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Watching Lennart Green Volume 1, there's a move "The Top Shot", which although I'm sure is out of my league anyway, it wasnt really explained too well. Does anyone have any tips on this move?

Cheers

Crazy hard knucklebusting stuff!
Lennart can go f*ck himself cause I get mad everytime I watch him and throw my bicycles out of the window. Gets costy.

Not much to say other than keeping a firm grip and to practice loads (anyone dare to put this in IB, I will hunt you down and throw cards at you).

Theres a tutorial in the restricted section for anyone who is allowed but hasn't seen it, is rather pleasing to watch.

Yeah but Im not allowed in the restricted section Maybe if someone PMs me it (If that's allowed?)

Cheers

its uploaded to the actual webpage sorry.

Right, I'm very average at cards. Anyone who's ever been to any of the London meets will be nodding like the Churchill dog and saying yes emphatically. Once upon a time I went to an amazing lecture by a french guy called Eric LeBlond who thankfully had much better skills at magic than name invention, in fact he was probably the best magician I've ever seen. One of the tantalising delights he proffered was a four of a kind production effect where the first two were held face down after being produced and the third appeared between them with a slight flick of the deck.

He had to speak through an interpreter and I had some trouble understanding some of the routine so in the interval I went up and said "How do you do that flicky thing?"

He said "Hold the deck like this and flick your finger like this and practice until you can get the card between the other two." I went off and sat down and started flicking cards off the deck but for the life of me couldn't get it between the two other cards so after a week or so I gave up. The flicky thing was quite cool though.

Fast forward to another lecture a year or so ago. I was sitting minding my own business waiting for it to start and absent mindedly flicking cards off the deck into my other hand. The guy next to me elbowed me in the ribs and said "Wow, how'd you do that?"

"Do what?" I asked.

"That," he said pointing at my flicky antics.

"Oh," said I "You just hold the deck in dealer grip and flick off the top card with your pinky."

"Cheers, what's it called?"

"Dunno. The finger flicky thing?"

"Cool."

My neighbour then sat there and after a couple of goes was flicking cards merrily. After 10 minutes or so he was clicking the fingers of his right hand as he flicked the card of the deck so it looked like it appeared as he flicked, everyone was happy.

Fast forward again to recently and I kept reading about this amazing move that Lennart Green invented that had other cardies in awe and took ages to learn. It wasn't until I saw a clip that I said "But that's just the finger flicky thing!" In the mean time I'd taught it to four or five other people and they'd all picked it up within a short period of time, certainly without major problems. I suppose what I'm trying to show is that if you don't build it up as some kind of super knuckle busting gnarly advanced technique and instead realise that all you're doing is holding the deck in dealer grip and flicking off the top card with your pinky you'll find it a lot easier.

Cheers - that's given me inspiration to keep trying

Even so I dont understand what to do with the little finger

To quote exactly from Green Magic:


"The pinky in this corner... The thumb and finger... And the card will go clockwise... Spin..."


Great Well I try and copy him but I just cant tell what he's doing with those fingers

bronz wrote:Right, I'm very average at cards. Anyone who's ever been to any of the London meets will be nodding like the Churchill dog and saying yes emphatically. Once upon a time I went to an amazing lecture by a french guy called Eric LeBlond who thankfully had much better skills at magic than name invention, in fact he was probably the best magician I've ever seen. One of the tantalising delights he proffered was a four of a kind production effect where the first two were held face down after being produced and the third appeared between them with a slight flick of the deck.

He had to speak through an interpreter and I had some trouble understanding some of the routine so in the interval I went up and said "How do you do that flicky thing?"

He said "Hold the deck like this and flick your finger like this and practice until you can get the card between the other two." I went off and sat down and started flicking cards off the deck but for the life of me couldn't get it between the two other cards so after a week or so I gave up. The flicky thing was quite cool though.

Fast forward to another lecture a year or so ago. I was sitting minding my own business waiting for it to start and absent mindedly flicking cards off the deck into my other hand. The guy next to me elbowed me in the ribs and said "Wow, how'd you do that?"

"Do what?" I asked.

"That," he said pointing at my flicky antics.

"Oh," said I "You just hold the deck in dealer grip and flick off the top card with your pinky."

"Cheers, what's it called?"

"Dunno. The finger flicky thing?"

"Cool."

My neighbour then sat there and after a couple of goes was flicking cards merrily. After 10 minutes or so he was clicking the fingers of his right hand as he flicked the card of the deck so it looked like it appeared as he flicked, everyone was happy.

Fast forward again to recently and I kept reading about this amazing move that Lennart Green invented that had other cardies in awe and took ages to learn. It wasn't until I saw a clip that I said "But that's just the finger flicky thing!" In the mean time I'd taught it to four or five other people and they'd all picked it up within a short period of time, certainly without major problems. I suppose what I'm trying to show is that if you don't build it up as some kind of super knuckle busting gnarly advanced technique and instead realise that all you're doing is holding the deck in dealer grip and flicking off the top card with your pinky you'll find it a lot easier.

I challenge you to do a youtube-video of the "Finger flicky thing", and ofcourse a how-to-do video of it too. Is your move as quick and sharp as the Lennart's? I dont need anymore spinning cards.

The last thing we need is You Choob videos on top shot - there's enough blatent exposure on there as it is...

Top Shot is certainly a knacky thing - I've known people to struggle for years before finally getting the correct finger placements. There are a couple of nuances aside from 'grip the deck and flick' that make the move a lot more efficient.

Take care, Ian

After a week's practise, along with andycoates video, I've got it sorted!

I'd say knacky is about right Ian. The point of my post wasn't to show off about how clever I am at learning the top shot pretty easily or to disparage anyone else's attempts but rather to point out that being told something is hard from the outset often makes it harder to learn. I'm sure that if someone had said to me "Okay here's a hard thing to master but one day you might get it," and taught me I'd have taken much longer simply because of the psychological pressure. In fact until recently when I saw a video of the top shot where it was mentioned as such I didn't know what it was but I'd seen plenty of threads along the line of this one and assumed it was something very hard. If I didn't know the Flicky Finger Thing already and read this thread then tried to learn it from Andy's tutorial I'd probably find it rather difficult. The mind is a funny thing is all.

I reverse engineered it for myself in the mid to late nineties. A few years ago I discussed the move with Lennart in some depth. Later I got his permission to teach the move on b***** Hard Moves (I believe that I'm one of a very few people who actually have permission to teach it...)

Like the muscle pass, it's a move that people work out after watching youtube videos eighteen times, and often miss the little things that make all the difference.

Take care, Ian

I don't know about the top shot (would love to though) but the muscle pass is a very personal move as you can find your own spot for several different coins i.e. i have one just below CP for small coins one pence and ten pence (with two haard callouses it is a ainful move) and one further up my hand for biggger coins eg two pence or two pound.

What im trying to say is that you probably have to find your own way of achieving the same effect by sleightly (pun intended) varying it for yourself. No sense in doing it one way if another works better for you. You see a lot of comments on Yooutube videos saying "your techniue is wrong" when the video shows a perfectly good perfromance that has been varied sleightly (ohh I did it again) for the performer to make his life easier.

Well where's Andy's video? If it's in the restricted section, I am currently restricted from visiting the myserious depths of the unknown... Which is frustrating as I have a routine which needs polishing

I give up as I have known this move for about half a year and not succeded in shooting one card. Unless there's some advice which actually helps on the move PM me, and if you need any proof that I've seen the DVD then Im happy to give that