An Example of the Disconnect Between Cardistry and Old Magicians

[Josh Burch]

Paper Cuts is by Chris Hestnes is a classic in the cardistry community. I have heard only good things about it from those who actually flourish. I was a little surprised when I read this review. It is very disheartening. I felt like the steps that cardistry has made to be taken seriously have been substantial but we still are in a place where the old guys look at it in a completley different way to those in the community.

"Holy Crap! Chris Hestnes is an incredibly talent dude. His level is one to aspire to if you're an XCM guy. For those of you just tuning in, that's not X-Rayed Cow Membrane. It's eXtreme Card Manipulation, and Hestnes is one of the best.

"For $35 bucks, you get over two hours of eye-candy, 13 visually stunning extreme flourishes, an incredibly produced DVD and a pretty big piece of ad copy that does NOT live up to its claim. The ad copy claims that anyone with basic knowledge of card handling can easily follow along. I beg to differ. I have a pretty advanced (or worst case scenario intermediate - certainly beyond basic) knowledge level of card handling, and it was not easy. In fact, some of the stuff was basically not learn-able because portions of the teaching that I felt were needed were just not there. As you'll see below, the method of teaching left so much material untaught.

"The bottom line is this: If you want to spend $35 to watch a couple hours of incredible flourishes, in all likelihood, you'll be happy with your purchase. However, if you plan on learning these moves, I think you'll be quite a bit disappointed. The method of teaching is to have a camera above and behind Hestnes, looking over his shoulder while he does the sequence of moves very slowly. There is no talking, no discussing of finer points, no help on tricks or tips on mastering the moves; just Hestnes doing the moves slowly. That's it.

"Again, the material is incredibly entertaining, but the teaching is just not there. There are, for example, a few moves/sequences where he seems to be using some pressure in a particular way to get the cards to fling into the air and flip over and land on his other hand. It's just not very clear how he's doing it. This would be a perfect place for some commentary explaining what's going on. In fairness, in the bonus section there are a few moves/flourishes taught with verbal explanations. But for the most part, there is a ton of information that is lost or missing due to the method of teaching.

"Some flourishes might be learn-able via this method, but most of them on the DVD, in my opinion, are not. If you just want some killer entertaining flourishes to watch, as I said, you'll like this video. If you want to learn them, you probably will not.

"So, I'm left with a middle of the road decision.

"2.5 Stars with a Stone Status of Grubble (sort of gem and sort of rubble)."

 

[wZEnigma]

It's a fair point. Project Aviv is another example of this teaching style where it's assumed the learner has prior experience in cardistry. The non-verbal tutorials are difficult even for experienced cardists. Verbal tutorials aren't always necessary, but

Obviously, since the reviewer thinks it's still called XCM, he might have an incorrect bias about cardistry as a "punk" thing or whatever. But I would completely disagree with saying that he's dissing cardistry.

 

[Duncan F.]

Honestly, I have the same issues with D&D material. The silent, slow-mo teaching method is really hard to learn from. I'm used to it because I learned from the Trilogy, but as a newcomer, I can totally see why this guy is disappointed with his purchase.

 

[magicdamadude]

I felt like the steps that cardistry has made to be taken seriously have been substantial but we still are in a place where the old guys look at it in a completley different way to those in the community.

I very much agree. I think some guys who dislike it think that cardists are attempting to perform magic and whatnot with flourishes, when in reality, cardistry is a completely separate entity at this point. They seem to categorize all cardists into a group of kids who are trying to do fancy card magic. While there still are plenty of people who incorporate flourishes into their magic, many of today's cardists couldn't have magic farther from their minds. This is what I don't think the snippy ones take into consideration; cardists don't want to do magic and they aren't TRYING to do magic. Older guys have it set in their minds that you can't do stuff with cards without it being magic. The two have become different and separate skill sets, and it is up to us to decide whether they are connected in our own work.

As for the Papercuts DVD, I'm not sure if the guy was dissing cardistry, as mentioned above, but I will halfway agree with the fact that the teaching format isn't perfect. I don't think that anyone should purchase a cardistry DVD under the assumption that they would be able to learn the flourishes included after one watch. It ain't gonna happen. Many of the cardistry tutorials and DVD's I've seen are just slow-motion clips where you follow along. It is difficult to learn from and takes a lot of time.

I have an eternal flame of love in my heart for The Virts and the way they produce their material. They really go above and beyond on how detailed their explanations are and how well they teach. The production value is top notch; I have never enjoyed watching a cardistry tutorial video as much as I do when watching theirs, apart from Zach Mueller's stuff. I, for one, would like to see more in-depth tutorials and "guided" slow-motion clips across the board, not just D&D's site or on The Wire. In my opinion, it really reduces the learning curve dramatically.