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haveing just browsed through royal road to card magic, it occoured to me that as i had grown up with markwison complete course in magic that i had learnt a lot of the slights in royal road useing the hindu shuffle method.

my origional mark wilsons was exclusively hindu based unlike the newer version avalable today, which i now have a copy of.
so my question is realy which method as a non cardician is the best method to concentrate on.

ive just started practising the overhand shuffle method and this seem alien to me at the moment, especialy as a hindu shuffle with a stripper deck feel natural to me, top and bottom controls are also easy with the hindu as they are with the overhand, perhapse some of you who are more knoledgeble with cards can highlight the pros and cons of each method, i eagerly await your response with open ears.

I tend mostly to use the overhand shuffle since it is the most common shuffle used by non-magicans when they play cards. If it is something that people are used to seeing or using they are less likely to question it than they are if they are not familiar with it. On top of that I learnt all my shuffle controls with the overhand shuffle, which was also the first shuffle I learned.

The hindu shuffle, however, will become more uselful if you plan to use ordinary deck tricks and Stripper deck tricks together because it will seem suspicious if you change the type of shuffle you use in different effects.

So on the whole I would suggest that if you are combining ordinary and stripper effects then use the hindu shuffle but if you are only doing ordinary deck tricks then stick to the overhand.

when you use a stripper deck then cutting a stripped deck to the top then shuffle controling it is childs play as the cards are already gripped in the strip position, i didnt mention it earlier as i was unaware there was an overhand shuffle the neerest i have come across was a sort of pull and chuck cards on top from a lateral or flat position but maybey thats my age and were i grew up.
and of course theres also that my cards have always been bridge sized so fit well for a hindu shuffle.

The hindu shuffle is ideal for strippers, but if you get an end taper deck like seige has mentioned a couple of times you would be able to use the overhand shuffle for that too, so then it would be down entirely to personal preference which you used.

i always use the overhand because it is the most common, as said earlier.
i tried using the hindu shuffle because of a stripper deck i have and i didnt want to change the nature of my shuffle between tricks, however after a trick my friends would always say 'its something to do with that shuffle', i think because it is unnatural to them they assume its a sleight of hand .so i now stick to the overhand unless the hindu is specifically needed.

I mainly use the overhand shuffle, however if you're going to use the hindu shuffle, i would suggest sticking to that one. Show the hindu shuffle even when you're not doing any slights. It will just get the audience used to a shuffle that they may not have seen before.

If you want to use different shuffles, one way of achieving this is through a gag. Explain the shuffles you do i.e. an overhand shuffle, then a hindu shuffle, then a russion shuffle (spring the cards from hand to another and explain that they are rushin' after each other), rotate the cards several times explaining it is a south american shuffle (one revolution after another). I believe that Mark Leveredge's book has about a half a dozen of these in a section called "a groan man". Anyway, the point is that the audience get used to seeing different shuffles and it will not seem surprising if you switch between shuffle types later.

Phil

maybey I'm missing something here but surely you are doing a card trick for someone and they are well aware that you are a magician

so no matter what version you use they are already thinking that you are doing something with the cards.
thats why the hindu shuffle works for me because i tell them I'm doing something with the cards and as most of uk cards you are likely to be fobbed off with are bridge sized then i've never needed to switch shuffles its only when i got a bicycle deck that i had to switch to follow royal road.

its a bit of east meets west if i had used a bike deck at school they would have looked so odd that everyone would assume it was a trick deck anyway.
ok I'm not a cardy so thats half the reason but a hindu shuffle suits bridge sized cards wereas an overhand suits poker sized, if i hadn't knowen about bikes i would not have changed and stuck to english decks and english gaffed decks as it is i now have two types to learn to use and two sizes to learn them on, double the work for the same effect, still its nice to be able to look knowingly when someone gets a pack of bikes out in a tv programe

Despite them knowing that you're a magician people tend to have an expanded idea of their own cunning, so if they don't see anything to raise their suspicion then they subconsciously assume that nothing is happening as they would have noticed it if it was. If you then use a shuffle that they've not seen without a good reason or handle the cards in any way that they could see as unnatural then they immediately fix on that as the point at chich something has happened. Even if this is not where the move took place (if there even are any moves) they will think that they have caught you out, and therefore don't experience the magic that you intend them to experience, they are likely to see it more as a very clever trick.

If you can give them nothing unusual to see then they will have no chain of logic, however flawed, to follow and convince themselves that they have been tricked. They are therefore more likely to experience something more like real magic, though there are more elements involved than just this.

Nicely put, Nick. Up to a point we can use patter and misdirection but, when the deck is being shuffled right under the spec's noses, the shuffle must look natural and any 'moves' have to be totally invisible. Which means a lot of practice. If they get even an inkling of something not quite right they'll be burning your hands even more than normal. Of course, you could deliberately use a funny shuffle during a completely innocent moment to throw them off the scent if required!

nickj - The hindu shuffle is ideal for strippers

hmm - why is that exactly??

It's far easier to feel any bits that stick out without being noticed!

Quote:
nickj - The hindu shuffle is ideal for strippers

taneous:- a hindu shuffle allows you to shuffle a selected card or cards to the top, bottom or middle and even to a prearanged number to be counted down to, by its very nature a stripper deck turns any selected card or cards into a locator card, a quick search on the net will reveal what a locator card does if you dont know already.

i only use strippers to controll a selected card to top then bottom, middle cut the count down finaly pull card from pack, sometimes dbl lft and turn in the style of wont mention his name, think tupperware.
as an intro that if i was a good card magician i could.......but I'm not so i wont kind of thing.

Actually I was playing on the word 'stripper' . I think you must have read "what is that exactly" instead of "why is that exactly". Got to excuse me - I just couldn't resist the humour.
But thanks for being willing to help anyway

I personally use the overhand shuffle for controls. I've just always shuffled like that so it was natural for me.

I like the concept of the stripper deck - it's very clever, but I generally stear clear of gimmicked decks. There're just so many ways you can do what you do with a stripper deck/svengali/etc. with normal cards and I like the challenge of learning how - even though it sometimes takes a couple of months longer to perfect. I just know that if I use gimmicked decks I'll get too lazy and never perfect other card stuff. I'm not excluding the odd double back or double face or the use of a gimmicked card here or there.
Just personal preference i guess..

a hindu shuffle allows the stripper to flease your wallet wile shes working