Flourishing Archives

How To Learn Card Flourishing – Recommended Basics

Can flourishing be defined as magic? We don’t know. It’s a show of skill, and can be built into most card routines in a way that can be magical to spectators, so.. Well, you decide. What we do know, is that adding some flourishes into your card work, can turn a basic magic trick, into a spectacle. The real secret is that it’s not that hard to learn. You just need the right tuition at the beginning We asked some of the leading flourishing experts in the country, which DVD’s would be the best place to start.

BASICS

The Flourishing Vol 1 This assumes no previous knowledge, and will teach you the core, initial moves and formations. Nothing knuckle breaking here, which may be its strong point, as more advanced DVD’s can put off a new flourishing very fast.

INTERMEDIATE

C4 CapCuts contains some of the most eye-boggling card contortions you have ever seen! This is pure sleight-of-hand with cards and cards only.

The cuts you will learn aren’t just “show” cuts, these are cuts that you can use in the real world.

ADVANCED

The Trilogy This is the cutting edge for Florishing. Dan and Dave made flourishing popular and took it to a whole new level, inspiring and creating the whole flourishing community and this is their greatest work. Amazing production, teaching and style. Most of this stuff takes a LOT of practice, but you will master it in time. Seriously good flourishing tuition, for seriously committed students.

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If you need more help or advice choosing, please contact the Customer Care Team who will be happy to recommend items that you will love, and answer any questions you may have.

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Learning Card Magic Tricks – Problems Doing the Pass

by Merchant of Magic 3 Comments

The following conversation about learning card magic tricks, is a transcription from from the Merchant of Magic Podcast Episode 3. Dominic Reyes, Ben Williams and Paul Knight discuss a problem that one of the customers is having trouble solving.

The transcription is abridged and cleaned up (to some extent). If you prefer, you can listen to the full Merchant of Magic Podcast

Dominic Reyes: We’ve had a question from Conner:

‘I’m struggling with the Pass; everyone sees it, what can I do about this?’

Ben Williams: Learning card magic tricks like this is something every magician tries to do at some point.

Dominic Reyes: But how many magicians actually bother to perform the pass? Have you ever actually used it in a routine?

Ben Williams: This is the cold truth… It’s just hard core magic for other magician.

Paul Knight: I do perform the pass, but I don’t perform it like you see on Youtube videos and in an invisible manner. My technique is out in the open, but it’s covered with some body gestures.

Ben Williams: Conner, I don’t know if you’re a hardcore card magician, a Dan and Dave fan or one of those flourishing guys. If you are fine, you know, great, crack on, try and perfect card magic tricks like the pass. If you’re performing for spectators in the real world, essentially all focus should not be on your technical skill; it should be on your performing skills. That’s what their actually interested in. Your spectators don’t care at all what sleights or card magic tricks you use. The public just wants to see the magic happen and be entertained on their journey.

Sometimes I do use the pass. I’m not great at it at all. When I started learning it, I was so focused on what was happening with the cards in my hands, and watching videos of cards in people’s hands. I was getting so frustrated trying to perfect it.

Then it dawned on me; I realized that actually, the pass doesn’t matter. It’s just one of many choices. So I stopped practicing, and now I use the turnover pass in performance.

I prefer the turn over pass because I’m turning the deck over and could move my arm towards the table to place the deck down. That way I get plenty of cover for any flashes that may happen.

Dominic Reyes: A large action hides a smaller action.

Ben Williams: Connor, crack on, try and perfect the pass. If you’re performing for the public, there are better card magic tricks to spend your valuable practice time.

Paul Knight: Yes, that’s right. Also, it depends whom you want to learn the pass for. Is it for yourself? Is it for magicians, or is it for spectators? If it’s for spectators, I would suggest that you don’t beat yourself up over it. There are so many card controls out there and to be honest with you, whichever card control you use, the spectator should be unaware that you are controlling the cards.

Dominic Reyes: You’re doing it at an offbeat moment anyway. Whilst making eye contact.

Ben Williams: This was something I was going to mention. The pass, when it was first originally taught, was never meant to be looked at. Card magic tricks like this were never meant to be invisible. It was meant to be done under the cover of misdirection. I don’t know why people worry so much about palming cards. No one should be looking at your hands when you palm a card anyway.

The classic way to make somebody look away from the deck in your hands is to look at their eyes and ask them a question.

What you might be finding Connor, is that you’re putting too much focus on the cards at the time when you need to do the pass.

Dominic Reyes: That’s what people are looking at. They’re looking at where your attention is focused. Act like there’s nothing happen.

Ben Williams: I’ve stood there, before needing to do a move with cards, and everyone is looking at the cards. I couldn’t do the move without pointing it out. So I just sat there; relaxed, and said

“Well, I’m not gonna do anything if you look that close.”

That’s kind of a funny thing to say, but that gives you ample time to do the move under the laughs and the misdirection.

Paul Knight: The only people I’ve ever come across who say to me, “Hey how am I doing with my pass, how does this look, have I perfected it?” are non performing hobbyists.

