Elimination of Excess Movement

[byu]

I apologize if this belongs in the card magic section, I figured it might belong here also.

Anyway, I was watching over all of my tricks that I recorded today, and I noticed a lot of excess movement in my hands. Cards often move out of place and stick out at weird angles just a little bit, which makes my magic lose that nice look and feel to it. When I watch professional card trick people, I notice that they are very good at only moving their hands when necessary, and the cards always stay together.

In addition, when I fan out cards on a table, I'll get a very odd shaped arc with several cards sticking underneath each other. Professionals seem to be able to very easily fan out cards in a perfect arc and each and every one of the 52 cards visible.

I believe that that kind of clean, crisp movement is one of the main things that is lacking in my movement. Does anyone know of a way for me to improve this?

Thank you for your answers,
-Brian

 

[MagicLemonBird]

I apologize if this belongs in the card magic section, I figured it might belong here also.

Anyway, I was watching over all of my tricks that I recorded today, and I noticed a lot of excess movement in my hands. Cards often move out of place and stick out at weird angles just a little bit, which makes my magic lose that nice look and feel to it. When I watch professional card trick people, I notice that they are very good at only moving their hands when necessary, and the cards always stay together.

In addition, when I fan out cards on a table, I'll get a very odd shaped arc with several cards sticking underneath each other. Professionals seem to be able to very easily fan out cards in a perfect arc and each and every one of the 52 cards visible.

I believe that that kind of clean, crisp movement is one of the main things that is lacking in my movement. Does anyone know of a way for me to improve this?

Thank you for your answers,
-Brian

Well, seems like you need to work on your thumb fan. Don't put too much pressure from the hand that is holding the deck when you fan. Try to loose it up a bit so that all 54 cards will show.

 

[chriswiehl]

just practice more. keep the cards in your hands as much as possible (without getting into trouble) but if you work on the movements and the naturalness, it will come.

 

[Andy.Boss.Glass]

just practice more. keep the cards in your hands as much as possible (without getting into trouble) but if you work on the movements and the naturalness, it will come.

**** it dude get in trouble, if its gunna make you better, like instead of playing with yourself, play with your cards.


And as far as the trick looking not smooth because the cards arnt squared:
Some great reading on this would be the paper engine by Aaron fisher. He talks about tension with your cards and how to avoid it. And look at secrets draun from underground by richard kaufman. Steve draun talks about doing moves that dont involve squaring the deck, because the decks already squared. It looks even sub conciously, supcious. If your going for a more flashy look of magic, then all i can say is practice. and then practice, and then practice.

 

[Bao Hoang]

A little tip for the fan, put your left thumb on the bottom right of the deck. Also try to experiment different thumb positions. You'll see the difference between when your thumb is on the left and on the right