BasicTraining Sampler
BasicTraining Sampler
Th e Bo o k
Ba s ic Tr a in in g
Th e Bo o k
By
Ian Kendall
Acknowledgements
First off, a huge thank you to Mike Close for asking me to be part of the new
team of writers at M-U-M, and giving me the opportunity to develop my skills
at writing technical prose.
Thanks to the Nine of Diamonds group in Edinburgh for being a sounding
board for many of my daft ideas.
A huge thanks to the various magicians with whom I have sessioned, gigged,
argued and played over the last quarter century. You know who you all are.
The biggest and most ma-hoosive thanks go to Elisa, Susanna and Ben for
letting me know what magic really is, and for pointing out when I get
something wrong.
These lessons, or at least the first thirty six of them, were originally published
in M-U-M magazine between 2009 and 2011, although Im fairly sure that you
are aware of this already. The last two are extracted from eBooks I wrote in
2009. That might be new to you.
As usual, the contents are all copyright 2009-2012 by Ian Kendall. Which
would be me. All rights are reserved, including the right to remain taller than
most people. You are not allowed to copy this book, scan it, upload it,
photograph every page, photograph some of the pages or photocopy it. You
cannot store it in any retrieval system (except bookshelves) or EMC JBOD
symmetric (sorry, Storage Analyst previous life creeping in there).
Bizarrely, you are allowed to rip it to shreds, wallpaper your study with it,
write it out by hand (honestly!) or use it in one of those awkward bathroom
emergencies. I wont mind too much.
Ba s ic Tr a in in g
Th e c o n t e n t s o f t h e b o o k
Some words from the Original Editor
What to do Next
The Lessons
The Ghost Count
13
19
Presentation
25
Card Controls
31
37
Jordan Count
Through the fist flourish
Twisting Daleys Aces
The False Transfer
43
A Simple Vanish
Hang Point
A False Transfer
Forces
49
55
61
The Line
Ambidextrous Magic
67
73
79
85
As a Control
As a Force
As a Convincer
The Last Turn
The Chop Cup
91
99
103
109
Ambitious Card
115
121
ii
129
135
141
145
Spellbound
151
Changes
155
161
Eight Kings
Si Stebbins
Three Way Mind Reading
Knots
167
173
179
Sleeving
185
Cards to Pocket
191
197
201
207
Final Thunks
211
215
The Trapdoor
The Hinge
The Classic Pass
Blocking the Pass
The Top Change
229
241
iv
By the time I got to writing this lesson the first issue had
not yet been published, so I was still very much in the dark
as to how it would be received. Would I get panned? Am I
being too verbose? Would the idea of the Basic Training
course crash and burn?
13
Lesson Two
The Double Lift
Introduction
Hello, and welcome back to Basic Training. Last month we
looked at how to break a move down into its parts in order to simplify the learning process. This month we will continue that approach while learning a classic and extremely useful utility card
sleight. We will then look at the correct blocking of the move, so
we can direct attention away from the covert action when it happens.First,though,IwanttodeneacoupleoftermsthatIwilluse
often, both in this lesson and in those to follow.
Open Position
Look at Photo 1. This
is Gary Kurtzs open poPhoto 1
sition. I rst encountered
this idea in Garys excellent (and highly recommended) book Leading
with your Head. The deck
is held loosely in the left
hand, and both hands are
at waist level. Other than
having your arms down
by your side (which is not
always possible during a
card routine), this position
has the least amount of inherent suspicion. Note
also that the shoulders are
relaxed and I am standing up straight. Whenever
possible after a sleight you
should return to open position.
Getting used to this (if you are not already) is really very easy
stand up straight and let your arms hang down by your sides.
Shake your shoulders a bit, and then bend your elbows so that your
forearmsareparalleltotheoor.Thatsallthereistoit,butthere
is one error that beginning magicians sometimes make, and I feel
I should mention it: if your upper arms are away from the vertical
(another way to look at it is to check if your elbows are forward
of your waist), then you are using your back muscles to hold them
there. This will cause tension in your back, which will make your
shoulders rise slightly. This will be noticed by the audience as a
sign of tension. (Ill go into this in more detail in a future lesson,
but for now please take my word for it.) Also, holding your arms
out for a long period gets tiring!
