Cardistry, or, “How to get a sore back by dropping cards all the time”

A few weeks ago I was watching some “Penn & Teller Fool Us” clips online, and saw one (I can’t find again) of a woman card magic performer who in her little into bio video, said one day she saw someone doing cardistry and thought, “Hey, I could learn to do that!” and so did. But also, during that same time, I listened to Penn Jillette on a podcast talking about the myth of genius — how (with some exceptions, like child prodigies) most of what is considered “genius” is simply hard work. He specifically references learning about how his heroes, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, looking at their notes and listening to their outtakes, what you think is genius art springing fully formed from the mind and fingers of someone gifted, is more often than not countless hours of work and effort. And that’s how he got into first juggling then magic.

So those two things were peculating in me brainpan when one day I looked over at my growing collection of playing cards (I love collecting them and using a different deck for a themed poker night), and I thought to myself, Self, maybe you can learn cardistry too! But, Self, how in the world does one learn?

Hey, did you know there’s this thing called The Internets?!…

So I’ve mostly been watching Chris Ramsay videos and, well, doing my best to learn basics! It really is a lot of work, but when the first day I went from going, “GAH! I’ll never get this! My hands are stoopid!” to “Whoa! I did it. Whoa, I did it twice in a row!” I was stricken!

There’s one deck I’m going to treat myself to when I get decent enough, but to get myself going, I bought myself the following decks to practice cardistry and also card magic. And it’s wild, the quality of the cards really do make a huge difference! Practicing on the deck I started with, I could not make a decent fan flourish for the life of me! Impossible! But on one of these new, quality decks, bam! Really nice fan right off!

my first cardistry and card magic decks

The TCC Swords v2 I got through PlayingCardDecks.com, the red TCC I had to get from Penguin Magic, though, to complete the set.

red knights

This Red Knights deck is my pride of my collection! So many little wonderful easter eggs and surprises through it! And they feel wonderful! I also got these through PlayingCardDecks.com.

Oh hey, if you want to buy something from PCD.com, please use this link? https://a.marsello.com/l/5d9283c50880c0061856c5e2. I get referral points, and you get 10% off!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *