Eh.. Guys, seriously, what's the difference between manipulations and flourishes? I always thought they meant the same thing.


If producing cards are under manipulations then why is it not under card magic but under another term called manipulations? So is F**** Cuts under manipulation as well?

Pardon my ignorance.

This confusion has to do with some evolution of magic classification and terms in recent year in my humble opinion. This is how it goes according to how i remember it....

Traditionally, Card Manipulations refers to the branch of magical effects where the performer produces a seemingly unlimited number of cards from his bare hands, either as singular cards or as fans (think Cardini and Jeff McBride). There are more variations in this than most people realise coz it's popularity has somewhat diminished in recent times among the younger hobbyists.
Regardless, traditionally, card manipulations refers to this branch of card magic of producing and disappearing cards.
Manipulations are not restricted to cards however. (Billard) Balls manipulation, cigarettes manipulation and timble manipulation are 3 that i can think of now.

Flourishes refers to the skill set of non (so) magical handling of cards for visually nicer presentations, i.e. Fans and card springs and fancy shuffling methods and etc. This is usually employed during card tricks and card manipulation routines to spice up the routine.

The confusion arises, when pure flourishing routines (i.e. without magic effects) starts to gain popularity.
Unless I was much mistaken, De'vo was the one who 1st coined the term Extreme Card Manipulation (aka XCM). The term was his definition of the art of wildly fancy handling, fanning and display that he is now famous for.
From my understanding, (for some weird magician-hating reasons) he considered the term "flourishes" degatory to his performance, and implied that his art is 2nd fiddle to magic.
To the point that he insist everyone on his sites refers to it as XCM or Extreme Card Manipulation or face certain disciplinary actions at some point.

The problem then arises because the term Extreme Card Manipulations is quite a mouthful to pronounce which leads a lot of people to start referring to it as Card Manipulations. (Some people also drop the "extreme" part of it because they found it to be a little cheesy i understand).
Which is a problem because we have a traditional branch of card magic also known as Card Manipulation. Over time, the confusion and interchangable use of the terms became quite wide spread and we have the present situation. Which is kinda amusing to me sometimes. :g:

Anyways, as a rule of thumb, when I hear a younger person (< 25 yrs) talk about card manipulations, i will assume that they are talking about XCM or flourishing. When i hear an older person (> 30 yrs) or full on magicians talk about card manipulations, i will assume that they are talking about the branch of card magic.
I have of course been proven wrong a few times with this assumption but it usually works. B)

Footnote : I understand that when De'vo tried to standardise the term XCM across the board, he didn't gain full support from everyone prominent in this scene. I understand that there are quite a lot who decided that the XCM obsession is a little over the top and continued to refer to themselves as Flourishers.
So now we have Flourishers, XCMers, Extreme Card Manipulators and Card Manipulators. :!!:

As for false cuts, i would personally consider it a sleight. But I understand that there are some flourish cuts that can achieve the same.
Hope that clears it up for you, muscleaxl. Or at least didn't confuse you any further. B) :lol:


PS: I am extremely not in touch with the flourish/XCM scene and its relevent politics. What i know i caught from conversations and some casual reading. The full on flourishers/XCMers/Card Manipulators in here might want to correct any mistake that I have. ;)

Anyways, because I am a little bit leaning towards old school of things, this section of the forum, Manipulations, is for the traditional sense of the term, i.e. magical effects.

And this section is for all form of manipulations, not just cards.

The XCM stuff goes under Card Flourishes.