Saturday Night Contest - Fall In Love

Nurul

Elite Member
Dec 8, 2013
239
186
Birmingham, UK
I was in Year 2, was about 7 years old and my teacher, Miss Padam, showed me a trick.
To this day, I don't know what the official name of the trick is called but its the storytelling one with the 4 each of the court cards and the 4 aces. It's mathematical, but back then I had no idea. I mean, it being mathematical I still don't know how it's done I'm sure you can put a formula in place lol but yea, that kick started it all for me.
 
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Nov 29, 2019
42
41
33
UK
My family took me on a trip to London one weekend, and whilst we were there we got to see a rather peculiar, gaunt looking guy sitting in a box drinking nothing but water, this would’ve been about day 20 of the stunt.

That peculiar guy was of course, the incredible David Blaine.

I went home and begged for his book for my birthday, which I duly read and attempted to master a few of the sleights that had been seen on his debut tv series, Street Magic.

This, this was the moment.


Good luck to everyone, and happy Valentines weekend!
 
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Nikolay Karagyozov

Elite Member
Jun 22, 2012
193
201
I got very inspired and shocked when I saw Penn and Teller performed the Coins to Fishes trick.

It blew my mind, but not only that..it was so perfectly performed that it looked like actually wizardy. I fell inlove instantly. That was more then art and passion. It was a way of life.
 
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Stratego

Elite Member
May 18, 2017
146
182
I have to say that I felt in love with sleight of hands when I watched therussiangenius doing passes. Since then I have hold a deck of cards every day.
 
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Jun 18, 2019
540
293
20
West Bengal, India
I fell in love with magic not in the beginning, that is, not when I had first started doing magic. Then it was all about impressing friends.

I fell in love with magic when an effect I had performed fooled my class teacher too. Because until then, in my mind, it was all about "fooling" people. A teacher was not somebody who was supposed to be fooled, they were one of the people my 11 year old brain classified as 'The Smart People'.

That made me realise that there was more to magic than fooling people. There was something else. And I fell in love deep.

PS: Ah, those days. We don't see that often any more, thanks to Exams, and often I end up seeing Cardistry sometimes but hey, humans make mistakes and I've never officially cheated on Magic so...
Although reading all the above responses, I have a feeling Magic...that maybe Magic is seeing other people T_T
 
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Gosh_Josh

Elite Member
Apr 26, 2013
52
44
32
Indiana
My love of both magic and cardistry struck simultaneously around my early middle school days. David Blaine was a familiar name in my household, and then I randomly stumbled upon the trailer for De'vo Vom Schattenreich's Cradle To Grave project. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before. Although cardistry wasn't a word thrown around back then, the flourishes and card stunts shown instantly had me wanting to learn more. I eventually got the DVD for Christmas, along with some Black Tiger decks from Ellusionist and a signed playing card from De'vo himself. From then on, I was enamored with having a deck of cards in my hands.
 
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May 12, 2019
30
19
Lynchburg Va
When my friend from school showed me a 3 card monte and i thought "hey, it could be nice to know a few magic tricks other then the one or two horrible ones i know." After that i got more into magic then i ever imagined and started to create some original magic.
 
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Mar 1, 2018
90
67
Mat Franco's quatefinal performance on AGT (The one where he vanishes the phone) randomly popped up on my youtube recommended list and I watched it. I then spent the whole evening watching magician performances on AGT and Fool Us. I was amazed and that evening I fell in love with magic.
 
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Dec 1, 2019
16
22
I think I fell in love when I saw a show with Mr. Messado when I was little. I was one of his volunteers and I bought a trick at the show after. It was fun.
 
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CWhite

Elite Member
Jul 22, 2016
769
962
I got involved in magic watching Criss Angel's Mindfreak on TV. His "teach a trick" segments gave me the opportunity to blow my youngest daughter's mind. The card stab was the first one I tried out. I then purchased his first magic kit at a local store and have been enthralled ever since...
 
