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Overhand and Hindu shuffles both have their place as card controls - and both offer their own virtues.

It is merely a question of whether you're using the shuffles to attain a sleight or control, or whether you are using the shuffles as a flourish.

Both shuffles can be used to force a card, and similarly, both shuffles can be used to great effect as fancy 'knucklebusters'.

In preference for forcing, I'd go with the Hindu. As a control, I'd say I'm more relaxed with having a spectator return a card to a 'random' spot with a Hindu. As a control for moving the cards 'knowledgeably' - I would choose the overhand every time.

And a shuffle for 'showing-off'? It's either a one or two-handed off-table riffle shuffle every time!

As far as strippers go, I'm off for a quiet lie-down...

If you need to show off it has to be the one handed dovetail! that gets 'em every time, still haven't mastered doing it with both hands at once but I can get a near perfect Faro with it right handed.

The one-handed Dovetail (or one-handed riffle) is indeed an impressive feat - esp. if you can do a near-perfect interweave... although I believe the Faro to be a different technique altogether - and I'd be MIGHTILY impressed if you could do that one-handed...

Riffle shuffles (or Dovetails) are a firm favourite flourish (and control/false shuffle) with cardicians and gamblers alike. It shows you can be flash!

And one-handed is a marque of true dedication to the art - with Nick's 'one-handed in each hand' being some sort of miracle

WE"RE NOT WORTHY!!!

Sorry, by faro I meant perfect interweave but saying faro was shorter and acheives the same thing so I saved on typing by using that instead of actually saying I could perfectly interweave them!

Like I said, it is only near perfect anyway, I'm usually out by a couple of cards. I can just about do the shuffle lefthanded (Derren Brown can do it Grrrr) and just need to polish that and put them together, should only take a month or so now!

nickj wrote:... just need to polish that and put them together, should only take a month or so now!

Go for it, Nick... that's got to be one of the hardest things to pull off - especially with the high 'oops, I dropped all my cards' factor...

Excellent!

The Hindu shuffle is great for forces, but suffers from the, "Hey, that's a funny-looking shuffle" problem. I can't say that I use stripper decks very often (well, at all now, actually), but I take the point that a Hindu shuffle is helpful with them.

If I recall correctly, Kenton Knepper uses a hybrid Hindu/overhand shuffle in his wonderful colour-changing cards routine. I haven't watched that video in a while (I too suffer from buying too many books, videos and DVDs).

Part-Timer wrote:"Hey, that's a funny-looking shuffle"

I never get that, but then it's actualy a common shuffle on the streets here in SA the African population all use it.

I've noticed that - I was doing an overhand shuffle the other day and I was asked why i don't shuffle properly.
I said "ok show me" and this person did the hindu shuffle

Hmm, cultural differences! I don't think I've ever met anyone in the UK who knew or recognised the hindu shuffle.

I would have to agree, I get funny looks from a hindu, can be handy to misdirect to confuse the later trick reconstruction though

Done naturaully, the Hindu shouldn't look any stranger than any other magician's sleight.

A cardician will always do 'weird' things with cards. And the beauty of the Hindu is that if done slowly and precisely, it looks magical. And - it really IS a form of genuine shuffle - which is obvious when it's performed well.

I comapare the Hindu shuffle to a series of multiple stacked cuts - in which small packets are drawn away each time. This can be used as a good explanation and part of the patter... for instance, the *free* trick from TalkMagic at Xmas - the Reindeer trick - is best served using the Hindu to 'loose' the Rudolf card... as it can be said "and once in the snow, layer upon layer fell down on top of Rudolf, until he was lost somewhere in the middle of the North Pole..."

The reason this works well is because you are VISUALLY layering cards down. Unlike a normal overhand or riffle - which obviously have their own benefits.

Learn it. Practice it. Use it. The more the merrier. NEVER rely on one shuffle alone.

Hear Hear
I use it, I abuse it, hell I dress it up in leather and call it Brenda.

As a mentalist my card work is very limited. I use a S*ST******stack as a staple. My overhand shuffle is actually just a series of overhand cuts made to look like I'm shuffling. I have been quite successful doing this for one reason only. I never look at the cards and I never stop talking while doing it. That's my idea of misdirection.

I learned all of my basics from RRTCM and learned to force and control using both The Hindu and Overhand.

Like some of the other posters on here I tend to feel that there is something "tricky" looking about the Hindu (whats a Hindu? Lays iggs!)
But I use it because it provides a contrast. If I am doing two or three card tricks which require a shuffle force or control I think it deflects the spectator if I don't do them all the same way.

On balance however my preferred method would be overhand.

I've found that a lot of people I perform for know the Hindu Shuffle, and use it themselves when mixing the cards, so I don't have any problems using it. I make a slight change when using it as a force just to make things seem fair.

Part-Timer wrote:If I recall correctly, Kenton Knepper uses a hybrid Hindu/overhand shuffle in his wonderful colour-changing cards routine.

That is an excellent handling of it, worth checking out the DVD (Klose-Up and Unpublished) if you want a more 'natural' handling of the Hindu Shuffle. The rest of the material on it is great too.