So what is Sleight of Hand?

I have been a magician for a relatively long time, and started making public performances in local areas.
(Don't be too impressed, i am nothing compared big-time magicians and illusionists like David Copperfield/Chris Angel for example)
Through my experiences in these performances, I will attempt an accurate definition of sleight of hand
in terms of someone who has relied on its mechanics for years.

Sleight of Hand is basically a tool used by magicians in order to complete a task in a secretive manner by way of techniques involving
the hands. Simply put, magicians need ways of accomplishing things without the spectator knowing what is going on. This in turn
leads the spectator to believe one thing is happening, when in reality something completely different is going on. This concept is the
basis for most tricks. Let's give an example. Suppose you want to have a spectator pick a card from a deck. The spectator does, memorizes it,
and replaces it on the top of the deck. You claim you are going to shuffle the deck... and the spectator visually sees you shuffling the deck.
That is what you want the spectator to believe... when in reality, you have shuffled the card to the bottom of the deck. The spectator believes
that all the cards are mixed, and their card is undetectable. You know already where the card is. This simple trick applies the basic concepts above.
We'll come back to this example in a bit and 'finish the trick off'.

There are MANY different sleight of hand techniques. The example trick above uses the technique of "False Shuffling". False shuffling forces the spectator
to believe the cards in a deck are mixed, when in reality, the magician may know where one, two, or even all the cards are in the deck! Another technique
that magicians use is called 'Misdirection'. Now, misdirection is not necessarily a Sleight of Hand Technique, but it is often used when the magician is about to complete a sleight. Let's take our example trick above. The magician knows the card on the bottom of the deck is the spectator's card. The magician tells the spectator to take the card box that the deck was in (let's assume that the magician and spectator are sitting at a table, and card box is on the table), and to
hold it tight so the spectator can 'focus' on his card easily. The spectator now is focused on taking the card box... a simple misdirection to get his attention off of
the magician. The magician then secretly "palms" the bottom card. Palming is another Sleight of Hand technique where the magician hides a card from view by
cupping it in his palm (this is only one type of palming). Once the spectator has the card box, the magician hands the deck to the spectator and asks him to look
at the top card. The spectator sees that this card is not his chosen card. The magician then takes the deck, and places his hand (with the palmed card) on top of it
(dropping the palmed card on the top... this could be considered another sleight of hand move). The magician says some magic words, reveals the top card, and it
is the spectator's card!

See, the spectator believes he saw one thing, but the magician knows he did something else. This is the basis for many tricks, complimented by the
techniques of sleight of hand!

Hope that helps!

 

 

 

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When I was in sixth grade, I started a "Magician's Club" which was mostly a flop because everyone in there wanted to learn the secrets but didn't want to perform so I had to be the one who gets to perform every time so basically, everyone else knows how it is done but they don't know exactly how to do it.

The most basic sleight of hand trick I knew was, as Seidhrith said, misdirection. It is diverting the audience's attention away from the trick, hopefully, giving enough time for you to complete the trick. One way of achieving this is raising an object on one hand while the other completes the trick. The audience will, depending on the supposed importance of the object being raised, instinctively follow the object with their gaze.

Another way to achieve this if by a false blunder. This is where you seem to have failed to complete the trick seamlessly the first time. On your second "try" the audience will anticipate that you'll do the same trick when, in fact, you are doing another.

Some ways of giving misdirection, on the other hand, are completely lame. "Oh, look at that!" while pointing your finger skywards is a kinda lame way of saying, "I'm gonna be doing something fishy so I want you to look there" Indeed, a lot of animè series have implemented this, with geeky looking characters screaming, "Look! A crow with <insert object here> in its mouth!"

There are times when misdirection is not a sleight of hand per se rather a sleight of head technique. For example, if you speak with your audience in an engaging manner then ever-so-slightly twist your neck and shift your gaze to the side as though you were abruptly interrupted by something that called your attention, you, depending on your skills, might be successful enough in luring your audience's attention away from the trick long enough.

I'm sure some of you might want to know some sleight of hand tricks. For the most part, misdirection is an acquired skill, one that requires constant practice to perfect, or, at least, master. This one I'm gonna give, however, falls under False Shuffling, as said by Seidhrith:

1. From a deck of playing cards, get the King, Queen, Jack and Ace card of every suit.
2. Put down the King cards of every suit. Follow it with the Queen cards, making sure that the suits remain consistent, that is, the Queen of Hearts is laid down on top of the King of Hearts and the Queen of Spades is on top of the King of Spades.
3. Do the same with the Jack cards, then the Ace cards.
4. It might be better if you arrange every suit's heap in a column, in pretty much the same way they are arranged when playing Klondike Solitaire. That is, you can see that every suit's heap/column has the king, as the bottom-most card (the top most in the column) and the ace is at the top of the pile (and at the bottom of the column) This is the starting position of the trick. Talk to your audience and note that the cards are sorted by suits.
5. Pull each column back into a heap, ensuring that the order is maintained. Pile each suit's heap atop each other. You'd end up with a deck of 16 cards. Lay it face-down on the table.
6. Invite the audience to cut, I repeat, cut the "deck". To do this, have them split the deck into two and place the lower group on top of the top group. Repeat as many times as you want.
7. Invite the audience to deal the cards, face-down, in four groups. You'd end up with four piles of face-down cards.
8. If you did it correctly or you had instructed your audience to do it correctly, wen you turn the piles over, the cards would have been sorted by rank. The fact that you did not touch the cards during the trick should lend credibility to your prowess as a magician, that is, for exceedingly average people.

That, again, is an example of false shuffling. I'm also exceedingly lazy; anyone mind posting the pics for me? I might do it, but at a later date

 

 

 

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