My apologies up front if this is the incorrect forum for this. I am a newbie when it comes to card manipulation. When I was in my teens through my thirties when I enjoyed just performing card and coin tricks just for the heck of it I pretty much was straight-forward with it. No flourishes. Mainly because I had no tutors, books on the topic available to me basically sucked, and there were no videos I knew of. So I didn't bother. Somewhere in my thirties I pretty much stopped with the cards and coins. Don't really know why. However I'm just beginning to get my feet wet again in regards to card tricks.
With that being said, the first flourish I'm trying to learn is a basic card fan. I figured I would use Youtube for tutorials and found quite quickly that there are dozens of differing techniques. I've tried several and some work better than others for me.
However I am having a minor issue...whereas the experienced card handler seems to be able to spread all 52 into the fan, I cannot duplicate it. At best I get all of the first three suits but only a card or two of the fourth. No matter how much I practice it just doesn't get any better. I guess any card fan is better than no card fan at all but I'd like to have a clue as to what is preventing me from going the "full monty" [multi-level pun there]. Are my hands too small? Too chubby? Too "meaty"? What?
A couple of quibbles I have with Youtube tutorials on the topic: 1) it seems a lot of the folks making the videos are taking for granted their skills and are projecting that anyone can do the basic moves seemingly forgetting that the newbie like myself lack any basic technique and 2) c'mon people...with video technology it would be a big help for us newbies if slow motion examples are presented...real time action makes it difficult to see the nuances required for a good fan. There's a lot that goes into a smooth fan. I get that. I'd like to see it in real-time and then the same fan in slow motion. Best: real time with two camera angles...one below and one above and then show the same in slow-motion.
More apologies for the lengthy rant.
With that being said, the first flourish I'm trying to learn is a basic card fan. I figured I would use Youtube for tutorials and found quite quickly that there are dozens of differing techniques. I've tried several and some work better than others for me.
However I am having a minor issue...whereas the experienced card handler seems to be able to spread all 52 into the fan, I cannot duplicate it. At best I get all of the first three suits but only a card or two of the fourth. No matter how much I practice it just doesn't get any better. I guess any card fan is better than no card fan at all but I'd like to have a clue as to what is preventing me from going the "full monty" [multi-level pun there]. Are my hands too small? Too chubby? Too "meaty"? What?
A couple of quibbles I have with Youtube tutorials on the topic: 1) it seems a lot of the folks making the videos are taking for granted their skills and are projecting that anyone can do the basic moves seemingly forgetting that the newbie like myself lack any basic technique and 2) c'mon people...with video technology it would be a big help for us newbies if slow motion examples are presented...real time action makes it difficult to see the nuances required for a good fan. There's a lot that goes into a smooth fan. I get that. I'd like to see it in real-time and then the same fan in slow motion. Best: real time with two camera angles...one below and one above and then show the same in slow-motion.
More apologies for the lengthy rant.