I got quite a small palm... i think... about 9 cm don't count the fingers
when i try to Tenkai, no matter what angles, the card is still visible.
should I use a bridge size deck or is there another method?

Is Tenkai really considered as a form of palming??

Malini had incredibly small hands. When he palmed a card it stuck out from the side side of his hand. Still his misdirection was so good that no one ever noticed or even looked.

I read from Stars of Magic that Malini only makes his move when the audience no longer looks at where they are not supposed to.

A simple concept yet very true when applying to misdirection.

oh ok, but what if there are many specs? then you may not know that some are looking at your hands and see thru the trick??

A great misdrection I'm using is, start off a few tricks that catches their attention without using palming 1st, errrr.. i'm talking about my ACR routine here, heh. Then in my 3rd or 4th steps, I'll hand out the deck to the spectator and tell them this. "If the deck is shuffled by me, you'll start thinking that i'm stacking the deck, why not you shuffle it for me." and TADA! the card is in my pocket. :)

Do you
a) just pull the card the second you put your hand in?
b ) or do you let the card sit there for a moment?

If its b ), what's your reason to have your hands go in and out of your pocket?

I am just curious.

The moment i hand out the deck and make them shuffle it, the card will be resting in my pocket peacefully with my 2 hands folding up and looking at them. :P

exohordon, some how i cant understand ur qn. sorry -_-

oh so thats how you misdirect... for me, i dont know whats the reason but people always fix their eyes on my cards/hand

I was referring to the motivation of putting the hands into the pocket.

Are you doing this in a one on one situation?
Or is it a group thing?

had tried both.
a group not bigger than 7ppl :)

yo, talking to your audience with eye contact do helps in misdirection. :D

i.e to say you just loaded the card took your hands out and folded your arms?

oh ok, umm how if the manage to catch a glimse and try to burn you, what should you do?

yes exohor ^_^


sk : hmm, you'll need to be natural and keep your hands relax as if you're not trying to palm the card. and lastly, dont give the kind of "Yes, i'm trying to palm a card now"-face to your audience haha :lol: :P

did you learn bottom palm? if yes, there'll be no problem for you to palm the card under cover of the deck.

i don't think you can do a top palm if they are burning your cards/hands. do a bottom palm. or misdirect, whichever is easier for you.

ZzaG

Learn the one handed top palm.

With a bit of motion, the palming is invisible. Of cos once you get it into palm, you dont straight away do your sneaky stuff (like putting your hands into you pocket). Have some time misdirection and wait for the right moment then do it.

I dont think one-hand top palm can work for small hands. It will probably flash between the fingers, or at the sides. The one-hand top palm should be used where no massive misdirection is needed, as a form natural-ness compared to other palming methods.

But its quite difficult and requires quite some practice, and since you have small hands, you will probably need massive misdirection to do the move to keep their eyes off your hand. Since that case, why not do the other palming methods, which doesnt requires as much practice as the one-hand top palm? The bottom palm like Zzag said is pretty useful,its pretty invisible if u drop your hands naturally to your side or waist level, and then finding the right moment to put your hand into your pocket. ;)

Hmm, from my view, i also have a small hand, i dun do palming, to the fact that i have the fear myself.

Gordon once told me before, u have to make urself believe that the card is not there before u can convice ppl that the card is not there. It is not how the card is hidden, it is how u present it when u hide the card.

If your hand is as stiff as a rock, u wont get it away, if it is very casual and like it is part of u, u get away it most of the time.

Most of the time, ur audience will be burning on the deck of cards, unless ur hand look suspicious, or else they wont put their focus on it. :)

Juz my 2 cents thoughts.

yeh larry, i also have a fear of plaming card, i dont know how to over come it, i always show the sides of the card when i plam...

kk thanks for all the advice, but were can i learn the bottom plam??

I have small palms myself. When i saw your "9cm* thing, I immediately measured my palm. Yes mine is also 9cm or less.

Always think about palming. Such misdirection needs some, or in fact a lot of thinking. When will the audience be distracted? When you talk to them? When you look into their eyes? When you ask them a question? Don't think a palm, be it bottom palm or one handed top palm or the one i use (a one handed top palm technically but with the left hand also holding the deck) can be done convincingly while "they are not looking".

PLEASE. palming is something you have to think about. Just like Naturalness, firstly, believe that the card is not there. Thus, your brain will not make the hand scream out "I HAVE A CARD PALMED HERE OH PLEASE YOU SPECTATOR LOOK AT IT AND BURN IT".

