Duncan writes:

‘One thing I am struggling with right now is palming playing cards. I know this is no doubt just down to practice, and I haven’t been able to devote much time to it at the moment, but any help/tips would be appreciated!’

Hi Duncan,

Good for you for wanting to develop some sleight of hand. It is possible to do a whole range of close-up magic tricks without having to learn any sleight of hand at all, but seriously, that’s no fun, and sooner or later you’re going to want to add some into the magic you perform. Your question shows me instantly the cause of the problem you’re facing. I’d like to give you some advice about how to fix this.

Before I do this, I should say that I’m not interested in describing the steps required to perform most palming sleights. There’s a huge range of different techniques, and countless books, and videos on the subject of palming playing cards. Just type in ‘how to palm a playing card’ into google or YouTube and you’ll get more tuition videos and step-by-step guides than you could ever need. However, these all tend to miss out a few important points about learning the techniques. They go through the moves of holding the playing cards, and how to position their fingers. But they all seem to miss out how to practice the technique correctly.

Your main problem.

You aren’t committed enough. You have to make a resolution to practice magic. Not just occasional practice when you feel like doing it. You need a consistent structured program of learning over a set period of time. It’s this resistance to practice that stops most people moving past performing only self working magic tricks.

‘Do or not do. There is no try.’ – Yoda

Learning a skill is about devoting your time and attention to improving your ability. There are no shortcuts. That being said, here are some tips which will help speed up the learning process:

I’m not sure from your question whether you are learning palming with playing cards or coins, so let’s look at both:

How to palm playing cards.

I recommend that you do a magic practice drill of 10 minutes each morning and 10 minutes each evening. You’ll need to do this in private to start with until your palm technique becomes subtle enough to perform around people.

Building a good close up magic mirror, and using it regularly in your practice sessions will help you identify any weak spots in the angles of your technique.

The key to mastering palming playing cards is to go unnaturally slow at first. You want to learn the process in a smooth and thoughtful manner. Forget about speed, and allow it to increase naturally by itself. Be aware of the positioning of your fingers. You need to eliminate any gaps and telltale signs that you’re holding a card. Over time, you’ll find that this becomes easier and smoother providing you learn at a slow and constant pace.

Small hands and the placement of the card.

As you go through the motions, stop and examine the placement of the playing card in your hand. Don’t worry if your hands feel too small. It’s very unlikely that the size of your hands will stop you being able to palm playing cards. Some of the most talented card magicians have very small hands. It’s all about placement. Work on getting the playing card ready on the top of the deck and take note of the exact position that allows the card to be easily palmed. Now concentrate on the position of the card in your hand. Working very slowly will allow you to examine whether you are placing the card in exactly the right position. If you go to quickly it will be hard for you to notice when you’re placing the card correctly, or if something needs to be adjusted.

Examine your hands.

Take a moment to relax in front of a mirror and notice how your hands look normally. The first thing you’ll notice is that your hands don’t tend to be extended completely flat. The natural resting position for your hands is with the fingers slightly bent. Now, lift up one arm whilst keeping your hand totally relaxed. Notice how your hand look. That’s the appearance your hand needs to imitate whilst palming a playing card. Don’t skip this exercise, it’s valuable to be able to notice what natural looks like.

Build the motion of palming into a larger gesture which looks normal.

A strange thing about palming is that you’re actually doing something whilst pretending not to be. Because of this, many magicians will hide the small motion of palming a playing card, behind a larger motion of moving their arms or body. This could be pivoting to either the left or right with your body as you make a comment, or address somebody not directly in front of you. Perhaps you could take the deck of cards with your other hand so that the hand that was holding the deck is free to make a gesture. As you practice you will find many larger motions that look natural to you, and the way you move. Think about how these movements can be used at the moment when a palm needs to take place.

Your eyes and body.

Your eyes are one of the most deceptive weapons you have as a magician. If you make eye contact with a spectator they will almost always return your gaze. People will look where you look. It’s very important that you’re not looking at the deck of cards at the moment that you palm a card. If you pay attention to that moment, your spectators will do the same.

