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Hi, I'm currently trying to spice up my Ambitious Card Routine. I've Learned the basics. I've been teaching myself from a DVD I bought, "Extremely Ambitious" by Jay sankey. The DVD is very thorough, but not always at the best angles I can see what's going on. He makes it look so simple, like everythings a flowing motion, I understand he's a professional and I am a beginner, but I can't help admiring him and wishing I was half as good haha. I've got the movement of the classic pass now, but it dosent seem very smooth and you can quite often catch a glipse from the front even when I try to cover. He does a classic pass, flicks his wrist and it gives the illusion the card has jumped to the top face up. When I do it, you can see the card before I give the illusion of the flicked wrist effect. Jays version actually looks like it has jumped up. That's the best I can explain it. Tell me, am I running before I can walk? My turnover pass is coming on fairly well, should I concentrate on another pass or carry on the way I'm going. All my knowlegde of card magic so far, is from "Royal Road to Card Magic DVD set", Extremely ambitious, and countless YouTube videos. [/b]

Firstly, ditch the youtube video's. They never help, unless they are by professionals and you are looking for performance techniques. A good ambitous card routine video, would be Daryl's. That was one of the first videos I ever saw. It is fantastic. I think theory 11 have an ambitous card dvd too. The same people who make Ninja1 and Ninja2 "Pass" tutorial dvd's (some one will correct me)

As for the pass, stop learning it until you are confident with lots of other ambitous card moves. You have picked possibly one of the hardest moves to perfect with cards. It will take years to get correct. Id learn a good DL, a couple of cuts, a nice fake shuffle retaining the top stock and a thumb fan!

If you want to go further, by Masuda's WOW or Ambelitous Card. Both quite expensive for what they are, you won't regret it for a begginer though...

Can't go wrong there, im sure everyone will agree?

without meaning to market my own stuff, URBAN by little old me has a lovely routine on there which has stood me in great stead for many years. also as mentioned above, daryl, jay, and expert card technique all have great routines that will teach you the moves to creating your own ACR.

Good luck


Richard Bellars

The World's Greatest ACR DVD is very good too. Both David Regal and Tommy Wonder's routines which are on that DVD are well worth watching.

The Quan-Tri paradox

http://www.surnateum.org/English/surnat ... uanTri.htm

I'd say go for Daryl's DVD - all top stuff for ACR with loads of variety and most of it pretty simple

Books, specifically the classics.

Off the top of my head - "Modern Magic Manual" (Hugard), "Amateur Magician's Handbook" (Hay), "Classic Secrets of Magic" (Elliott), and "Stars of Magic" (Vernon).

Barry

Yeah the books mentioned above are great if you want to learn a lot!
I think the key to learning a good ACR, is learning a very good DL.

On top of that, you have to make the routine flow. It doesn't really matter what you do in the routine, aslong as it is aesthetically pleasing. Making the card jump to the top of the pack everytime, gets tedious.

Try making it jump to some other places, once you have learnt the basics.

Ah that reminds me, I must re-learn raise rise.

Get Richard Kaufmann's pass dvd.

Regarding the Ambitious Card routine, I learned a lot from Crash Course 2 from Ellusionist. Brad Christian is an excellent tutor. Check it out!

Ninja 1 and 2 and Crash Course 2 by Ellusionist were my starting ground, they provided some good tips and set me up with my first ACR. I have long since adapted the routine and include a Omni deck, but I believe that what makes a good or average ACR great is some decent patter, I personally, and I speak for myself here, do not like the type of patter where you talk people through what you are doing (and here I place it into the centre, now I click my fingers, now I turn the top card over.....). Its obvious what you are doing and can look like you are over-proving yourself if that makes sense.

Chris Tennant

gunnarkr wrote:Regarding the Ambitious Card routine, I learned a lot from Crash Course 2 from Ellusionist. Brad Christian is an excellent tutor. Check it out!

QFT...

Crash Course 1 and 2 were some of the first magic related things I bought, and I still watch them over and over. Well worth the money...

Not often you get me sticking up for Ellusionist... :p

magicofthemind wrote:Books, specifically the classics.

Thats good advice. Get hold of a few good books, learn the moves, then design your own routine. While some of the above mentioned routines are good, theres already plenty doing them. Designing your own routine will give you an ACR that is unique to you. Once you have a good solid routine and understand WHY it works you can then use it as a basis to improvise if you wish. I know this is debatable and there are two schools of thought regarding this, but i would personally keep the effect to the card moving through the deck, be it to the top, bottom or wherever. I feel that bringing anything else into the picture, such as a solid deck or even rubberbands, most often tends to distract from the clarity of the effect. I am not a big fan of things like the solid shell ending for the shells and pea either, for the same reason

Darwin Ortiz has an interesting take on the routine (on one of his Scams & Fantasies DVDs, not sure which one sorry).

I like to add use of Olmac's WOW control into an amitious card routine as well. If you're confident enough with the move you can even do it with the card face up to "show" the spectators the card actually rising.

It's also worth checking out Zenneth King of Keighley's rising card routine and considering mixing this in to the routine.

Hopefully this helps.

Too many ambitions card subtleties to name. I love Sankey's work on it, Brad Christian has some nice stuff as well. Doc Eason also has an amazing routine with a signed card under the glass. It's a great kicker ending since he repeats it over and over.