theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

A Word To The Wise

Think about it... the average flourish takes approximately 10 seconds to complete. A double undercut takes 2 seconds. Long flourishes create a large timelapse in the effect and ruins the timing. Many young magicians fail to remember the important things aside from the actual technique such as timing, premise, presentation, connection, and interaction.
 
Think about it... the average flourish takes approximately 10 seconds to complete. A double undercut takes 2 seconds. Long flourishes create a large timelapse in the effect and ruins the timing.

You're simply asserting this as being true when in many cases it isn't.
As I said in my previous post, Daniel Madison uses a reasonably long flourish and it does not have a negative impact on the effect at all. After a card has been returned to the deck there is usually a pause anyway as you stop to explain what's going to happen next.
There are often long pauses in an effect anyway which break the flow of an effect anyway, e.g. somebody says something and everyone starts laughing. These things rarely cause problems.
 
Stop trivialising it by calling it juggling.

What do you have against juggling? Contact juggling (sphere play?), diabolo, devil sticks. . . they're all a form of juggling too, and they take a considerable amount of skill and practice to be any good at.

To me, a good contact juggler is a lot more impressive than a good flourisher, and is more entertaining to watch. When he or she is using an acrylic ball, it looks like the ball is floating, and the performer is moving his or her body around the ball, rather than the other way around. It's practically magic in itself, except giving away the method doesn't spoil the trick.

When it is really broken down, flourishing is, by and large, another form of juggling. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I don't understand why people seem to think that there is.
 
You make a good point... I assume flourishes actually would be good for cutting through the motionless parts of the routine. I should have been more specific.... It's mostly out of place when the magician "gives the deck a cut" and proceeds to go into 20 seconds of fancy XCM cuts. Kind of overkill to me.
 
You make a good point... I assume flourishes actually would be good for cutting through the motionless parts of the routine. I should have been more specific.... It's mostly out of place when the magician "gives the deck a cut" and proceeds to go into 20 seconds of fancy XCM cuts. Kind of overkill to me.

I've seen very few people who will do loads of unnecessary flourishes to cut the cards and very few people who would suggest that it's a good idea. It seems like you're kind of missing the point of the argument. Most people who use flourishes in their performances don't do loads of them within the effects, they would do them after the magic or inbetween effects.
 
While I don't believe when De'Vo said "Magic should be used to compliment flourishing," It is very possible to use flourishing to compliment magic.

De'vo's real name is David....
De'vo is a telemarketer who lives in Chicago...
De'vo created everything...

You HAVE to believe him

sorry bout the double post.

-Eugene Soh