Magic!

precisionk

So I decided I need a new hobby and want to learn some magic. Specifically, Sleight of Hand, with cards. I want to be extremely proficient in doing card tricks. Anyone have ideas on some books, videos, anything that can help ease me into learning?

fallaxdraco

Check a Borders or pretty much any used bookstore - magic handbooks are pretty common there. They're losing popularity, and though some people are interested in trying it, few succeed - it's actually really hard to do.

Each trick must be practiced for hours on end, and after all that work, what do you get? A trick.

area

fallaxdraco wrote:

Check a Borders or pretty much any used bookstore - magic handbooks are pretty common there. They're losing popularity, and though some people are interested in trying it, few succeed - it's actually really hard to do.

Each trick must be practiced for hours on end, and after all that work, what do you get? A trick.

Don't sell it short. What you actually get is the look on their face when you finish the trick that says 'how on earth did you do that'? I find it very rewarding.

It's definitely worth it, in my opinion. I find that they're best if you don't go up to people and say 'here's an awesome trick I can do', but just during a lull in conversation you launch into one. Coin tricks are arguably better than card tricks for that, but both work.

Books are definitely the way forward. Don't buy tricks off the internet - they're almost always not worth it. You do have to practise a lot though; practising in the mirror used to be the way to go, but with the advent of webcams and DVCams and similar, you can video yourself performing the trick to practise and see how it looks.

Lew Zealand

Ricky Jay is the king of card manipulation. He's like a real-life Gambit, without the stupid accent and gay costume. I think he has a book or two out about card tricks.

SilverWind

One guy at the university I go to wanders through the cafeterias at dinnertime, doing card tricks to groups of people eating. It really was quite amusing (and yeah, he was pretty good, too, so it was surprising) and it de-stressed a whole bunch of people during exams. So... yeah, if you try and get your practice in that way (once you can pull off the trick), I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Shogun

Some good tricks are simple and require rigged decks. Look up the Svengali deck and the "Card-Toon" trick. I used those a long time ago and they always are crowd pleasers.

malkoth

oh man, i totaly remember using the card toon trick, which was basically getting someone to pick a card, and then you flip the deck like a flipbook and the stick figure would pull their card from a hat... awesome stuff.

Zonkytonkman

there's some cool stuff you can do where you get a person to think of any card, then just show it to them, not chance for trickery or fancy shuffling. Blows peoples minds. The trick is to do stuff to make them think of the card that you want them to. Cool stuff.

Shogun

malkoth wrote:

oh man, i totaly remember using the card toon trick, which was basically getting someone to pick a card, and then you flip the deck like a flipbook and the stick figure would pull their card from a hat... awesome stuff.

Yeah that trick was tough because flipping the card right before you reveal everything is a tough sleight of hand maneuver but if you pull it off that trick is really amazing because you can sit there and continually do it.

edit: Only downside is the trick requires the deck and it costs around $22 iirc.

trixtah

Lew Zealand wrote:

Ricky Jay is the king of card manipulation. He's like a real-life Gambit, without the stupid accent and gay costume. I think he has a book or two out about card tricks.

whoa whoa whoa, don't diss the Gambit, mon ami

i agree with the delight when someone sits there completely brainfucking stumped on how you pulled the ace of spades out of nowhere

JohnnyCache

"Royal Road to Card Magic" is a good book.