The Cage
Now look at Photo 2. Although this simply looks like my hand
and a deck of cards, there is more to it than that. I will refer to this
position as the cage, and its use will become very apparent in a
short while. The deck is held very loosely in the hand, with the
indexngeraroundthefrontofthedeckandtheotherthreengers
along the right long edge. The thumb rests on the left edge of the
deck. The front right corner of the deck is about half an inch below
the inner left corner, so that the cards are naturally resting on the
rst and second
ngers. The ad
Photo 2
vantage to the
cage is that if a
card is dropped,
ipped, or thrown
onto the deck it
will slide square
with the rest of
the cards with no
effort from you.
This allows us to
be more relaxed
about certain moves, removing the guilt factor (more on this later).
For now, practice holding the deck in the cage grip and drop a card
onto it, slightly injogged. When it automatically slides square, you
know the correct angle at which you need to hold the deck.
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that can frame the action. Another potential problem is that the
action of the double lift often fails to mimic the genuine action of
turning over a single card, and again this goes against the ideal of
naturalness. In order to address these concerns I will show you a
method that requires no getready, is relatively easy to learn, and
closely resembles the single-card handling.
Pick up your cards and hold them in the cage grip. If you can
stand in front of a large mirror, that will help immensely. Im going to assume, in this lesson at least, that you are holding the deck
in your left hand. If you are one of the few who hold the deck in
your right hand, either because you are left-handed or John Carney, Ill assume you are well versed in transposing instructions.
Look at yourself in the mirror, and get into open position. We are
going to turn over the top card of the deck, but I want you to pay
special attention to your forearms and wrists as you do. There are
various ways that you can move your hands together, but only one
involves no tension (and remember the easiest method is always
the most natural). Try keeping your left hand still and move your
right hand over, then reverse that; move the deck to your stationary
right hand. Both of these will look and feel wrong, which has more
to do with our inbuilt love of symmetry than any physiological
reason. So we know that we need to move the hands together, so
that the deck meets the right hand in the center of our body. There
are a couple of ways we can do this, so lets try them out so we can
see which is more natural. First, bring the hands together without
rotatingtheforearms.Therstthingyouwillnoticehereisthat
your right wrist will be bent back slightly, which is not a natural
position. Go back to open position and rotate your thumbs slightly
towards each other so that the right edge of the deck is almost
pointingtotheoor.Ihopeyouwillseeandfeelthatthisisamore
natural way for the hands to meet; this action is a major part of the
lift. Look at Photo 3 for the approximate positions. Practice moving the deck from open position to this closed position (to give it
a name).
Now it is time
to standardize the
Photo 3
handling for turning over a single
card. By that I
mean that we
need to make sure
that we can turn
over a single card
in the same manner as the double.
Look down at the deck in closed position. If you are holding the
deck in a light cage, the deck will be bevelled forwards and to the
right. Your left thumb will be resting on the extreme left edge of
the top card, but not pressing down on the back of the card (at this
point there may be a time when you need to use the thumb, but
well cover that later). There should be a gap of about half an inch
betweenyourleftmiddleandringngers,anditisherethatyour
rightindexngercontactstheextremerightedgeofthetopcard.
However, if the right hand simply comes up from below, we run
the risk of pushing that card square, which is something we do
not want. So, as the right hand approaches the edge of the deck, it
goes a small distance past the edge, and the edge of the top card is
placedagainstthepadoftherightindexnger,aboutaneighthof
aninchinfromtherstjoint.Ifyoumoveyourlefthandslightly
to the left at this point, the top card will come away from the deck.
Look at Photo 4 to see this.
In order to turn
the card over, a
few actions hapPhoto 4
pen in one ow,
so we will have
to break them
down. First, the
right middle n
ger comes up to
jointheindexn
ger
underneath
the card while the
right thumb lightly contacts the right edge of the card, but the majorityofthethumbpadisonthengersbeneath(itsaverysimilar
grip to the one used in the Ghost count refer to last months
column for more details). The right hand begins to move to the
right, but the greater action is that of the left hand, which moves
the deck to the left. During this action the left side of the top card
will slide along the top of the deck, until it comes to rest on the left
ngertips.SeePhoto5toseethis.Youllnoticethatmyleftthumb
is still in contact with the edge of the top card. This is not essential,
but can be useful at a later stage. Feel free to practice both methods
all you need do is push your left thumb across the top of the deck
while the left hand
moves away and
the edge of the top
Photo 5
cardwillstayush
against the top of
the deck.
There is a possibility, if your
cards have a slight
warp, that you will
have
difculty
separating the top
card cleanly. If this is the case, simply move your left thumb onto
the back left edge of the card and apply a small amount of pressure.