That's the best advice i can give on palming. Natural. Once you got that down, PRACTISE. Technique and natural-ness.

For my ACR, I end it with a Homing Card ending aka deck in pocket. To distract, i ask them "So what do you think is in my pocket?" 97.312% of the time they look around or at me and tell me the answer. BAM move done and completed.

My advice don't worry about it even you flash a little of the coner no one will notice unless you pull the attention to it.... my hands are not that big either... The thing that helps to conseal your palm is presentation, showmanship and misdirection all this play a part in magic ... so if you get all these down you do a lousy plam no one will even notice.... :D

ok ill keep that in mind thanks

I got palming problems in my early days as well... Jus keep eye contact with the audience and make sure he is lookin at U n Not the deck... When someone caught me palming a card(which rarely happens haha) here's what i do... " Wa U got sharp eyes! Actually it is very easy to palm a card.. U can even do it face up..." At this pt in time.. Do the classic colur change..It will give the illusion that the card transfered from the top of the deck to ur palm... Then almost 90% of the time one of them will say "BUT TATS FREAKIN OBVIOUS!!" All u need to do is rub ur hands on the table n slowly open up ur hand... n the card is GONE!! They will flipped n u got tons of misdirection o do the pass n get the face up card to the middle of the deck...Spread the deck.The expression on the Heclker's face is jus PRICELESS!!!

haha wow.. old thread..
anyway.. i think that with a bit of speed..even the part that is sticking out will be harder to see..
i always do my one hand top palm with two hands...haha what an irony.. but this means i have good misdirection! :rolleyes: haha but i usually do..is i will talk wave hands showing them empty..then stop to clear my throat/swallow saliva(trust me it works..try this..speak and speak and suddenly stop to swallow saliva or something..people will note this pause and look up..) at this point i will just bring my hands together and palm..think of a priest preaching..stops and bring his hands together for a prayer.. yep! haha
oh you can learn the bottom palm from any card books..as in the expert at the card table etc... or a dvd.. the bottom palm is a bit harder than the top palm though..
smile! :D

Hm.. Palming wth misdirection helps a lot.. Can try to talk more, ask questions.. and let you hands remain natural even when palming.. My favourite is top palm..

haha oh did i mention that you could use a bridge size deck..(slightli more expensive than poker ones though...for bikes i mean..) haha :lol:
just practise!

A red backed card rather than a blue backed card is better as it suits the colour of your palm more. The key to palming is being natural and keeping it in motion. That way, flashes of card in between fingers are not really visible. Misdirection is also vital when excecuting the move.

Bridge size deck?! Haha that's one of the advice i gave to one of my friends....Although he is quite big sized he got really cute fingers....
I was actually half joking about the Bridge size deck but the next day he actually started practicing with a Bridge size deck haha :lol:

Actually the size of your hand really don't matter that much.... Good misdirection is more important than having a big hand....

In the past, i thought bridge size poker will be fine, but in the end, i doubt so. Because you are deceiving yourself that you are able to palm in the end. Juz pratice with a poker size and try to find out the angles possible for you.

Or like me, i dun do palming.

when you have small palms, you have to practice even harder...but the palmed hand should go dead so size should not be a problem

Misdirection forms a part of the performance of magic as a whole. To say which is more important - misdirection or sleight of hand, to me, is asking the wrong question. Asking that implies that both are separate entities; while I feel they both are integral elements that make up the whole called the performance.

I don't feel that working with bridge sized cards is wrong. If your method working with them is sound, in my opinion you'll already be far ahead of many people out there who perform with poker sized decks and have inferior technique.

Do work on palming. It's a method that opens doors to a range of magic that is exciting and fulfilling to perform.

my hand is tiny but i palm a lot.
A LOT
mine is 8cm palm and there is huge windows that flies can fly thru.
just more practice, find the correct angle, a good misdirection will help also
:)

To come back to the original question, I have a 9cm palm as well, but I could do the Tenkai alright. In fact, the Tenkai almost guarantees the card is hidden from view (try bending the wrist slightly, the card sometimes peek out the bottom of the palm). It's probably the normal palm that you have to worry about. My solution is.... palm it, close my hand quickly and catch the corner closest to my index finder with my thumb, curling the whole card inwards. Then my fingers can just curl naturally, and I don't have to be afraid that the card slips out suddenly or the corner near the pinkie peeks out.

In fact, with the card in this position, I can spread my 4 fingers slightly to show my hand is "empty". Angle-wise there shouldn't be a problem. Maybe this will help. ^_^