Top Shot Help

[Creeper]

Hey guys,
I recently learned Lennert Green's top shot, and I'm having a little trouble. I have the basic technique down, and can get it 5 or 6 times out of ten. My problem is that when I do the move, the card spins 360 degrees all around, not 180 like its supposed to. So if I'm holding a deck face down, I do the move, the card ends up in my hand face down, as opposed to how it should be, face down. Thats my main problem, but I'm also having trouble with the catch. It will either hit my hand and bounce of, or I'm too late to close my fingers. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance,
Creep

 

[ElisG]

The catch is just practice, that may sound like a cliche but when I started I could never catch it(it used to bounce off my hand like yours), and I thought I must be doing something wrong, but now I can do it 9/10, with practice i'll get it 10/10(hopefully).

 

[RichmanMatthew]

Try holding the deck with less pressure so you don't have to shoot the card so much.

 

[Creeper]

I'm hardly applying any pressure.

 

[ElisG]

Try holding the deck with less pressure so you don't have to shoot the card so much.

It depends what you're after i'd say, some people like to do it as more of a magical production and only shoot it a small distance and then move their hands apart, but I prefer doing it as a flourish so I shoot it around half a metre and for the latter you need to hold the deck lightly and execute the flick quite forcefully.

 

[conjurer77]

These tips are helping me also. Please keep them coming...

 

[Loz]

I know you don't want to hear this but there are no tips, you really just have to practice. Before you can catch the card consistently you need to make sure that the card is being propelled to the same place each time - therefore you need to keep the way that you shoot the cart the same each time. The card (for me at least) doesn't come out horizontally from the pack, it comes back towards your body at a shallow angle so hold your catching hand towards your body a little bit.

As for the card turning over, make sure your thumb and index finger are in the right positions - the thumb should be resting on the side of the deck, with the fleshy part barely contacting the top card, and your index finger needs to be sticking out above the deck.

But really, just practice.

 

[FatalAce]

Try just putting just enough of your pinky on the card. If you have too much of your pinky contacting the card, problems may occur. Just have maybe less than a centimeter contacting the card and shoot it out. Also, make sure your index (or any other fingers for that matter) isn't tripping the card on it's shoot out. Hope this helped.

 

[mattjones]

I'm glad I caught this thread- I've been practicing the top shot recently and these tips are really helping me out...
One of my favorite moves...