Hey I noticed that we have all been talking about cards cards and more cards, what about the other party? The Hands?

I believe there are some tips and advices pertaining the hands and how to care for them right.

To kickstart, I have noticed that consuming excessive coffee/caffinee could retard your hands and make them really 'off-form'', since I had a obsession with coffee-drinking last year Dec.

Anymore?

Just an attempt to make this section more interesting and wholesome for flourishers.

:)

- Ling

cutting nails to make them shorter?
wonder if long nails will get in the way :P

long nails...LOL maybe they can be used as a easier way to do torn and restored =p

Am you aiming me? I hope not...

Anyway, I think Daren has long nails..... :mellow: :unsure:

yea he does if i dont remember wrongly :D
but his flourishes are SO SO good ... :ph43r:
maybe i should start keeping long nails too :P

Maybe we should start practicing instead of thinking it's our finger nail and etc.

why is this in the flourish thread? it pretty much applies to all sleight of hand ^_^

hand care. I apply skin moisturiser (those without urea in them.. hate those) before sleeping. fixed my problem of dry and over-smooth fingertips. it also makes my fingers feel a little bit nimbler. maybe it is just a psychological thing, but it works for me.

cause they were talking about flourishing ? as in the flourish movements using cards and etc.

hmm... I do apply occasionly those moisturizign things.. cos i got sweaty palms.. thinking that if u moisturize it, it will not naturally need to provide more sweat..
dunno whether am i right.. A friend told me beefore to soak my hands in saturated salt water... WTH ?

Isn't that about the same as taking a swim at any beach? Aint't too difficult to follow your friend's advice, ain't it? ;)

Anyway, allow me to digress from the 'cosmetic' replies in this thread.. :P

I feel that doing simple exercises pertaining to the hand muscles help a lot.. You don't want them to suddenly cramp up during a performance now, do we?

Like maybe, stretch the individual fingers, crack the knuckles, check out www.handhealth.com etc.. All these work to the improvement of better and more reliable hand movement, response and coordination later.

Btw, there's one particular motion that helps me a lot. Clench the fists together real tight (in solemn prayer format). Feel the strain, and rotate round and round, alternating between clockwise and anti-clockwise. Vary the rotation speeds too. This seems to loosen (and warm) both hands greatly, especially in a cold environment.

I got this idea from a musician friend. B)

Hope that i'm not way too off topic..

i'm quite the stereotypical girl in that i am obsessed with my nails. i love to keep them very long, paint them and i get annoyed when i break them. long nails don't have any impact on flourishing as far as i'm aware, but they make padiddling (spinning things on finger) a real bitch, so i have to cut them relatively short for awhile to practise padiddling.

i naturally have dry skin though, so i use lotion pretty much every day.

oh and, about the caffeine thing, i don't know what you were getting at, maybe just asking if anyone else had that problem? i sometimes have problems with twitchy hands, but it has more to do with my mental state (twitchy when i'm upset, or very excited) than how much caffeine i've been drinking, and i drink coffee on a daily basis.

i like to stretch my fingers and do wrist stretches by pulling my hand down and then up, holding each for 15 s. it's a stretch we do in tennis to help reduce the risk of wrist injury. and it's probably bad to be cracking my knuckles, but they feel better afterwards, so i do that once or twice a day

I think cracking knuckles make them look swollen in a long run.

To break away from stiffness in my fingers when I wake up, I usually do the wave tapping thing with my fingers against a surface very quickly for both hands, then they will be back to normal mode.

And, doing the ET sign helps to regain some coordination at the start of the day, do some finger flourishes! Morph is good at this!

I used to crack my knuckles all the time when i was younger. Was kinda fun and after watching Bruce Lee shows, u kinda find it macho..at least for me..ahhh..those were the days.. -_-

Now, i regret that totally as somehow my fingers became slightly disfigured. they became slightly swollen near the knuckles and will always remain that way. :mellow: heard that it was due to the constant knucle cracking that i used to do. Now i stopped doing it.

anyway, to divert a bit, but does anyone experience hand cramps? I got those a few days back and now i cant even P**m a coin and doing one handed cuts hurts :unsure:

i dont get hand cramps...
but i do crack my knuckles.
lol, have been doing it for scuh a long time that it became a habit.
now my hands are a bit swollen at the knuckles area after all the cracking
:P LOL :P

for me.. finger exercises or rather more like warming up your hands would be... esp in the morning.. ill literally try to rub out my finger nails.. as in rub the nails outward. to like " so called lengthen it " dun pull it off tho.. gives me a better" feel " in the morning

yea actually, when i was learning how to pirouette a card, it would cramp up a lot. and the first few times i did card throwing, some muscles in my arm would nearly cramp up as well. it's just getting used to using the muscles, as i'm sure you're aware anyway.

All these magic shop sell those special spray and creams for hands and they claim to be for magicians as they will allow you to handle the cards 'better than ever'. Are any of these true or not?