Comments on: It’s All in Your Head!

By: salmononius2

salmononius2 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:57:17 +0000

You’re right. I don’t have any clue what your riffle shuffle looks like, I just misunderstood what you said in your first comment.

By: OldZombie

OldZombie — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:10:59 +0000

Perhaps you are over thinking this. Your genuine riffle shuffle and mine may not look anything alike. You might you a bridge, I don’t. You may do it in your hands rather than on the table, I never do. The point being that I think it is more important for the shuffle to look consistent than to fit the audiences expectation of what it should look like. I never draw attention to the shuffle, quite the contrary, a little patter and eye contact casually focuses attention away from the shuffle. They hear the riffle, they see the basic hand movements, its just a shuffle, there is no reason to be burning my hands at that point.

By: salmononius2

salmononius2 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:55:08 +0000

What is this ‘tape’ thing you speak of 😀

The double lift example you used is different, since you turn over cards a lot, eventually the spectators might notice a discrepancy. But with the riffle shuffle, it isn’t used enough to be able to develop a pattern in the spectators mind.

But either way, I think you misunderstood what I was saying in the first place (or maybe I misunderstood your reply 😀 ) so I’ll try to explain what I asked before: The average spectator probably knows what a riffle shuffle looks like, so if they all look different from a normal riffle shuffle, wouldn’t that cast suspicion on all of them if all the shuffles look different?

Then again, I’m writing all this based on how I understood you first post. It could simply be that the difference between your shuffle and a regular shuffle is so small that it wouldn’t make a difference anyways.

By: OldZombie

OldZombie — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:29:17 +0000

Without getting too much into the nuts and bolts of it all, I learned the Zarrow from a Bill Malone tape (yes tape, I am old) so when I separate the deck I cross my forefingers on top of the deck for the slip cut. I will do the same with an actual riffle shuffle. They don’t have to look exactly the same, no one will be comparing the a – b, but they shouldn’t look glaringly different either. It should just looks like that’s the way you do it. Another good example is the double lift, for me the natural way I would turn a card over would be to push it off with my thumb and flip it with my other hand. I can’t do the push off with the double (I do a strike double) so I modified the single to look more like the double by eliminating the push off. I don’t have a set number of times I will shuffle, the key is to be casual about it, and not ‘over provey’. I use the Osterlind Breakthrough Card System, which in my opinion is pure genius, a couple Zarrows a couple legit cuts by them, spread the cards face up, as far as they are concerned, those cards are mixed.

By: salmononius2

salmononius2 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:59:36 +0000

@OZ – How does that work? Most people have a general idea about what a normal riffle shuffle looks like, so they’re going to think that all your shuffles are ‘special shuffles’ if they all look weird and zarrowlike. Also, how many times will you do your regular shuffle before the zarrow? Will it be enough to convince them when they see a zarrow that it’s a normal shuffle?

By: Jeff Stone

Jeff Stone — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:06:21 +0000

@OZ – Great Point! I never thought of it from that angle. Sneaky my man . . . sneaky.

By: OldZombie

OldZombie — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:34:08 +0000

I think it is worth mentioning that sometimes instead of making your moves look like non-moves you can do it the other way around. What I mean is is impossible for me to make a Zarrow look like my normal riffle shuffle, but I can do it the other way around and make my normal riffle look like my Zarrow so the audience sees no difference.

By: Jeff Stone

Jeff Stone — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:55:11 +0000

In reply to salmononius2.

@Sal – Right on. Just make sure you bring a friend who’s not going to tell you what s/he thinks you want to hear. We need honest feedback. Most importantly, when you get the feedback, do not argue, defend, Justify or say “yeah but . . . ” Just Listen.

By: salmononius2

salmononius2 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:12:45 +0000

Once again, you hit the nail on the head with this one (both metaphorically and literally, since you use the same phrase in the second paragraph). This is all simple, obvious ideas that every magician should know, but probably doesn’t realize it until they see it in front of them. I’m definitely going to be paying more to attention to not paying attention from now on.

I would just like to quote a small line sort of buried into the article, yet is important enough to warrant an article all for itself: ‘You can also have a magician buddy help you out; bringing him/her along to a gig to give you feedback after the show.’

It’s very important to get a second opinion about how something looks in the ‘real world’, because while in front of a mirror something might work really well, from an actual persons point of view, it might stink.