sleight of hand Archives

Seldworking-tricks-or-Sleight-of-hand One of the most frequent questions we get from people starting to learn card tricks, is how to begin. They want a first step, and ask us what card tricks for beginners we recommend. This is where the problem comes in:

Do we recommend a book or DVD on card tricks, that are self working and easy to perform, or do we suggest a beginners book that teaches the basic sleights used in card tricks?

Two Choices of card tricks for beginners:

Self working card tricks – There are some awesome books and DVD’s that will get the beginner doing card tricks right away. Our current favorite choices currently are these:

BBM-Ultimate-card-tricks

Ultimate Self Working Card Tricks
All the team are very impressed with a magic training DVD for total beginners, and also working pro’s. The whole team were instantly impressed with the guiding principles that started the project. To put together a set of very strong professional tricks, that are self working, and strip away all the complicated plots and abstract nonesense found in most collections of this nature. The project fits perfectly with the teaching principles MoM uses with magicians that come for personal tuition to the shop, and we now recommend this DVD to all our students doing training with us.

Born to Perform Card Magic
An idea stepping stone into card magic and the DVD Ben Williams always recommends to new students. It covers the basics’s but does so, by introducing actual tricks that use those principles.A good mix of card tricks, which progress the student though each stage of development, without simply jumping from new sleight to new sleight

Magic is all about performing. The study of magic is a means to an end, not the end itself. Starting with some very easy card tricks that you can go out and perform right away, builds confidence, and helps you to understand timing and presentation. The goal of magic practice isn’t to spend countless hours in solitary practice, although over time that will also be necessary. The sooner a beginner can start learning through real world performance the better.
We see far too many eager beginners get disheartened after spending hour after hour learning more and more new sleights and moves, with no purpose to them other than the thrill of mastery. After years of practice, it often dawn on them, that they don’t know a full set of interesting card tricks, to create a show, and at this point they often give up.

If you choose to learn card tricks rather than just card moves, you build your skill set over time, only as you need each move. In the end, you will slowly progress your sleight of hand anyway, but will have a group of tricks you can do, right from the start as a base to develop from.

Card Tricks with Sleights – The other route would be to suggest the beginner to study a book or DVD that focuses on the core moves required in most card tricks. We tend to recommend these:

Amazing Book of Cards
One of the clearest, and easy to follow books on card tricks we have found. As well as teaching how to do 52 tricks with a deck of cards, it combines friendly, concise text with full-color photos. It won our backing bu including an excellent full-length DVD that teaches the lessons and most importantly, shows the subtleties of performance. This is often lacking in beginners books.

Encyclopedia Of Card Sleights By Daryl
Stuffed full of juts about every core move a beginner needs, this is an ideal source of material for magicians wanting to perfect a move.
Daryl is a brilliant teacher, and his love for magic shows thoughout the series. Each volume has been carefully chaptered with clear menus to let you jump directly to any sleight or explanation you’re looking for. Unlike many other DVD’s on sleights, Daryl goes well beyond the mechanical process.Focusing your time on perfecting your sleights will really pay off in the long run. As long as you find a useful purpose for the technique, there is a beauty in making something perfect, that can be very addictive. Developing your techniques can also encourage creativity in magic. The move techniques you master, the easier it will be to adapt your existing card tricks and develop new ones. The key to progressing quickly, is to concentrate on just a few moves at a time, and work on them over a long period of time. Remember, that just because they are not routines, you will still need to perfect the timing and flow in exactly the same way you would with a full card trick routine.What do you recommend? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below:

I received a question today that gets asked quite often, so I thought I would answer it on this blog instead, so as to get your opinion too.

The Question:

‘What do you think constitutes a true magician? Using 100% gimmicks 100% of the time, is something that feels a bit disingenuous when calling myself a magician. What do you feel is the perfect balance between real sleight of hand and gimmicks when performing close-up magic?’

Well, my answer tends to be that I don’t think it matters AT ALL. The method really isn’t important and focusing attention and time on it is actually one of the traps that stop people learning to become a magician.

ASK YOURSELF THIS:

Do you want to be studying close up magic or to become a magician?

The two options are actually quite different, but their paths both lead through the doors of a magic shop, so people can often end up switching to the wrong path along the way.

Magicians are made one trick at a time. I recommend you choose a magic trick because it looks amazing and because you feel it would suit you. Then learn it and study any sleights needed to perform it perfectly. If it uses only gimmicks great. If it uses hardcore sleight of hand that’s great too. The world’s top magicians only care about how amazing and entertaining their magic trick looks, not the method. If fact, they work hard to find a method that is as easy and direct as possible.

Knowing lots of sleights and techniques doesn’t make you a magician, it makes you an encyclopedia.

What makes a surgeon? Would you call a surgeon a fraud for using the latest medical equipment? Should he or she insist on only using a scalpel and a piece of wood for the patient to bite down on? No, quite the opposite. I want my hospital to use every piece of the latest equipment possible to get the job done as well as possible. The surgeon’s job is to fix people. Your job as a magician is to amaze and entertain people. It’s the end result that defines the job title.

What magical powers would you like to have?

Definition of magician

noun

a person with magical powers.

a person who performs magic tricks for entertainment.

From Oxford Dictionaries

I couldn’t find any reference to a person that knows lots of magic techniques and moves in the definition anywhere. Only someone with magical powers and someone who entertains with them.

Instead of collecting moves and sleights in an endless cycle of studying close up magic in general, decide what magical powers you would like to have. Do you want to be able to fly? Would you like to be able to read peoples minds? How about being able to move objects just by wishing it? Go ahead and choose your powers, then search for magic tricks that would show those powers to your audience in the most entertaining way possible. Once you have that, you can then learn the methods to allow you to perform just those tricks only. That’s one of the real secrets of magic.

I hope my answer helps
Dominic Reyes

Have I missed something? Do you disagree? Do you have any suggestions that would also help someone studying close up magic? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below:

Card Tricks for Beginners – Which Are Best?

Studying Close Up Magic – How Not To Fall Into The Trap

noun