I do sleight of hand, but I nearly never do self working trick, but I really love self working trick, normally because it is hand free and clean. The most thing that matter for me is presentation and routine and practice , do things you love❤!!!
Seek out old magic magazines. Lots of buried treasures. There is also a gentleman by the name of Sean Devine who has an excellent RU-vid channel. Best thing about his channel is properly cites books and credits creators. So you not only learn a trick but he points you in the direction to learn more.
Mate, your what sleights to learn section was such an amazing segment, your the only person I’ve found that has given me some general direction on how to approach learning all this stuff. I really appreciate you for that. New subscriber here.
As a beginner I honestly found it hard to identify where I should start and watching your video explaining it with such a great consistency was pure gold. Thank you so much for sharing with us!
I really, really appreciate the start of this video. I practiced magic to an extreme through my teenage years and I stopped because I got discouraged. I hit a point with cards where no matter how hard I practiced I just could not learn/perfect more advanced slights, and I ended up just stopping entirely because of it. I just this year decided to start getting back into the hobby and actually practicing, and the start of this video has been extremely motivating to me to keep trying and move forward. Thank you David, love all your videos but this advice series has been absolutely amazing to go through!!!
I also believe the old saying “ If they like you, they’ll like whatever you do! But if they don’t like you, it doesn’t matter what you do! If you can connect with your audience on any level then that is the path for success with them
I very much agree with your "by any means" approach - I can do very complicated sleights and it is kind of satisfying to get away with something very complicated - but at the same time - the amount of mileage I've got out of something as daft as a one way forcing deck is absurd. And when you don't have to focus on the moves you can put everything into the presentation and make a miracle out of something so simple.
This is a wonderful video, sir. Much appreciated. To me...more than the 'small hands' excuse (which I feel I could overcome with correct & proper practice) more than that is the guiltiness. That feeling of guilt whenever there's any sort of...hiding or concealment is involved. So my obstacle is more of a mindset/phycological one. Some days I could top change a card easily, other days I couldn't cop a card away without sweating, haha.
Huge issue and many are guilty of running without being chased. Worst that can happen is you get busted and have a laugh, I mean, they don't think you can really do magic, do they :) Have fun with it, its the most important.
Magic is an art, in in order to excel at an art form people have to practice and they have to have goals to improve the quality the content the performance of the art for. I remember Eugene Berger saying in the penguin live chat that there is excellent magic for every level a Magician might be at. Having said that, if you look at a dancer, an elementary school level dance is going to be nice but ballet is definitely a different level of the art form. I think it’s important to recognize that self working tricks create some amazing miracles, but with slight of hand you can perform miracles that you cannot do with self working tricks
I bought Gypsy Queen so I learned the Top Change. I can't do a riffle shuffle so I learned an: Off Table Faro. I want to hang out with the cool kids so I'm spending the rest of life learning The Pass. It is my humble belief the first thing to master is: A fan. My favorite movie: Triple Charlie Cut. Thank Dave. Totally soild. 🧐
So I'll try to keep this short but this reminds me of a hard2hurt video I watched recently where he said the only criteria for choosing a martial art is that it's fun, affordable, and easy to get to. That's it. Self-defense, competition, fitness, these reasons are valid but so is "I practice because it's fun." I just mention this because between that and hearing you say "You're a magician no matter how you do it, just do what's fun," I'm really liking this shift away from snobbish "You have to practice/train because you LOVE IT." I especially like the "By Any Means Necessary" part where you basically say "Magicians are the biggest fakers ever and you do that with two simple goals: Have fun and entertain." I mean, I'm not deep enough in the fighting or magic community to say how many people in those communities are like that but we know it's more than zero. It's just very refreshing to hear people who are high-level and knowledgeable in their craft validate that whatever your reason is for practicing is, it's the right one. I could've used that a year or so ago when I fell off magic because I did fall prey to the mindset "I gotta do this to be amazing and incredible" because for me, that is honestly a very pressuring, terrible mindset to have when starting something. Anywhos. I'm thinking about hopping back on and maybe this was the gentle encouragement I needed to get back into it. And in case anyone was wondering, I started practicing martial arts earlier this year. And not pressuring myself to be great has done wonders.
Terrific advice throughout this video. I love self working tricks and I have discovered that, on occasions, utilizing a sleight or two makes the trick even stronger. Great list of sleights too. The "Diagonal Palm Shift" is one of my favorite palming techniques. Thank you David!
I just watched this again and it's even better advice the second time around. It's all correct and your comments are right on. "Except my hands are too small" LOL
great video, I agree about small hands, I started with that problem but now it is a strength. The main slights I use are double lift, double undercut, glide, Hindu shuffle, and in jog.