Offbeat.

The best time to palm a playing card is on the offbeat. That’s the moment of relaxation between two events. Let’s say that you have had a card selected and returned to the deck. At that moment, all the spectator’s attention is focused on the deck of cards. You need to create an offbeat moment. You can do this by looking at the spectator for a second, and making a comment, asking a question, or making a light-hearted joke that requires some kind of reaction. At the moment of their reaction, you have misdirection that you need.

Practice card palming as much as possible, especially when it’s not required.

In the tuition that I run with magicians, one of the most requested techniques is the classic force. It’s a very simple method of allowing a spectator to apparently choose a playing card whilst influencing their selection. Just like palming a playing card, it requires timing to make it most effective. I often advise magicians to practice the technique when it doesn’t matter. Whenever a magician needs to have a card chosen, they can use that opportunity to try out the classic force. In just the same way, whenever you have the misdirection, you could try to palm a playing card, and then return it back to the deck. If it fails, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t really part of the trick anyway. Over time, you’ll notice how easy it is to palm a playing card during the offbeat moments within a magic trick. This will give you a huge boost to your confidence in the technique.

Use your pocket.

One practice technique that gets good results is to use your pocket to palm playing card. After you have revealed a playing card at the end of a magic trick, you place it in your pocket. Once your hand is in your pocket, palm the playing card as you take your hand out. You could then reach into another pocket which might contain a card to wallet device, such as the 21 production wallet. This all happens in the offbeat as you’re making casual conversation with the spectators. Using a pocket to practice often allows magicians gain confidence in the appearance of their hand whilst holding a card, without having to worry about loading the card into their palm in full view. It also allows them to perform a card to wallet magic trick, without having to worry about palming the playing card off of a deck of cards in full view of the spectators.

How to palm coins.

The great things about coin magic is that the props that you use of available everywhere. In fact, you probably always carry a few in your pocket. I found that in the UK the best coins to practice palming tend to be the UK 50p and the UK 2p coins. Both these coins have good definition on their edges, which will make it easier to palm. Start carrying coins with you everywhere you go. Holding a coin at your fingertips and moving it in and out of palm continually. Practice this way for at least 10 minutes each morning and 10 minutes each evening. You can do this while you go about your normal business. Not only will this slowly build up muscle memory, it will also start to tone and condition your hand.

As you continue to practice, you will notice that you become less aware of the coin in your hand. It’ll become an automatic behavior. You’ll also start to notice that other people quickly become less aware of the fact that you’re playing with coins all the time.
I hope these quick tips will speed up your mastery of palming. There are lots of different ways to palm a playing card. Each magician should find a technique that they feel most comfortable with. The method you use isn’t that important. What makes a magician an expert at palming playing cards is the amount of care and attention they have put into their practice sessions. It’s about how much they really want to learn the technique and are prepared to swap their time and effort for the skill. Most people are not prepared to invest very much time in learning to master the move. They study the technique, but don’t put in the leg work to acquire skill in its performance.

If you really want to learn how to palm, start right away. Pick up a deck of playing cards. Commit to practicing the technique for 10 minutes right now. All you need to do is repeat that over and over again. Keep going in this way for 21 days, and I can guarantee you’ll be completely amazed by the results.

If you have any tips on practicing palming playing cards, or any questions you would like discussed, please leave a comment at the bottom of this page:

How do Magicians Force Playing Cards – Questions and Answers

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

Paul sent us the following question about how to learn to force playing cards:

'When reading instructions and finding something like 'use a force of your choice' or 'control the card to the bottom of the deck'. In theory, I know what both of those mean, but I'm yet to find a resource – particularly for forcing – for learning techniques that seem genuinely convincing.

Can you suggest something to me from which to learn some convincing forces and also a good tutorial on card controls? Thank you!' – Paul H

Paul, You're not along getting frustrated when you come across the phrase 'use a force of your choice' or 'use your favourite force'. We think that a magic tricks instructions should explain at least a basic force if the magic trick requires it.

The good news is that there are loads of ways to learn how to force playing cards correctly.

