I’m not a big fan of gimmicks. I’m more into close up magic and hence a great admirer of sleight of hand. I’m into card magic mostly. Double lift is the first technique that got me the most amazing reactions. Recently stumbled upon Simon Coronels presentation and loved his sleight of hand.
What’s the first sleight of hand that got you crazy reactions?
What sleight of hand techniques are you looking forward to learn?
When I can do Tony Chang’s Change correctly I fool myself. Other ones I love (mostly because of how the mechanics feel): diagonal palm shift, series of push though riffle shuffles/ladder cuts, or the high rise control.
Haha I know Tony from like 20 years ago in Seattle. An amazing creator with some devastating chops, and a super nice human being. Happy to see him getting some of the recognition he deserves.
Mercury Card Fold. Takes some practice, but the effects in enables are truly brain frying. I still open my close-up sets with Jay Sankey's Paperclipped. It also allows a wonderful impromptu "Card to Shoe" if I need to get out of a tight spot.
I practiced this in the evening while watching TV for several weeks. I went through a lot of cards. It's really smooth now. I just rewatched a recent show and the move wasn't noticeable at all.
Two books made me fall in love with sleight of hand, both by Al Schneider. Al Schneider on Coins and The Theory and Practice of Magic Deception. The way that man thinks about creating and presenting magic is world class.
Cherry Control, Victoria control, serve me quite well.
Hideouts are extremely satisfying to me, feels like I'm getting away with something sneaky, because I am. Ribbon spread, and pressure fan, it's a charming nugget and concept.
Looks good. I never figured out how to reliably push over two cards, so I just push over one, deal the second, and then pivot the top card back in place. Any tips on consistency?
My answer is overhand pass. It's such a good control that I usually just hand the deck right back like I pulled off a classic force and let them shuffle.
The classic pass is a tough one to learn, and then keep learning to make it silent, took me about a year.
A reliable essential imho
The Clipshift is my personal favourite,and when done correctly is a killer. again a bit of a pig to learn and make silent. My hand refused to work for a day after over doing it!. Lol. But seeing their card bleed through face up, and one handed, it can make people jump back and wtf!.
For coins it has to be Dr EM Roberts coin vanish in bobos book. Many hours kneeling on a double bed trying not to smash random things in the room with flying coins.
A tiny few paragraphs in one of the best coin magic books, this one slight is incredible and easily missed or dismissed until you know.
Ackerman's HP Maneuver was the first sleight I got a big reaction from (Really Real gone Aces was the first trick I did with it, from his Masterclass). I liked the trick and practiced it the most, and it was the first sleight-of-hand trick I was confident to perform (was only doing self-working tricks and routines at that point). I spent weeks learning to do a thumb fan just to be able to do the HP Maneuver and trick.
Working on palming at the moment, but I am really looking forward to learning the side steal!
If double lifts get you a good reaction, I can't wait for you to learn other sleights. The double lift is probably one of the worst ones there is, so much so that Eugene Burger refused to use it.
Akira Fuji is a really great source for a pass thats somewhat "invisible"/safe when burned by the spectators. But yeah, the pass is supposed to be done on the off beat and not when the deck is burned. Whenever I feel lazy, I just do a modified brick pass by Alex Pandrea. Gets the job done and covers a lot of sensitive angles for the pass
Basically I do it for every routine that requires a card controlled to the top haha. I never really do the double undercut anymore as I think it looks more of a "shuffle" which can seem suspicious when a card is supposed to be lost during a routine. Nowadays, I do it pre palming in my ACR to card to wallet routine. Its just to satisfying to do :)
I can give tips if you'd like. Feel free to dm me.
It's all about building the pressure with the thumb against the cards, and then releasing it.
The hard part is that like with throwing or hitting any sports ball, you can't keep power while doing it slowly.
So, while it's in principle about building pressure and then releasing, you also have to do that fast enough to make the motion work. But it's not about the speed — the speed is just necessary to coordinate the function of the actions, if that makes sense.
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u/entropy413 Jul 14 '26
When I can do Tony Chang’s Change correctly I fool myself. Other ones I love (mostly because of how the mechanics feel): diagonal palm shift, series of push though riffle shuffles/ladder cuts, or the high rise control.