100% believe the only thing important is how good the trick is..! The audience doesn’t care or know the difference… I always show my audience the best magic I know… 🙏😃🎩
Hi David. This is invaluable to me. I got into magic over the Pandemic but had no clue where to start so I hyperfixated and bought a tonne of stuff. This drills down into what I need to do. I'm grateful for your help :) I love this channel and your other channel. I recommend you to everyone I know who's even just into being a spectator.
I'm very much a hobbyist magician only performing to friends and family, I'm all fingers and thumbs when it comes to sleights even sometimes struggle with the easier sleights such as double lifts and pinky breaks. I really love the self working tricks though as a lot of them allow the spectator to perform the tricks which makes it even the more amazing to them as they have no idea how it happened.
Excellent choices for beginning sleights. I also like a memorized deck (I currently like Richard Osterlin's memorized deck). Combined with a false shuffle, mind-bending miracles can be performed.
This is a great video. Good references to study. Always been a book guy but might check out some of the DVDs. Talks about self working hate. I think every working magician has a couple self working tricks in their repertoire. David comes across as a really standup guy that loves magic. I have heard people in the magic world be negative on him because he is not a working magician. But he has an amazing amount of knowledge. He is up to date on what is going on in magic. I think he is a good man. I love his videos. I been a magician over 30 years and really enjoy his channel.
Get card college light trilogy (light,lighter,lightest) by Roberto Giobbi the title says :” professional card magic without sleight of hand” I venture to say that “out of this world” is a trick that always kills… no slight of hand
David Williamson's Sleight School has a section he calls "Boot Camp" which features short videos going over a whole bunch of standard, useful sleights. It's fantastic, and the subscription is only $9 a month! The boot camp is only one part of the subscription. (I'm not affiliated just pumped haha)
Awesome Video! I think you have to mention the Jordan count when you mention the Elmsley, its the count that gets you back to Elmsley position, I learned it when learning Twisting Aces. For me, Packet Tricks was how I started learning, most only have a couple of sleights and it gives you a great opportunity to learn them exactly as you described. These kids today with their fancy videos, learning sleights from a book was a harrowing experience once you got it, oh man!
I totally agree with you 100%!!! I'm an amateur magician but I'm also a seasoned guitarist and oil painter. Magic is an art. Period. I've seen terrible art work and heard terrible guitar. Who cares. Hell I'm still walking around with a coin bender. STILL amazes people. I'm good with that and the haunted deck and a couple more. Thanks David!
Sleights or sleight free makes no difference AT ALL!If you get the same effect without sleights as you would with sleights then absolutely fine.There are a massive amount of sleight free card tricks that are way superior to sleight card tricks.But........if you can do a bit of both then that’s really cool.Do sleights you are competent and comfortable with.Keep trying and practice.Enjoy the journey.Really enjoyed this fabulous advice.Thanks.
David, Could u do videos on which sleights to learn if u are a beginner, intermediate ans advanced and which tricks to learn that have that sleight in it?
If you are performing magic of any kind, you are a magician. But you must perform to be a magician. Just as you are not a writer if you don't write anything. Self working often means some kind of procedure, so people feel like something is going on the just don't know what. The reason real sleight of hand kills is because it seems like you don't do anything and the magic just happens.
David, the way you handled and answered this question is one of the MANY reasons why you are: 1. one of my favorite people I’ve never met 2. an astonishingly wonderful & generous person 3. an incredibly talented & gifted teacher (as well as…) 4. a brilliant magician …and if you’re wondering what the reason is for saying “many reasons” rather than saying “X amount of reasons”, that’s easily answered. There are more reasons than I can say off the top of my head, so, in order to give you an accurate/specific number, I’d first have to work out the maths-fetch a pad & a pen, sit down at my desk, then put the pen to paper, list said reasons, and then FINALLY, however many hours later, count out the number of things I’d written-which is pretty time consuming. And by then, well, I could have already mastered every magical sleight out there! So while it’d be nice to give you an actual number of reasons for why you are a wonderful human being, I’ve just got far too much magic to learn (as well as quite a few other things that I’m quite keen to discover and learn as well📚🤔💭. What? I’m a complex woman, David!), I just don’t have the time! ✨🃏🪄🙏❤️✌️ with a lot of thanks and love, Hillary/the empress of loquacity💋🙏❤️✌️
great video David … so much information … philosophy, resources and suggestions 👍🏻👍🏻 thank you just received Roberto Giobbi’s “Card Magic Masterclass” and Ian Kendall’s “Bas**rd Hard Moves Made Easy” … also, lots of RU-vid videos as well … great comment to “find a teacher you like” … a lot of your philosophy of card sleights is also true for coin Magic … practice … practice … practice
I've started watching Royal Road to Card Magic with R. Paul Wilson 3 years ago, and I think I'm on chapter 3... Although it's a good resource, I keep getting sidetracked by other tricks... Rick Lax released his Mnemonica Trainer, so I was into Mnemonica, then I got Card to Wallet wallet, I now needed to learn palming, and so on and so forth... I was never able to just sit and learn from instructional DVD from beginning to end. besides, some sleights take months to practice before you can move on to the next chapter. So your advice is solid: find tricks you'd like to perform, and then learn the sleights involved. On a related subject: I cannot say enough good things about Kostya Kimlat's Roadrunner Cull - it's wonderful.. I have a horrible double lift, but I can cull the entire deck with no problem ;)
Hi David, thanks for posting this. I am just starting out in card magic and like a lot of beginners I have started learning sleight free self working card tricks, I am a fan of John Bannon and have found his 'Move Zero' DVDs a great way to get started, on his four disc box set he performs then teaches some great tricks which when you watch the performance you would think you would have to be a professional magician to do these tricks but they really are sleight free. To learn sleights I have 'Liam Montier's Essential Card magic Toolbox' which is an eight DVD box set which includes the sleights that you listed plus a whole lot more and there are card tricks to learn which use all of the included sleights. Many thanks David, I always appreciate you honest reviews and advice.
Magic is supposed to be fun, I think for the spectator and the magician, whether you’re slight intensive or not, who cares?! I love to learn, really intense, slide of hand, but I know it’s not for everyone as long as you’re enjoying yourself.
I started with Royal Road and now am on Card College. Btw, there is a dvd for Royal Road that was done about 25 to 30 years ago which is great for us video learners and Card College has videos for the first two books as well. A wealth of knowledge there. Also, may I add something that has helped me, if there is a particular sleight that I’m struggling with, I will move to another sleight and revisit the one I struggled with in a few days/weeks. I find many times I pick it up quicker the second or third time around. Anyway, thanks for sharing, great vid 👍🏼
@@magicorthodoxy "Called you out for liking slight free magic tricks" - Your words. "What do you think" Also your words. So I stated, I think the guy that called you out is a plum. What did you miss! 😅
Hey David,love your content,and until today i agreed with everything you said...why until today? slight of hand magic don t look more like real magic...2 effects that look like real magic and don t use slights... Mental Die and Infinity Watch 3...i love those effects,in my opinion they are the closest thing to real magic and they don t use slights :) and Electric touch to :) 🙂🙏
I like this. Sleight of hand is such a small part of magic. I love it, but anyone putting rules on magic should really take a look at why they're in magic on any level. The magic bullies maybe good at card magic, or sleight of hand, but don't let them fool you. They're a character. They didn't come from the underworld, it's an act. Don't be fooled. Your favorite magician isn't doing a bottom deal at a real game. A real game , where it's ran by organization, or owned. They wouldn't even be allowed to in. Magicians and being a good card player is very different. Even the expert at the card table, the variables are so different in real games. You will never deal the cards in a real game. Never. If u get caught cheating, it be bad. Really bad if anyone got caught bringing in cards to cheat. risking your well being over such little money doesn't make sense. None of these guys made millions or even thousands of dollars being a cheat. If you've really been in the underworld, you can tell who has been or is. These magic bullie guys are phonies, and fake, ive confronted a couple. They're exactly what I knew they were. Don't worry about them no matter how much following they have, or cool they act. They wouldn't last a day in the world they pretend to be from or in. Think for yourself!!!!! I hear so many new people in this just repeat things they just heard on RU-vid from who they watch, and literally make a video with them saying it. Think for yourself. Don't follow.
Frank Haray certainly has the right to call himself a magician and he admits to not doing sleight of hand. Obviously, anyone who says you’re not a magician if you don’t know sleight of hand is not a magician or is too fond of learning their first “double turnover.”
What was the quote ? " a magician is an actor who plays the role of a magician if magic were truly possible" Who cares how you do it ? The approval of other magicians should not be a factor... the prime concern should be putting a smile on the face of a kid or your Grandma
Close-up Magic who's the hardest your hands tremble you sometimes make mistakes but it's not the end of the world and you better learn from it you can film yourself today with your phone you can watch yourself it's great and don't worry if you do make a mistake we all make mistakes when I first started especially with close-up my hands were Trumbull now if I make a mistake or well it's not the end of the world
Magicians are liars, pick pockets, thieves, crooks, con men? Now that's really scraping the bottom of the barrel, LOL! The guy that taught me magic was magician and former Heroin addict. He was also locked up in jail for a few years. So you might as well include the Drug Addicts and criminals are magicians too. Hehehehehehehe! rest in peace Flaco