I'm an untalented twit: the pressure fan.

[LFTKBS]

I'm not sure if the rules on this board permit the discussion of flourishes in any detail, so I'm not going to say anything until I ask if I can ask about the pressure fan, which apparently I am doing one hundred percent incorrectly.

I don't want to learn any tricks - I just like flourishes.

[LFTKBS]

I'm going to assume that discussion is verboten or that no one knows or that no one cares. Heh. Well. Prob'ly the last one. Yeah . . .

[whistling nonchalantly]

[Quinn]

Check out Expert Card Technique (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0486217558/qid=1064556438/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-2347913-7382549?v=glance&s=books) by Hugard and Braue, available in hard copy for around ten bucks at most well-stocked bookstores, or for six bucks as an e-book from Lybrary.com (http://www.lybrary.com/). Also see this discussion (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~roy/magictalk-wisdom/discussions/pressure_fans.html) of the fan.

Quinn

[homunculus]

Deck in dealing position in left hand, face down (for this example). Pick up the deck by putting your right thumb in the middle of the back end, and your right 2nd finger in the middle of front end. Index finger should be curled on top, your nail resting on the back of the deck.

Press the side of the deck up against the crotch of your left thumb, and gently buckle the deck by pressure of your right fingers (it should buckle upwards).

Gradually release the pressure as you turn the deck in a clockwise motion.

After about six million hours of tedious practice, you should end up with a perfect fan, the white edges of the cards radiating outward like spokes. It's a "knack" thing, so you'll just have to persevere until it clicks.

Some magicians won't admit this, because it's one of the first things you learn (so they've forgotten how much time they invested in it themselves) but this is a very difficult flourish to master!

Good luck,

Paul.

[LFTKBS]

Thanks to both Quinn and homunculus. I think I'm frustrated because it didn't take me very long to do the thing where you buckle the cards inwards and they fly from one hand to the other.

Hours of practice remaining for the fan: 5,999,993.

[Brown]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
I don't want to learn any tricks - I just like flourishes. Other good flourishes include cutting the deck with one hand. I know four ways to do it. (Some of these techniques can be incorporated into "tricks," of course.) A more difficult flourish is to cut the cards with one hand, then intermesh them--effectively shuffling with one hand.

Card tossing is a good flourish. Throw a card in the air and have it boomarang back to you. If you're really good, you can "catch" the thrown card in a fan of cards.

Another entertaining flourish is card flipping. Basically, you hold the deck in one hand and flip over the top card with your fingers. If you're good, the top card looks like it flips over on its own.

[LFTKBS]

Ooohh - I like the sound of card tossing. What books would you recommend besides Expert Card Technique?

[Brown]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
Ooohh - I like the sound of card tossing. What books would you recommend besides Expert Card Technique? Mark Wilson's course on magic shows the basic technique. I believe Ricky Jay may also have a book about the technique, but I have not seen it.

[Brown]

A further note as to a fun aspect of card tossing:

I once attended a performance by a Taiwanese "acrobat" who made cards appear from nowhere (this is becoming a standard part of the Chinese acrobats' repertoire). In the course of her performance, she threw cards way out into the audience... and naturally, I threw them back.

[LFTKBS]

I've practiced tossing cards, you know, hard, and I've got about a .5% (yes, that's point 5) success rate. Very embarrassing to watch. I read an excerpt from "Cards as Weapons" (IIRC, Ricky Jay) and that's what got me so nuts on the flourishes thing.

But nothing about the boomerang technique. Looks like I'll be buying some books this weekend.

I like the mental picture of the acrobat tossing a card into the audience and it magically (with help from Brown) coming back a few seconds later.

[rustypouch]

Yes, Ricky Jay did write the book "Cards as Weapons," but good luck finding a copy.

I heard from the man who owns the magic shop I go to that it is a rare, and sought-after book, which tends to put the price into the hundreds of dollars.

[Peter S.]

I strongly recommend the Jeff McBride video series on card manipulation. It will keep you busy for a long time!

[LFTKBS]

Thanks again for all the recommendations. Re: throwing cards hard: I've gotten some impressive successes lately by putting the long end in between the index and middle finger at an angle such that ~60% of the card's edge is in between those fingers, and then flicking it kind of like a Frisbee (or non-Frisbee-brand flying disc). It seems like the less flesh-to-card contact, the truer the card's trajectory.

My friend and I stopped after a couple of hours once we started hitting each other in the face though.

Not quite up to the boomeranging. BTW, this thread is a lot more fun for me than the non-stop Infuriating Ian/T'ai Chi nutcase ones.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Brown
Basically, you hold the deck in one hand and flip over the top card with your fingers. If you're good, the top card looks like it flips over on its own.

If you have the top card slightly off to the left (if you are holding the deck with your right hand), you can quickly move your hand (and the rest of the deck) down, and the top card will flip over without you touching it. You can keep doing this as long as the top card stays aligned well enough.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
My friend and I stopped after a couple of hours once we started hitting each other in the face though.


I hope you're talking about cards here! :P


Not quite up to the boomeranging. BTW, this thread is a lot more fun for me than the non-stop Infuriating Ian/T'ai Chi nutcase ones.

Yeah, I hate those type of nutcase threads.