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Has anyone else noticed that some of the moves on XB are impossible/near impossible unless you have really long thumbs?

Particulary the Double Charlier Cut, where you let another packet drop. It's as though theres no way to do it, but maybe its just about finding the space?

Ok there are a few tips I got from superhandz forum and some of them are mine:

-You can give up on these techniques lol.
-You can use a bridge deck.
-You can bend the cards a bit in order to reach with your thumb
-You can modify the technique a bit

Here is my opinion (just my thoughts)

-NEVER GIVE UP doing something.

-DON´T USE BRIDGE CARDS for a few techniques only. If you get used to small cards then when you try to use a regular deck you will feel the cards are HUGE and that´s not good. So get used to normal decks.

-There is nothing wrong if you bend the cards at first. My thumbs are short and bending is the way I get out of this sometimes. Is good to start with a broken in deck or a well wore deck. Then try with a new deck.
With practice you will be bending a little bit less than the first time.
Jerry Cestkowski has also short thumbs and he bends his cards with those techniques. Note that on XB Jerry doesn´t explain those moves. De´vo does. But on Jerry´s companion DVDs you can see that he bends a lot. Thanks De´vo for this one

-For the thumb cut I have modified the move a bit. I don´t grip with the thumb as usual but I reach the corner next to my index. Check if that works for you. The variations will depend on each move.

Last tip and I have to thank Jerry for this one, is easier to reach with the thumb using less cards, I mean using half of the deck. This way you will find that is not necesary to bend or even you won´t be bending at all.
An the justification for using half of the deck is by doing the move on both hands at the same time for combos. I mean doing a double charlier on both hands after you divided the deck. So if you like XCM you won´t worry about practicing everything on both hands lol

Forgive my bad english (my first lenguaje is spanish) but I guess you will understand.
The information I´m giving toke me a few years to find and realize.
I hope this helps.
Good luck

supermagictom wrote:Has anyone else noticed that some of the moves on XB are impossible/near impossible unless you have really long thumbs?

Particulary the Double Charlier Cut, where you let another packet drop. It's as though theres no way to do it, but maybe its just about finding the space?

I have been having the same problem, with the same cut. I have kept working at it and will eventually get it. I like the suggestion of working with half of the deck and will give that a try. Like many things, keep at it.

When doing the double charlier cut, use your index finger to push back the first packet and continue pushing, concaving the deck. Your thumb will keep hold of the top packet but because of the action of the fist finger, the thumb will release another small packet which it can no longer now hold. Practice and you can continue doing this to release around 4 seperate packets.

Also, make good use of Greg irwins techniques, they really help, especially the wrist through the fingers!! makes life a lot easier with the impossible stack close ( the packet betweent the ring and pinky ) !!

Also visit handhealth.com. try the free excercises there. Use these and the technques from XB and you will improve the hands dexterity to the point where it becomes telatively easy.

Lastly just remember to practice often. Just like sleights and anything else using the hands.. its just a case of practie because muscle memory will do the rest

Kolisar wrote:

supermagictom wrote:Has anyone else noticed that some of the moves on XB are impossible/near impossible unless you have really long thumbs?

Particulary the Double Charlier Cut, where you let another packet drop. It's as though theres no way to do it, but maybe its just about finding the space?

I have been having the same problem, with the same cut. I have kept working at it and will eventually get it. I like the suggestion of working with half of the deck and will give that a try. Like many things, keep at it.

Me too same cut!

This is going to sound quite strange but it actually worked for me. I just took my hand and I literally stretched it out as I could not even do a regular Charlier. Take your hand and spread your fingers out as much as you can apart from each other and slightly backwards, spread them apart until your hand starts to shake and hold that for about a minute. Take a deep breath and relax for about a minute and do this 2 more times and procceed to do the Double Charlier, most likely you will be able to do it 3-4 times and have to re-do the exercizes. After about half an hour of the exersizes and Charliers, you should be able to do them without the exersizes at all.


At least that worked for me; good luck!
~David

A lot of this XCM stuff requires incredible dexterity. If you are interested in it, take a look at this website:

www.handhealth.com

It has a few free videos that will help with stretching, hand streigth and hand endurance.

If you learn how to stretch your hands, you should be able to pull of XCM moves with a regular deck even if your hands are a little smallish.

somthing else I did was hold an entire full deck between 2 fingers working myway round the hands, bewteen each two fingers. it fri**in kills but hold it for about a minute or till you pass out eventually your fingers will naturally spread as and when you need them to

I.D wrote:somthing else I did was hold an entire full deck between 2 fingers working myway round the hands, bewteen each two fingers. it fri**in kills but hold it for about a minute or till you pass out eventually your fingers will naturally spread as and when you need them to

That is basically what I was talking about, just without the deck so you can spread all of your fingers at once for a minute instead of a minute each.

Good luck stretching your hands.

~David

thanks guys for nall ofthis, great advice!!!!!!!!!!