Trial and error will show you just how much to use, as every warp
and card thickness will differ.
Position check: you are in a closed position, with the single
card face down on your left ngertips, held between your right
indexandmiddlengersandthumb.Toturnthecardoveryouare
goingtoipthecardbyrapidlyextendingyourrightngersand
releasing the card with your thumb. The card will turn over, landing on the deck as you rotate your left hand outward back into the
cageposition.Becauseofthecage,thecardwillslideushwith
the pack as you move your hands apart into open position. (If the
ippedcardlandsabitoutjogged,itisasimplemattertopullthe
cardushwithyourleftindexnger.)Youdonotwantto place
the card onto the deck. Its one card theres no need to treat it
like china.
Thats the one-card turnover. It seems like a lot of work just to
turn over a card, but once you have this action smooth, the double
15
will be a piece of cake. First, though, we have to turn the card face
down again. If your deck is in good condition, or you own a Porper
clip,thereversedcardwillbeushwiththedeckandallyouhave
to do is repeat the previous actions to turn the card over again.
However, most of the time there will be a bridge in the cards, and
this can be a good thing. Try this if your cards are in good shape,
put a slight convex longitudinal bridge in the reversed card if you
already have the warp, you are good to go. Press down on the left
edge of the top card, and you will see a lovely natural break appear
on the right edge. This makes returning the card so much easier,
since you can press down with your left thumb as you move into
closedpositionandthebreakisalreadythereforyourrightngers
topickup.Drawthecardtothengertipsagain,andipitback
over into the cage.
Photo 6
Photo 7
You will need to get comfortable with handling a double, so
here are some exercises. Take two cards and hold them in lefthand dealing grip. It doesnt need to be the cage, but the cards will
naturallybesquare.Movingyourleftringandlittlengersoutof
the way, take the cards loosely in the same right hand grip that you
usedtodrawoffthesinglecardtwongersbelowandthethumb
in the pinch grip. Rotate your wrist to show the face of the cards,
and then put them back into your left hand, all the while keeping
themsquare.Repeatthis,butthistimeipthecardsintotheleft
hand using the same method as before. Play around with the doubleforaboutveminutes,andbythattimeyouwillhaveamuch
better understanding of how you can handle the cards in a natural
manner. Remember that a looser grip is usually better, but not so
loosethatthecardsyapart!
We need to learn how to correlate what we already know into a
double lift. The good news is that since we have gotten this far, the
double itself is very easy. Start in an open cage position and bring
the hands together as before. Pick up the top card, its edge slightly
infromyourrstjointonyourrightindexnger.Thisisthesame
as Photo 4. Now comes the sneaky part: with the pad of your right
indexnger,pickupthesecondcard(Photo8showsthis).Dont
worry about the gap for now; at the moment, just make sure that
you can pick up the two cards. In order to get the cards square,
allyouneedtodoisbendtherstjointonyourrightindexnger
and the top card
willfallushwith
the second card
Photo 8
(photo 9). Try it
and see. From
here, the action is
exactly the same
as before. With a
light grip on the
double, the hands
separate slightly
so that the left
edge of the double slides down the deck. The double is ipped
over onto the caged deck, just as you did in the two-card exercises.
And thats the double lift.
Anotherplaceyouwillndthedoubleliftisinpackettricks.
Doing a deceptive double lift from a small packet is a wee but
harder than from
a full deck, but
not so much that
Photo 9
it should cause
you concern. The
mechanics are essentially the same;
handle the cards
lightly and everything falls into
place. The knack
bit is getting the
double pickup. To practice this, start with about twenty cards, and
go through the motions of the standard lift. This should give you
no problems. Then go down to ten cards and try again. Once you
have done that, remove one card at a time and try again. When
youaredowntofourorvecardsyouwillhaveagoodideaof
16
the move.
As you practice you will be able to reduce the gap between
the two cards during Photo 8, and in time you will be able to pick
two cards as one. At that point you will have a truly useful sleight,
but it will take both practice and the realization that there are no
shortcuts. Sorry about that.
So what do you do during that practice time? I said at the start
that we would talk about blocking, and this is where we will learn
that the move is still useable before we have mastered the two-card
pick.
Blocking
Before I talk about the double lift specifically, I need to address
one of the most prevalent misnomers in magic misdirection. I
would imagine that all of you have heard about misdirection, many
of you will know something about it, and some will have a decent
understanding of the basic principles. It is, after all, at the core of
our work, but the name is all wrong. We need to be thinking about
direction of attention, and we need to be thinking about it all the
time. The term misdirection implies that the audience is lookingatthewrongplacethemisstemofthewordimpliesthat.