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Nov 3, 2018
542
427
I fell in love with cards after watching Richard Turner perform on Penn and Teller, but for a year or so my interest lay mainly in the cheating and hustling realm, with the magical aspect more of a side hobby. However, reading essays on magic theory - reading about what magic can be -, watching Ricky Jay's performances and, last but not least, the discussions right here at Theory11 (shout-out to @WitchDocIsIn and @RealityOne!) made me fall in love with magic.
Strangely enough, though I'm still extremely interested in card cheating, cheating demos / techniques aren't my main magical focus. Quite the opposite: I love quick, visual magic, that can nevertheless be packed into a greater story and presentation (Scott Robinson's magic is a good example).
 
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Sleck

Elite Member
Nov 26, 2017
124
98
I've always enjoyed card tricks or magic in general, though I did not truly fall in love with it until I got into cardistry and started collecting playing cards. It all started with this video uploaded by The Virts. This was back when they had just released their SS15 deck and I was totally mesmerized by their cardistry skills in the video. In fact, it was the first time I've seen cards being shuffled around like that - I did not even know it was physically possible! Sure, I've seen simpler moves such as sleight of hands, double lifts, springs, and what not in card magic tricks, but never anything like that.

Right after I finished that video, I immediately pulled out my old Bicycle decks and began looking up more cardistry tutorials on YouTube to practice on my own. Not so shockingly in hindsight, I just caught myself falling down into the rabbit hole. This was my first step into the cardistry world and had just discovered this niche and relatively small community. I still remember spending the rest of that afternoon watching a bunch of tutorials and other cardistry moves on YouTube, I just couldn't stop. Not gonna lie, thinking back, it might have been one of my favorite afternoons of all time - just letting my cards dropped onto the floor, picking them back up, being carefree on a nice summer day and not caring about a single second passing by. As the days and weeks went by, I began discovering more cardistry pioneers such as Dan & Dave, Theory 11 (of course :p), Zack Mueller, etc. Along with that, I learned more about the playing cards themselves, as they were an art on their own. Each card producer had their own style of playing cards and that sparked my interest into collecting them. I focused a lot of my attention into learning about the history, story, and design behind each deck.

All in all, playing cards have always seem to be part of my life. Whether it'd be card magic, cardistry, gambling at the baccarat table (oops), playing poker with friends, or even just from a pure collecting perspective. I'm glad I've stumbled upon this niche hobby and the only regret I have is not discovering it sooner! :)
 
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Jan 3, 2019
149
145
16
It's hard to trace back the exact moment when I fell in love with magic, as I feel it was rather a collection of moments out together that made me love magic the way I do. The first time I remember was in the second grade, when a student from a local high school stopped in, and showed our class some magic. Although the details are a bit foggy, I remember him doing the ambitious card, as well as the card to pocket. I was very impressed by his skill, but I still didn't really think of magic as an activity that just anyone could do. The second of the memorable experiences happened the next summer, when we went to a children's event magic show at our library. He performed several tricks, including the board suspension illusion, and a paintball routine. This combined with the performance of the highschooler earlier that year has left me thinking that magic was a neat thing to do, but I still didn't think that it was something for just your "ordinary" prople. Finally, another couple of months later, when school started again, my dad showed me the trick in which a card is chosen and then inserted into and retrived from the deck. I learned this trick with my family's deck of ten-year-old Hoyle playing cards that we used to play war with. Then, several weeks later, it was raining during recess, so we had to stay inside in the classroom. I'm that particular classroom, we had a bin full of packs of cards to play games with. I don't know what made me do it, but I grabbed one of these packs of cards, and approached my then teacher, and asked her if she wanted to see a magic trick. I then showed her this trick, this was the first time I ever performed magic for anyone. Now that I look back upon it, I realize that my break was just me holding the top part of the pack a good inch above the bottom part, and that my teacher's "amazing reaction" was just her making me feel good about myself when all I had just done was simply reveal the trick to her. I guess that that's just how things are. Then, the next year, I moved to my current home that year I preformed in my school talent show that year. It was terrible, I was hunched over my deck, mumbling "is this your card," and the trick ended up failing anyway, but my assistant was kind enough to lie and say, "yes," even though he knew as well as I that it wasn't. Over the next two years, I participated in the talent show again twice, and each time, my act became considerably better. Then, in the summer of two years ago, I received my first pack of bicycle cards, which was a huge improvement from my then-standard of 14 year old hoyles. Finally, the last part of my story, and quite possibly the part where I actually began to realize that I could actually one day consider being a magician as a career was when I discovered theory eleven, about a year ago from an ad card, and, by extension, when I won my first Saturday night contest, which also boosted my belief in the possibility of being a professional magician. So here I am, 5 years after my first discovery of magic at the age of 7. And in that time, I have come so very far from 2 inch breaks and hunched over mumbling. Magic has made me who I am. Although I have no idea where my life may take me from here, but no matter what happens, I hope and pray that It will never take magic away from me. Thank you all for your incredible support, and sorry for the long post, I just felt like I simply had to make It so long so that I could include every major step of my adventure. Magic means so much to me, and it felt wrong to leave out a single detail. Thank you for bearing with me as I went back over my personal journey in magic, and also k apologies for the poor quality of my writing, and grammar -I am only 12 years old, and not the best of writers. Thank you for, despite this fact reading this post of mine, and may all of your journeys in magic be prosperous and joyful.
 