Admittedly, a lot of the time, they’re brilliant at it. No professional magician has ever come up to me and said, “Look at me! I’ve perfected my pass.” Because they know, in reality, as I’ve just said, it doesn’t actually matter which techniques you use for your card magic tricks, if you’re performing for spectators.

Dominic Reyes: There’s a pleasure in perfection.

Paul Knight: There’s a great reward in trying to really master a move. Yes, definitely.

Dominic Reyes: But not if it’s causing you to feel worried about it because it doesn’t matter. You only need to perfect a pass for your own personal satisfaction. If it’s stressing you, just take a step away from it, for a while.

Ben Williams: Think about this as well Conner, if you’ve seen some videos on Youtube or on the internet, of people doing really invisible passes. Imagine if there was more than one camera set up on them. You are only seeing one angle. If you had 8 or 9 of those cameras chances are, you would see a massive flash of what’s going on.

Dominic Reyes: You usually only see one take. You don’t see all the rejected takes.

Paul Knight: One thing I will quickly say, is don’t try to be too textbook. Don’t follow every single nuance that is put in writing or on DVD. If a sleight is not working for you, stop looking at what your hands are doing. What can you do to cover up the moments that it flashes? Could you tilt the top part of the deck forward slightly to give you a better angle? Find out what YOU need to tweak, for your own style and pace. You don’t need to create a carbon copy of another magicians card trick technique.

NEXT: Learning the Turn Over Pass

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Hands Too Small for Sleight of Hand Card Tricks?

by Merchant of Magic 5 Comments

Do you have tiny hands? Are you finding it difficult to perform sleight of hand because of this? The truth is, the size of your hands doesn’t matter at all, it’s a myth. Everyone finds learning complex sleights like the pass or card palming, tricky at first. It’s very easy to blame the difficulty on something (anything) other than your commitment to practice.
There are loads of world renowned magicians who have small hands and have not let it stop them:

The truth is, the size of your hands doesn’t matter at all, it’s a myth. Everyone finds learning complex sleights like the pass or card palming, tricky at first. It’s very easy to blame the difficulty on something (anything) other than your commitment to practice.

Let’s look at a few ways that you can overcome having hands too small for sleight of hand magic.

Small hands = more practice.
If you think have have hands too small for sleight of hand magic, think again.. The simply truth is that you need to put more work into your practice. All the established magicians with hand or arm disabilities or small hands tend to agree that more practice is the answer. Slow things down and work on the move you want to master. It may take you longer than someone with larger hands, but every technique IS achievable. Focus more attention to the details of your angles and pacing.

You have infinite choices
There is no reason why any move or sleight should be set in stone. That’s a common misunderstanding people new to magic tend to make. They think that just because a move has been in print, it has a ‘correct’ way to be performed. This simply isn’t the case. Each move you learn should be adapted and developed to your own style and abilities. The goal is not perfection of method, but rather perfection of the effect.

‘It’s not cheating to change and adapt moves’

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“I know the Thumb Cut is difficult for short-thumbed people like me. Skip it if you have too many problems. In fact, one of the reasons I invented the L Cut and Extension Cut was that I found it easier with my stubby thumb…” – Cestkowski’s Encyclopedia of Playing Card flourishes

When you are trying to palm playing cards, try using different palms to see which one is more suitable for you. Change around any of the moves in the magic trick to fit you better. The goal is to fool people with the trick, not pass an examine on how closely you followed the method used by the first person to publish it’s instructions.

Having trouble doing a classic palm with small hands? Switch to a tenkai palm instead and just watch your angles. Need to perform card to wallet? Use a mercury card fold

Choose your coins.
For your coin magic, you shouldn’t have a problem. One of the great features of coin magic tricks is that you can use whichever coins you feel most comfortable using. Experiment with moving down from dollars to half dollars. If you need a smaller coin that’s good to palm, the UK 2p coin has a great squared edge that makes it one of the easiest coins to classic palm.

Bridge size bicycle playing cards
Another popular option for your card work is to use Bridge Size Bicycle Playing Cards. These are narrower than poker size and can be much easier to palm. If you prefer to use these, you may have to adapt any card gimmicks that you use to be in bridge size, as most card gimmicks are supplied in poker size card stock.

Misdirection and audience management.
One of the most common problems faced by magicians with smaller hands is a playing card poking out when they try to palm a card. If this happens to you, just use your most powerful weapon: Misdirection.  Make sure you talk to your spectator and wait for the moment that you have their eye contact before executing the move. Use offbeat moments when you need to do a card magic pass. One of the rules of magic is that a larger action covers a smaller action. Bring your hands up from your waist to your chest during the off beat moment during the pass. If your spectators eyes are not on your hands, it doesn’t matter how much of a flash you make when you do a move. Focus on controlling the audience’s attention and you will be delighted by the results.

DO THIS: Stop using the excuse of having hands too small for sleight of hand magic. Make a commitment to revisit the magic tricks you have previously dismissed as not suitable, and see how you can adapt them. Practice and rehearse palming and your pass like crazy and study all you can on misdirection. If you increase your effort, and change your frame of mind, you will quickly discover that you don’t have a disadvantage after all.

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Do you have any tips for people who think they have hands too small for sleight of hand tricks? Let us know how you get on in the comments section below: