      Hi Doug.

      I’d recommend that you apply the 20/20/20 drill to each trick or move you want to master. The goal is a focused and systematic approach that stops you jumping from move to move, or trick to trick before you master it.

      I recommend learning moves in the context of full tricks/effects, so you reinforce the techniques each time you perform the full routines. You need to get out and perform as much as possible. Performing with a working set of material. Performing keeps the tricks in shape and is the whole goal of your hard work. Your working sets are the tricks you will ‘keep in shape’ the others will slowly become rusty unless they are performed often.

      Keep performing a working set of tricks, whilst building or changing the sets with new material as you need to do so to keep things current and fresh. Only work on material that you want to build into your working sets. Choose tricks that fit, then drill them and add them once they are ready.

      If you have long periods between performing, you will need to drill each of the tricks from time to time to keep them in ‘working shape’ perhaps running through them a few times each week. That’s not as good as regular performance, but at least it will keep them ‘oiled’.

      Hope this helps

      Dominic

       

      Reply
      • Doug Peterson says

        September 29, 2015 at 6:34 am

        Thank you. I will follow this advice.

        Reply

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