In truth, during a good magic performance the audience will be
looking at exactly the right place, and that place is exactly where
we want them to look. And we do that by directing their attention.
Unfortunately, the misnomer has found its way into the language,
so I will refer to it as misdirection from now on, while silently gritting my teeth as I type
Im sure you will have heard the two prevalent tenets of misdirection: its in the eye and if you want them to look at something, look at it yourself. (And John Ramsays corollary, If you
want them to look at you, look at them.) To understand these
statements, we need to digress into a small biology lesson.
You probably know that the eye has on its back wall a layer
called the retina. You may know that the retina is made up of two
types of cells: rods, which can determine light and dark, and cones,
which can determine color. You may not know, however, that on
the back of the eyeball, directly in line with your pupil, is a small
indentation called the fovea. Its not very big, but crammed into
the fovea are about 90% of the cones in your eye. The remaining
cones are scattered around the rest of the retina, along with 90% of
therods.Theresultofthisisthatwehaveadetailedeldofvision
of about twelve to eighteen inches, depending on the distance to
the object being viewed, and outside this space we have a fuzzy
picture at best. For another example of this, you may have noticed
that in order to see something at night, you need to look slightly
to its side. This is because there are not enough rods in the fovea.
The other aspect we need to consider is that humans (and the
majority of vertebrates) use the eyes as a primary method of nonphysicalcontact.Thisiswhysomepoliceofcersweardarkglass
es the lack of eye contact can be intimidating. Examples abound:
face-to-face meetings are always easier than phone calls, denying
eye contact can be a very effective punishment for small children,
a look from a friend or partner can lift your mood. The eyes are
very powerful things. As an added bonus, we are conditioned from
anearlyagetolookatsomeonewhentheylookatus,andwend
it easy to follow someones gaze from a distance. And gaze can be
a very valuable tool in misdirection.
The most important part of all this is that when we are in open
position, the deck and our hands are out of the eld of detailed
vision when someone is looking into our eyes. They will be able
to see the deck in their peripheral vision, but it is in no way a detailed image. As such, small discrepancies like having a small
gap between two cards will
go unnoticed.
So how do we use this?
Look at Photo 10. I am in
closed position taking the double, but because I am making
eye contact with the camera (or
spectator)itisverydifcult not
to look at my eyes. The spectators will be aware of the deck,
but only after I have ipped
the card into the cage do I look
down at the deck (Photo 11).
Because the audience had my
gaze before, they will follow it
down to the deck (Ive broken
eye contact), and they will see
Photo 10
the card when I want them to
see it. It goes without saying
that I dont look down until I
can feel that the card is ush
with the deck. I then look up
again, and continue with whatever it was I was doing.
The most important thing to
remember during all this is that
you are turning over a card. No
more, no less. It is such an innocent action that to pay it any
attention would be unnatural.
Make sure that you handle the
double card lightly. Get rid
of any guilt. If you have their
eyes, they cannot clearly see
Photo 11
the cards in your hand, which
will forgive any small mistakes.
Take things step by step. Dont rush ahead before you are completely comfortable with the preliminary training actions and you
will have the move down very quickly. If you rush, you may learn
some bad habits that will be hard to undue further down the road.
Next month we will talk about a classic coin move. I hope you can
join me.
17
18
Final Words
Well, that was Basic Training. I hope you enjoyed the lessons and got
something out of them that will improve your magic. I had fun writing them
(for the most part) and Im proud to be able to send them out into the world
one more time.
If anyone is interested, the lessons were originally typed up in Word and the
photographs were adjusted in Corel Photo-Paint. The PDFs were extracted
from the magazine proofs with Acrobat 9 Pro and then imported into Serif
PagePlus X4. They were then re-read and edited using my eyes and formatting
glitches were ironed out. The proof photographs were replaced with the
originals, and the book was laid out. Then, I had to do everything again
because the pages were not set to A4, which meant all the formatting and
placement was skew-whiff. Then there were all kinds of page numbering issues
which had to be dealt with and finally things were looking better.
For the real geeks, this font is Bookman Old Style, which I quite like, and the
main lessons are set in Times New Roman. The final two lessons are set in
Ariel and Cooper Black. This machine is a Dell Studio 540 with three monitors
running Windows 7 and a whole host of other stuff hanging off it.
Thats it, Im done. Thanks for buying my book and Ill see you on the road.
241