I always believe that when showing card magic, showoff some flourishers would just make the spec think "man this guy's got some skill" and thus will have the impression that u are skilled.

Im not saying that u should do advance flourishes in magic but im saying that if u can do a few false cuts and displays before showing ya magic it wil certainly be not so BORING, unless u have super great patter. Keep in mind that certain card magic aint suitable to perform flourish coz it will just spoil the mysteriosity(is there a word? lol...) of the magic effect. Flourish only when the spec is remembering his card or showing someone else his cards. It will look kinda normal if u just stood there and wait... doing nothin. but if u can do a bit of flourish... people will notice.

Wat do you guys think abt having some flourishes in magic? Would love to hear from u.

Regards,
MagicB

MagicB,

Yeah! Since we met the other day and you knew that I am not a really flourish kind of person but soon the other night we had a chat and discuss some flourishes, I think yes, showing some flourish is really can brighten up the performance.

For instance, the Devo Opener flourish where you know, a normal magician would just pull out the deck and put the cards on the table.

I think if using the Devo's flourish, wow, this will look really impressive, interesting, eye-popper and really amazing with your dexterity.

Andrew

Yeah, it sure spices up the atmosphere hey... :)

keep practicing at it bro... u will get there. i have to spend less time flourishing and more time into magic man.... im spending too much time on flourish than magic at the moment lol...

i have bad memory lol... thats why.. hehe card remember the next routines.. hheehe lol.. :P

In my opinion, flourish is only a mean to showoff to magicians but not lay people. If lay people see you doing flourish, they will only think you're good in sleight of hand but not magic. Since for magicians, they certainly won't believe real magic and the only way to impress them is nothing but your dexterity.

U r right forrest. Flourishes impresses magicians a lot more than laymen. And yes, laymen will think that u are a good sleight of hand magician. I mean how many of the people we perform actually beleives in REAL MAGIC? hehe pretty none. they all know its all sleight of hands. Thus its no harm doing a lil... not too much.. simple ones la... not like super D&D style.

Bullshit.*

In these days of short attention spans, an audience's attention has to be captured AT ONCE, otherwise, they'll lose interest faster than you can say "boring". how do you prevent that? When you're being introduced to a group of thugs who are in doubt about your skillz, the fastest way to vanquish any kind of doubt as well as convince them you're worth watching is to do a flourish. Maybe an upside down spring, or a Madonna 1. Once you've hooked them in, they know that they're in for a treat... in other words, you can almost HEAR them say "damn, this guy's GOOD..."

Seriously, how naive can one be to think that anyone above the age of 8 still believes in magic? Whatever you do, they'll come up with an excuse to convince themselves that it's NOT magic.

"It's just an optical illusion"
"Trick cards lah"
"You must be very fast what"
"Aiyah, that spectator was a stooge mah"
"Is misdirection one... I read in a book"

Even if they don't say it to your face, they'll be sure to discuss it after the show. So if they say to your face that you're good at sleight of hand, take it as a compliment. If you do have people who run away and tell everybody "wah lau, this guy's magic is SIAO!!!" then pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

The stereotype is this: flourishes take away the magic element. Again, bullshit. Put yourself in the layperson's shoes: would you rather be entertained by someone with the skillz, or by a dude who's a klutz with the cards? I know what I'd choose.

Back to the topic of flourishes integrated into magic: whether you realise it or not, they play a major role in a powerful peformance

-FANning cards to have a card selected

-DRIBBLING to have them fairly replace the card in the deck

-SPREADing the cards on the table to reveal the kicker for Triumph

-Giving the deck a FALSE CUT to retain the deck order, or to control a card to a desired position

-Using a ONE-HANDED SHUFFLE or CUT to misdirect while placing the selection underneath the card case

-SPRINGing the cards in the air for a beautiful card stab routine

And the list goes on. I hope you get the point by now... you have to show the audience that you know what you're doing... but don't forget presentation, either.

-Kev

*I'm not trying to start any controversy, but I just got really miffed when this common misconception just keeps getting brought up from time to time :P

haha... nicely explained kev. ive seen pure magicians that aint really care abt how nice they thumb fan or do the spread but flourisher/magicians try do them well. They will surely impress the audience and yeah.... they will surely say "man this guy is good with cards" or will be impress with ya card handling.

Most people are smart these days. They know abt the existance of slieght of hands magic and dont really belief in real magic. So... yeah like kev said, u should take it as a compliment when they say nice work or nice handling. :)

Do you know why there still have so many temples in Malaysia? Superstition, I believe. (I’m not here to condemn any religion belief, of course.) If you’re Chinese, I dare to guarantee that most of your relatives will still worship to God for prosperous. Unlike US, Singapore or any developed countries, standard of living at Malaysia is still low. Not to mention the unusual high level of illiteracy. Think about voodoo at Africa, it’s the problem of ignorance. What I’m trying to tell you is in Malaysia or any “poor” countries real magic stuffs still work.

How many lay people (Malaysia) do know that the David Blaine’s levitation is just a camera trick? Even the very first time I saw it, I was being convinced that he must has kind of supernatural power. The world is full of wonder and magicians are trying to create wonder in very single time they can.

You’re not a clown who used to juggling balls to make people laugh. Hope I’m not sound too offence.

---Forrest Lim who love flourish so much.

believe in what you believe, and no one shall judge you as wrong. ok, worship to god for prosperous might sound abit not too logic. but then, if thats what they believe, by what we judge? if you want people to respect things that u believe/do(magic/flourish) , dont u think you should respect others too ?

to me, magic isn't about mystify people. It should be treated as an art. how good will that be if there is ever a drama with magic element (or maybe there IS?)

