by Rufio » Sep 10th, '08, 17:47
Just to add to the last comments: what Jabasha and bmat said is great advice. By way of encouragement, as like you I am a relative newbie / novice / intermediate, in the context of RRTCM, which I understand you were having problems with, the tricks in The P*lm chapter give you a great advantage in misdirection in any case. In effect, they are great illustrations of misdirection because they are sophisticated and elegant ways of basically saying "look over there!". Like you, I too have small hands, but I think we are being unduly harsh in self criticism, since even with gaps, you've got to bear in mind that with fluidity and naturalness of gesture, combined with natural shade of the card, a spectator is unlikely to suspect what is happening. Honestly, try it with gaps between your fingers, and see if it is obvious in the mirror; you might be surprised like me when you find that it isn't apparent. Indeed, the golden rules at the start of RRTCM state you should never announce ahead of time what you are going to do; combined with the structure of the effect this means that there shouldn't actually be any reason for suspicion in first place.
By way of assistance, think of the Observer's Paradox: when someone knows they are being observed they change their actions / movements accordingly, and so someone cannot truly observe natural behaviour of another unless it is covert. Knowing this, and specifally knowing that the spectator knows this, straying from normal body movements arouses suspicion. I think in magic a sleight only becomes truly fooling when under close scrutiny you can get away with it even when you know you are being observed. Part of this is your own attitude: if you really believe and act like there is nothing in your hand then this will be conveyed to your astute observer. By way of example, think of sponge balls for the opposite scenario. Similarly, as bmat points out, using the dirty hand to hand out a deck for shuffling, i'd imagine, has the effect comparable to principles behind a retention of vision: i'd imagine that when piecing the magical puzzle in their own mind they might very well discard the possibility of your hand containing a card at that moment. It's beyond my grasp, but there's probably lots of psychological explanation behind this.