010rusty

Elite Member
Nov 12, 2016
1,276
1,730
LA (Lower Alabama)
I remember sitting in my room playing with hot wheels at the age of like 8 when my brother ran into my room and said "you got to see this".
I ran into the living room to see a cemericial for the luxirious
CRISS ANGEL PLATINUM MAGIC KIT
So that's what we asked for Christmas. I'll never forget sitting with him watching the DVD and just being in awe that there was was a world i'd never seen before.These were things that no one else knew about. Something that you could show someone and entertain them for one day unlike comedy(which i was also interested in) it wasn't something everyone felt like they could do. It was a new and creative way to entertain people prestended by Criss Angel who I was fully convinced was the coolest human on the planet. I actually remember getting on my mom's Computure which still ran on dial up internet, and waiting for AOL to boot up and watch Teach a Trick segment just like @CWhite, and just BUSTING OUT laughing at Johnny Thomson lowkey heckle everyone. Every since then my love has snowballed to where it is now
 
Feb 9, 2020
12
7
I was first introduced to magic about a year ago by my brother, who has developed a strong affinity for card tricks. He introduced me to a channel called Rise Magic, and from there I discovered cardistry by watching their ASMR videos. I was really impressed by the way cards could be used to expressively, and that made me want to start learning cardistry instead of merely looking up magic tutorial channels in an attempt to discover the secrets of card tricks.
I was first introduced to magic about a year ago by my brother, who has developed a strong affinity for card tricks. He introduced me to a channel called Rise Magic, and from there I discovered cardistry by watching their ASMR videos. I was really impressed by the way cards could be used to expressively, and that made me want to start learning cardistry instead of merely looking up magic tutorial channels in an attempt to discover the secrets of card tricks.
 
Nov 16, 2019
96
43
I first started doing magic at a very young age (like 5-6) when I saw a magician perform at my local library. I learnt a couple of tricks and promptly forgot all of them and lost interest in magic after a while. Then about two years ago, I saw somebody on AGT perform some trick (I do not remember if it was Shin Lim or Matt Franco) and started learning magic and performed magic to my friends, family, and also strangers in stores and restraunts. So that is how I started getting into magic.
 
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CaseyRudd

Director of Operations
Team member
Jun 5, 2009
3,393
3,801
Charleston, SC
www.instagram.com
Congrats to CWhite and Sleck for being chosen at random to take home this week's prize! Please contact our support team with your details so we can get your prizes out to you ASAP.

We really enjoyed reading all of your stories and seeing what makes the art of magic and cardistry so special in your lives. We hope that love and passion burns bright for the rest of the year and beyond. See you all on Saturday for a new contest!
 

010rusty

Elite Member
Nov 12, 2016
1,276
1,730
LA (Lower Alabama)
Congrats to CWhite and Sleck for being chosen at random to take home this week's prize! Please contact our support team with your details so we can get your prizes out to you ASAP.

We really enjoyed reading all of your stories and seeing what makes the art of magic and cardistry so special in your lives. We hope that love and passion burns bright for the rest of the year and beyond. See you all on Saturday for a new contest!
AYYYEEE LETS GO CWhite!!!
And a huge congrats to Sleck As well!
 
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