A tip.

[Double Decker]

I have a tip for certain magicians outs there. The tip goes to you if you have cold, dry weather where you live. If you have cold, dry weather you should practice and perform in it. This is because when you use the cards they get oils in them from your hand. Over time this ruins the cards. Now obviosly you should wash your hands like being advized before. But also, if it is cold and dry and out your cards WILL perform flourishes better in this weather. I've experienced this first hand every time I go outside. What ends up happening is the cards get dry and crisp because of the air tempature and non humidity. The only downside to this idea is that it freezes up your hands over time. This just means you have to prepare youself. Go inside once in a while and warm your hands up with WARM (not hot) water. It can hurt your hands if you warm them up to fast. Finally make sure their warm before a performance.

Do it...it works...

 

[Dex]

I approve.

I was out of school waiting for a trip home one day and I started flourishing to kill boredom.
And man, my hands were frozen, but the cards felt great.

 

[richard]

I hate it when my hands are cold.

Some people suggest putting your deck in your freezer to get the same effects without freezing your hands. I haven't tried it, but you might find that interesting.

 

[trashmanf]

that works well but you don't want to develop a crutch where you have to have cold cards in order for you to fan correctly.

also if you put your cards away moist at all, it can actually damage them to go into the freezer. put them in a ziploc bag or ideally vac-seal them if you can.

basically humidity is what kills the deck for card manipulation. Jerry has TONS of tips on this on his show Flashcards. one thing you can do , rather than depend on always having an iced-down deck, is just switch decks every 5 minutes.

having cold hands makes it very very very difficult to manipulate cards. I remember when I was recording a bass track for this band I was in college, i had frozen hands, and the song came out sounding like sh!t because I couldnt for the life of me play. same thing would happen if you tried to perform with chilly hands.

ever heard of a great invention called "GLOVES"!?!?! lol actually I've been looking at good gloves for XCM'ing, it would keep the oil/humidity transfer from hands to deck down. yet the crux is finding gloves that still allow for the finger control you need.

the best candidates I can find, although I have not tried them yet, are gloves that are therapy for "Edema" which is just a fancy word for swelling. they have open finger tips which are necessary for the control needed in say, running cuts where you need precise control of breaking off certain numbers of cards. check them out here:

http://www.activeforever.com/p-56-edema-gloves-open-finger.aspx

if anyone has tried gloves i would like to hear how they worked out for you, although I'm probably going to waste the 10 bucks to try these out regardless. YMMV

 

[TheMagicalSock]

I used to have some gloves exactly like that. If I can find them I'll cut some holes in the fingers and tell you how it goes. Sounds like a decent idea.

 

[Double Decker]

Yeah...I'd rather have the full gloves. They take more skill and are more impressive. Jeff mcbride uses full gloves.

 

[Double Decker]

Guys, I tried the freezer trick...nowhere as good as outside.

 

[squaresoft]

I live in the UK and it's winter now. It's freezing cold out there and when I do street magic, fluorish or not, I do it. Just because magic is simply my passion. I'll do it no matter what it is like around me!

One thing I feel about doing magic in a cold country or in a cold season, I would use that excuse to tell my street spectator that I'm not that good when I'm cold (in fact I'm well prepared for any tricks I know). The reason why I do this is because I want to let my spectators feel that I'm just a noob trying to show something. I prefer them to watch my magic unprepared, rather than them being prepared to watch something big.

I tried both ways, the reactions I got were simply different! Usually they go mad when they're not prepared for cool tricks.