Little Hand Tricks

Mmmm... Cocks...

So a while ago a friend of mine taught me how to spin a pencil up and down your four fingers. I never really cared about it till I started college, ha. Whenever I'm in school I sit there with a pencil, listening or not, twirling. Recently somebody reminded me of the awesome little scene in The Prestige of Christian Bale doing that with a ring. I'm quickly getting that down to.

Anyone know any other simple things I can do to keep my hands occupied and what not? I'll probably look up the spinning of a coin thing but I was hoping for some others.
Even some simple slight of hand magic tricks would be cool.

Anyone?

tech_hunter

In the casino Royale re make the bad guy with the messed up eye did this cool thing with poker chips, also there is that trick of walking a coin down the backs of your fingers.

Mmmm... Cocks...

Yea, I've seen a few coin tricks(when poker popularity boomed, eh). Like shuffling three coins with one hand - or the spinning of one up and down the back of your hand. Though I've heard thats hard with a quarter even(needs to be kinda big).

Vorus

http://www.coinmanipulation.com/

Very cool site for anyone interested in being "the guy who can do the cool tricks"

krl

I can take a matchbox, take one match out and light it, all with a single hand in around 6 seconds. Quite easy to learn.

Prepare to burn your fingers a couple of times though ;-)

Wheezer

tech_hunter wrote: »

In the casino Royale re make the bad guy with the messed up eye did this cool thing with poker chips, also there is that trick of walking a coin down the backs of your fingers.

http://pokerchiptricks.com/archives/2004/09/23/thumb-flip/

I actually had much more respect for the bad guy in the Bond movie before I saw the linked site. I followed the instructions, and after a few nights I could perform the flip reliably with both hands.

It's not really that difficult if you know where to start from. There are very difficult tricks with poker chips out there, especially the one the site titles "the butterfly" - you're supposed to take a stack of four chips, and then spread them between the gaps of your fingers, excluding your thumb. Impossible I tell you.

ViolentChemistry

MateriaMaster wrote: »

So a while ago a friend of mine taught me how to spin a pencil up and down your four fingers. I never really cared about it till I started college, ha. Whenever I'm in school I sit there with a pencil, listening or not, twirling. Recently somebody reminded me of the awesome little scene in The Prestige of Christian Bale doing that with a ring. I'm quickly getting that down to.

Anyone know any other simple things I can do to keep my hands occupied and what not? I'll probably look up the spinning of a coin thing but I was hoping for some others.
Even some simple slight of hand magic tricks would be cool.

Anyone?

It's practice and figuring out what to do with your fingers to make the thing move. Just think about mechanically how you have to move your fingers to make the action you saw work, and then practice it over and over until you develop the manual-dexterity to do it consistently and well. I like to do this with lit cigarettes. :P

Ramius

So a while ago a friend of mine taught me how to spin a pencil up and down your four fingers. I never really cared about it till I started college, ha. Whenever I'm in school I sit there with a pencil, listening or not, twirling.

When I was in school, there were several people who could do this trick. Though it looks easy enough, I never could really get it down.

krl wrote: »

I can take a matchbox, take one match out and light it, all with a single hand in around 6 seconds. Quite easy to learn.

Prepare to burn your fingers a couple of times though ;-)

I can do the same with a matchbook in about 1 second, as seen in the movie "Cocktail".

trixtah

Ramius wrote: »

So a while ago a friend of mine taught me how to spin a pencil up and down your four fingers. I never really cared about it till I started college, ha. Whenever I'm in school I sit there with a pencil, listening or not, twirling.

When I was in school, there were several people who could do this trick. Though it looks easy enough, I never could really get it down.

krl wrote: »

I can take a matchbox, take one match out and light it, all with a single hand in around 6 seconds. Quite easy to learn.

Prepare to burn your fingers a couple of times though ;-)

I can do the same with a matchbook in about 1 second, as seen in the movie "Cocktail".

Once you get that, spin it back in the reverse direction

Mmmm... Cocks...

Awesome guys - thanks for all these.

I'd really like to hear more about the matchbox one, sounds great. (Though not something I could so at school I guess, ha)

Blake T

MateriaMaster wrote: »

Yea, I've seen a few coin tricks(when poker popularity boomed, eh). Like shuffling three coins with one hand - or the spinning of one up and down the back of your hand. Though I've heard thats hard with a quarter even(needs to be kinda big).

Spinning a coin up and down your hand isn't "hard" to learn, but takes a long time to master. The people in coin manipulation use Australian 20 cent pieces which are pretty much the perfect size.

krl

MateriaMaster wrote: »

Awesome guys - thanks for all these.

I'd really like to hear more about the matchbox one, sounds great. (Though not something I could so at school I guess, ha)

I saw it on a YouTube video, but I couldn't make out how he did it thanks to the crappy quality. So I figured out a method of my own. Getting a match out is the easy part. To light it I hold the match down on the side of the matchbox with my thumb, and push it forward (away from my hand) with my index finger. I can post some pics if you'd like, but you should just try to find a method that works for you. :-)

ben0207

It's not so much a hand trick as a quirk of being double jointed, but I always flex my fingers backwards when bored. Gets some interesting looks, especially bending my thumb back onto my wrist (which is simply the loveliest feeling after spending a day typing)

Squirrel Ninja

I'm a big fan of the Boris from Goldeneye trick. Spinning a click pen around in one hand and typing with the other, mutter "I can break her codes" for added effect.

ShimSham

Squirrel Ninja wrote: »

I'm a big fan of the Boris from Goldeneye trick. Spinning a click pen around in one hand and typing with the other, mutter "I can break her codes" for added effect.

You would not believe how much I do that since seeing that movie when I was younger.

Every time I have a pen(cil) and I'm not writing, I'm spinning my pen like Boris.

DekuStick

I like to mod the springs of my pen so when I click it down on the desk I can kind of push it a little bit and it'll flip back into my hand.

I could never quite get the thumb pencil spin or the pencil to spin between fingers. It always gets hung up somewhere.

edit -

ViolentChemistry wrote:

I like to do this with lit cigarettes.

I just tried this and ow I burned myself

area

trixtah wrote: »

Ramius wrote: »

So a while ago a friend of mine taught me how to spin a pencil up and down your four fingers. I never really cared about it till I started college, ha. Whenever I'm in school I sit there with a pencil, listening or not, twirling.

When I was in school, there were several people who could do this trick. Though it looks easy enough, I never could really get it down.

krl wrote: »

I can take a matchbox, take one match out and light it, all with a single hand in around 6 seconds. Quite easy to learn.

Prepare to burn your fingers a couple of times though ;-)

I can do the same with a matchbook in about 1 second, as seen in the movie "Cocktail".

Once you get that, spin it back in the reverse direction

How? I got forwards down pat in about an hour, but nearly two years later can't go backwards for the life of me.

EDIT: Just saw that there's a tutorial for just that on the site