Solution 1 : Download this Magic Hands Tuition Download : Essential Forces

Solution 2 : Learn from a DVD. There are many good DVDs that cover the basic forces. A good one that will teach you a large range of controls, as well as the right way to use a hindu and riffle force is Born to Perform.

Solution 3 : Learn from a book : Just like DVD's there are a huge range of magic books that will teach you the basic forces. We tend to go with the most highly regarded source for beginners to learn the core sleights of card magic The Royal Road to Card Magic

You have a huge range of forces to choose from, but we would sugest learning and mastering the riffle force as your first project. Follow that up with the Hindu Force, before moving on to work on mastering a Classic Force over time. Thise three forces should provide you will all the technique you need for almost any force condition.

Help – People Want to Examine My Gimmicked Playing Cards

by Dominic Reyes 3 Comments

Christian is worried about people asking to examine his gimmicked deck of playing cards. He writes:

'I use a Pop Eyed Popper deck. The spectator maybe ask for a closer look at the deck of playing cards. That's not possible.'

That's a really good question, and one that is asked quite often, when magicians are worried about using gaffed or gimmicked decks of playing cards. Here are 5 tips for what to do when you find yourself in the situation when a spectator asks to examine your deck of playing cards.

1) Why they are asking?

If a magic trick has been routined correctly and the magic builds to a suitable climax at the end, your spectators should be reacting to the magic that they have just witnessed. It's an issue of 'engagement and reaction'. The magic trick should entertain them, and draw them into the experience, so the magic isn't perceived as a 'puzzle'. If you find that spectators just ask testing questions, at the end of a trick, look at your presentation and think about ways to make the magic have more impact or for their reactions to be increased. Are you unintentionally presenting the magic trick as a puzzle? Are you signalling that the magic trick is just a 'question' that prompts the spectator to think of 'answers'. Changing a few lines of presentation and see if that fixes the issue.

2) Look for gimmicked decks of playing cards that can be switched in and out of play.

Many gaffed decks only need to be introduced into play for a short period of time. Once they are used, they can be put away or switched out for a regular deck. Think about ways of switching your decks, or ditching out the gaffs when they are no longer needed. There are many devices on the market that will switch a deck easily if you prefer to avoid sleight of hand methods.

3) Build in convincers.

Many of the better gimmicked or gaffed decks of playing cards have built in systems to convince spectators that the decks are normal. The Pop Eyed Popper Deck is designed to be spread both face up and face down, so all the cards are shown to be normal. Try to avoid making a big deal about the fairness of the playing cards you use. It should be assumed that they are normal, so over proving the point can work against you and raise suspicion. The routining of the magic trick should be developed, so the playing cards are shown as much as possible in a natural way throughout the trick.

4) It doesn't happen often.

Much of the worry about spectators asking to examine your cards happens before many beginners start performing. They think that spectators will automatically be looking to try to catch them out. Part of this feeling comes from being a magician. As you have been focusing on the method for the trick, it's easy for you to forget that the method is not central to the attention of your audience. They only see the presentation and magical effect that is produced. This feeling can be reinforced for beginners as they tend to perform for their friends in informal situations. Your friends probably enjoy nothing more than trying to tease and catch you out, because that's what friends like to do generally. It's just as much fun for them to challenge you because they are not in a situation where you are there to perform for them. The normal rules of play are very different between a group of friends having fun, and a group of spectators watching a magic performance. In normal performing situations, it's actually VERY rare that people will stop the show to examine props.

5) Relax about the situation.

The most important thing to remember is to relax about it. There isn't anything wrong with simply putting the deck in your pocket if you start to get challenged and giving the spectator a big smile. In just the same way as a stage illusionist wouldn't let everyone rush up onto the stage and examine their illusion equipment. If you find yourself in the situation where a spectator asks to play with the deck, simple pop it into your pocket as they ask the question. Laugh and move on to the next thing that you want to show them.

Got some advice about how you handle people asking to examine your playing cards? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below:

How to Palm Playing Cards and Coins – Tips on Learning to Palm