talkmagic.co.uk

As I am starting to learn sleights, I was wondering if there are any good exercises for the hand.

Any sort of exercises that would improve the speed and dexterity of the hand, with the effect of allowing sleights to be performed with more ease.

The reason I ask is two fold: I want to be able to practice some sleights or components there of around others without it being blatantly obvious that that is what I am doing.

Second and more importantly, my hand dexterity and speed is quite lacking, and having a significant amount of Dysgraphia, training my hands to motions without having to think about them would help profusely.

I have searcehd this section in vain, but I do apologize if this has been answered already in a prior post.

-James

hi james
i recently taken to ball manipulation and in practice for this the first thing i lernt was the ball roll which is a ball florrish (cant spell) in which you move the ball up and down the fingers. now i have learnt more about ball manipulation befor i start i do the ball roll for a muinit or so as i find my manipulation is much smother.

in the case of coins you could do some coin rolls to warm your fingers up. the ideal thing is with coins is that if your just in a group of friends more often than not they dont realise your practisin with coins as it can jus look like your playing with it.

with cards you could try learing of cut (XCM) and try putting them into a loop so you can keep doing it without stoping. and to your friend this would just look like your showing off not warming up.

mrfye

Just practice the sleight over and over. This is enough exercise and you don't need to do anything different. The repetativeness will improve your speed and dexterity over time.

Why on earth would you want to 'warm up' you hands by doing something else?

Some people crack their knuckles (including me) but that's not really that great. You may want to visit handhealth.com for some free exercises by Greg Irwin.

However, as dat said, continuosly practice the sleights and muscle memory will take over and you'll be able to do the sleight with no thinking at all! e.g. the Elmsley Count.

I saw it on a dvd, don't know which one but the magician on there demonstrated a way to loosen up and stretch your muscles when first starting card magic.

He did it like this:

Make a fist with your right hand, holding your palm towards you.
Than push your right hand wrist in a space between two fingers of the left hand. Start with the wrist between the thumb and first finger, than do it again between the first and middle finger... and so on.
When done do the whole thing again with the other hand.

Don't know if this helps but I thought I'd post it anyway.

you don't have extreme movements in magic, so stretching will have less effect c.f sports

Also if you train your fingers to move independently this will greatly help, especially for (XCM), you can do this my moving each finger to the right or left (like they do in star treck [or summit like that]) and you will soon find your slights eaiser to execute. And of course practice is the most important thing you could ever do.

Hope this helped

Regards

Especially your 4th and pinky finger. When I started playing piano I had to learn to move them seperately, but after some practice it becomes natural.

i think it's easier to practice and improve on if your hands aren't moist either. if they are nice and dry, the practice session becomes a lot better and doing whatever becomes a lot better.

as for the improvement, like dat8962 said, practice it over and over. If your hands start to sweat and become moist, hold off for a bit. Drying it off won't help as your hand has heated up and moist will come back quick. Warm, not cold, warm but dry.

Go slow at first. Even if it doesn't look right or anything, like fanning with one hand, the cards are uneven and chunks, the whole point is you get used to the motion. Slowly pick up your speed when you get used to the motion at that certain speed. When you're good at it, even doing it slowly works just as fine. Of course, my example here was fanning but works the same for most other cases.

I used to learn piano but I still can't seperate middle and ring fingers. I need to start practicing more. So basically, able to control your hand/fingers is important also.

Anyways, hope that helps or gives any hints/ideas on what you could do.

What I sometimes do is do the motion as if I'm just spamming the keyboard. EG.

a;slfkjsad;flkjsd;flkjf; kjf;s f;sf e;ofifj ;lfkjd f;lkjf ;sldkfj ;lfk

But in a more coherent manner, pinky, ring, middle, index. I keep doing it and it warms up the hand/fingers and a quick light shake helps get yourself ready.

Something that warms my right hand up is to play the right hand part of 'Arrival of the Queen of Sheeba' really fast. It works on your wrist as well!

You all must be thinking this guy is a nutter!

One way for all magicians is taught in my no 1 lecture and has been taught to many actors over the years. In order the movements are:
1. Imaginary 'Play' the piano with all fingers.
2. WHEN YOU HAVE GOT THIS GOING, add rotate the wrists. any direction.
3. Keep both movements going. Now rotate the elbows.
4 Keep all 3 going. Rotate the arms.
Keep going for a couple of minutes.
IN ORDER..ONE AT A TIME.
Stop the arms/
Stop the elbows
Stop the wrists.
Stop the fingers.
NOW
PRESS the fingers of each hand one against the other for abpout 20 seconds.
Stop.
CLOSE all fingers and thumbs together on each hand.
Concentrate on the 2nd & 3rd fingers and open a gap there.
Do this several times. Don't rush the first part. it will loosen you up.
Allen Tipton

Thanks for all the advice you guys have provided. It all has helped profoundly.

-James Physit

Allen Tipton wrote::) One way for all magicians is taught in my no 1 lecture and has been taught to many actors over the years. In order the movements are:
1. Imaginary 'Play' the piano with all fingers.
2. WHEN YOU HAVE GOT THIS GOING, add rotate the wrists. any direction.
3. Keep both movements going. Now rotate the elbows.
4 Keep all 3 going. Rotate the arms.
Keep going for a couple of minutes.
IN ORDER..ONE AT A TIME.
Stop the arms/
Stop the elbows
Stop the wrists.
Stop the fingers.
NOW
PRESS the fingers of each hand one against the other for abpout 20 seconds.
Stop.
CLOSE all fingers and thumbs together on each hand.
Concentrate on the 2nd & 3rd fingers and open a gap there.
Do this several times. Don't rush the first part. it will loosen you up.
Allen Tipton

I'm assuming we shouldn't do this in public? lol.

I can't actually extend my ring finger out while holding back my other fingers... it really hurts!

Keep trying Stevebo. Keep trying. Goodf for the concentration. Did you ever master a difficult move first time?
Allen T

THIS IS THE BEST HAND EXERCISE YOU'LL EVER SEE

http://decknique.net/content/288.html

Rob