Trust us when others say that speed will come. I've been trying my hand at Dan And Dave's The System and Flourishes DVD's too slowly working on smoothness for the last year or so, just waiting for extra speed to come, and was just about to put a post up here asking about speed. Wouldn't you know it, my speed has finally kicked in last Teusday. Literally from one day to the next my hands all of a sudden started working faster. "About darn tootin' time!" I say.
Anyway, my journey into Flourishing DVD land went: Devo's Xtreme Beginners, Showoff With Cards (Magic Makers I think), Dan and Dave's System and then Trilogy.
Xtreme Beginner's I thought was great when I first saw it. Now looking at it's contents I initially wonder what I ever learned from that DVD
. Thinking about it, it began my finger dexterity, flexibility and strengthening journey and really set me up for bigger and better things by learning some real basics.
ShowOff has TONS of moves progressing from beginner to advanced, sort of. There's at least clear verbal instruction though. The more elaborate cuts are not only repeated in the teaching but are then done with clear card-size pexiglass so you can see which fingers are manipulating which packets. Important teaching tool that makes things easier to learn, I think. The cut's are fairly straight forward and a great 2nd step in my book. Production quality isn't Ellusionist or Theory 11. but the teaching gets it's points across well.
Dan and Dave takes flourishing to a whole new level as a lot of people here in the forums would agree. If the first two DVD's show you basic steps and combos, the Buck's now put it together into some awesome choreography. When you begin to get their stuff, you get the feeling "Let the real schooling begin...!": New concepts and different ways to use your fingers...
It's amazing how many times you'll find yourself yelling at your fingers as if they not only understand english but as if they're deaf too... sigh...
In my mind, Devo's stuff makes me go "Ooooo!". The Buck's stuff make me go "DAMN!"
Just a couple of thoughts to improve your learning curve.