SLEIGHT PROBLEMS

[Guest]

My thumb slips when I try to run a nunber of cards,also my fingers slip trying to do the single card pass. Hand lotions helps,but for a short time 10min. max. What can you use so that your thumb and fingers can grab the cards better

[Jonathan Townsend]

Originally posted by CHIRITE:
...What can you use so that your thumb and fingers can grab the cards better

What you put on your hands will contaminate your props and might not be good for you anyway. Some folks put a light coat of roughing fluid on their props. One guy had his coins milled.

Here is what I did... I used to carry around a plastic notepad case. about 12x18 inches. I carried to to class and kept my magic stuff in there too. I carried it wherever I went. The plastic helped my hands get into the habit of being moist. Drinking water helps. getting rid of carpenters type caluses also helps. The basic idea here is that you can NOT make your hands moist and supple for sleight of hand by putting stuff on. Skin damage can be treated. Ultimatly the moisture has to come from inside.

On the other hand you could put that nice rubber handle paint on your props... not good for cards and coins but great for club/stage props.

[Pete McCabe]

I find the best thing to moisten my hands is to hold a large coin in my hand for a few minutes. The coin absorbs the heat, which frees moisture, and the heat sustains the moisture for a little while, at least.

So if I'm going to do a coin trick with palming, my script will include a short interlude at the beginning where I'm just holding the coin.

[Terry]

On his A1 videos, Martin A Nash recommended using a small amount of Sort Kwik. You can buy the containers in various sizes from any office supply shop.

Using a quick swipe on the thumb hasn't "gummed" up the cards. Remember less is more.

[Guest]

Just to let you know that Sort Kwik works good for me. The thumb and fingers grab the cards 100% better. Thanks for the abvise Terry.

[Pete McCabe]

BTW you can put a bit of sortkwik on you earlobe, so if you need some during a performance a quick tug and you're good to go. This is a very old idea that I first learned in Gary Ouellet's Close Up Illusions.

By the way be careful not only how much you put on but where. Sortkwik on your fingers helps card manipulations a lot. Sortkwik in your palms can play havoc with your ability to palm coins, etc.

I remember one time I did a little show for the family, and I put sortkwik on my hands for a card routine. The show included a copper/silver coin routine (David roth's Standup C/S Classic) which is a challenging but fantastic routine.

Unfortunately I had never practiced this trick with sortkwik, and found that the extra tackiness made the palm-to-palm transfer much more difficult. Beware if you are going to use sortkwik in performance you will have to practice everything with sortkwik on.

A much older idea than Sortkwik is to have a glass with ice water at hand. When you're going to do a move that requires a little extra grip, just take a drink. The condensation will moisten your hands well (too well, sometimes).