Hi, I started learning properly about a week or so ago, after I was given the recommendation of a couple of books.
I've been practising this week, just wondered if I could get some feed back on how I'm doing and if I'm doing anything really wrong.
Cheers guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiyujYnaozM
Brendan,
Looks like you've got a good start! The foundation is there, things just need to be refined.
With the classic color change, if you haven't yet go check out
this. It's Jonathan Bayme teaching the change and it's completely free. He gives a lot of good advice on how to make the classic color change look the best it can. It'll say this in the video, but make sure you never completely cover the face of the card; that's extremely important. You always want the spectator to be able to see some/most of the face.
As for your pass, you did pretty well for how long you've been practicing. Passes are hard to judge over a webcam though. The move is much harder to hide when people are staring at your hands watching for it. As long as you can keep those angles when performing in front of people you should be set. One thing that doesn't just pertain to the pass but most of your video... try not to move your body/torso around as much. I did the same exact thing when I started, my entire body moved along with my pass as if it was trying to help hide the action. Doing that only makes it more obvious something is happening. Practice just doing the pass slowly and calmly while keeping your body naturally still.
Practice the flourish slowly as well. Again you're on your way, but you want to have smoothness before speed. Make sure you can do it slowly over and over without any hiccups and the speed will come much easier. A slower, smooth, controlled flourish looks 100 times better than a fast, uneven, jerky one.
Lastly, the double lift looked.... odd. I could see you pulling up the cards in the back to get a break, and for some reason the way you held it up seems unnatural. But then again I don't know how you regularly turn a card over. Pick up a deck and turn the top card over as if you were showing it to someone; your double should match that as closely as possible. If you turn a single over one way and a double a completely different way your spectators will notice something is different. They may not come to the conclusion that you have two cards but it will seem off.
Keep practicing! You're well on your way. Keep at it for a few more weeks or a month and show us how much you've improved.
One last thing, loosen up too! When you handle cards it should feel natural; just grip them comfortably. When you squeeze or hold on to the cards harshly a spectator can see the tension, plus a light grip makes most moves easier.