"You’re not a clown who used to juggling balls to make people laugh." sadly, under the occupation title , magician always come together with clown. hehe... cheer , bro..

Y'know, this kinda seems to be degenerating into a similar really-really-long-thread-cum-argument over at the SMC that I participated in months ago. forrest, you may wanna check that out for my theory on your theory, because I think it fits pretty freaking well here -

http://singaporemagiccircle.com/index.php?...topic=718&st=15

Yeah, my username's the same there as well so you know what to read. The condensed version being that I concur with Kevin.

Oh yeah, and see which end of the (as-that-dude-chooses-to-call-it) debate gets pwned at the end - I think all your questions should be answered by the time you're through reading it =D

C.

Yea CLJ, I read the thread, and how old are you really?

I don't mean to bring the debate here, but you should cool your head down pal, reread gordie's posts, check the dictionary on the definition of magic, then reread gordie's posts again :)

You all should read Sankey's take on this whole bs.

I, personally, love looking at flourishes (in fact, I am learning) and they are really great and shows that you've taken your time playing with your cards to reach to that point of ability and dexterity. But that's why it's called "FLOURISH", while it may be useful when correctly integrated to a certain trick or routine, they are still displays. But how much flourish can you actually integrate to card tricks without actually taking the POINT of the trick to a DISPLAY of flourish? Fans, card spread, springs, les paul spread, trinary cuts, and all those are beautiful... but from the laymen point of view, losing a selected card in the deck would be more convincing if the magician just uses a simple false cut (on other thread, Kevin's post of his fave color change to be a simple DL made me think) than using a, say, sybil cut. I hope you understand what I'm saying.

And I just have to comment on how some magicians think people will always take magic as "fast hands" or "sleights" (in fact, PERSONALLY, i don't consider that respond to be good) ...believe me folks, let's not even get into levitation and some fire/ash/blister effects..some people freak out at Triumph effects, and even stuff as simple as snap change.

I just thought of another simple allusion today, thought I'd try it out here to sorta make things less fuzzy.

Magic is like Cola. Flourishes are like Ice Cream. They're both real treats to most people, but some people don't like em at all. But when put toghether, you have to admit they make a pretty damn good float ;)

-Kev

Yeah! It's true Kevin.

Flourish used to not my cup of tea but recently I tried to practise the flourish as MagicB showed me weeks ago. ^_^

It's a rewarding experience.

Andrew

I jjst read the SMC thread too.

i feel u can incorporate whatever u feel u like in your performance as long if its entertaining. If u like flourishes, do it. If you like juggling do it. If u wanna play the trombone , do it. If it succededs , u'll be unique. If it doesn''t you'll suck. simple.

have fun.

I'm don't perform much at all, so i dont think about the "garnishing" much. Just sticking to the "meat and potatoes" for now.

Yeah, Andrew is a good example of someone who never/hardly did any flourish but he was great in magic. He's can do some great effects.

Hey Andrew, im glad that u are interested in learning flourish now. Im sure it will surely enhance ya magic presentations. How's ya one hand rev going? keep it up dude. If u need further help, i will be more than happy to help. :)

Cheers!
MagicB

Hi MagicB,

Thanks and I am still working with it.

In ur next meeting, will perform more card magic, ok? ^_^

Hey! Try to perform some card magic for me when our next meeting, ok? :P

Andrew

Andrew...
i will try my best man... lol.. at the moment, my hands just cant stop flourishing when there is cards on my hands...

I will make sure i learn a new effect to show u this weekend.

Hope ya e-books u purchased got some great stuff.... killer stuff.... practice well before u show me yeah. no hurry...

cheers,
MagicB

in my personal point of view ..

flourishes is like sweetener
magic is like coffee form starbuck :rolleyes:

add too little sweetener ..
is a very bitter cup of coffee

add too much ...
no more coffee taste but .. drinking sugar water

BUT if a reasonable amount ...
it will make the coffe taste better

same principle for magic n flourishes

make any sense ??

look at blaine when he perform ..
he didnt do much flourishes
the key he make magic to the street is his "impromtuness"

even Brad in CC2 mention ..
if we handle our card to "PROLY"
ppl might build up a wall n unbelieve

WE R MAGICIAN

Our Goal is MAKE PPL BELIEVE IN MAGIC
NOT eh This GUY HAND IS FAST MAN ..... :(

Hi Isaac,

Yeah! I think I am agree with you.

If you start do flourishes in front of spectator, in my personal opinion, the specators will get annoyed of your performance, what they want to see and entertain is magic, not like SHOWOFF, get what I mean????

Try to think if you are not a magician, if you see someone wow doing a flourish so nice and fast and then he suddenly starts to perform some magic, you would say "Hey, his hand is so fast and just because his hand is so fast, he deceive me, I don't want to see this guy perform and I hate being cheated by his fast hands".

I think the powerful weapons for laymen or audience is the PATTER & PRESENTATION.

I still think that flourish is only good on performing to magicians, not laymen.

Andrew

Andrew,
What u said abt flourishes is 50% 50% man. i used to think that ... laymen just cant appreciate flourishes man. THey just get bored after a while. But i tell, i was wrong. u see, in spore, people are just crazy with flourishes. U need to firstly create interest for the art of flourish. i mean, maybe we are not good enough, that's why? i mean if u are good... pro like kev, huron, sly, cai, and daryl... man... im sure laymen will love it. do check their vids out man.

by the way, flourish is not just abt speed man... smoothness is key! Hope u guys that do flourish can start to have regular jam sessions with ya other flourishers... from there.. a group will be formed and from there... people will start to notice.. and get interest.... agrreeE?

MagicB