Dolphin hands = good color changes. Take that to the bank, senator. The blood bank.
Trust me, when it comes to magic, Mr. Seagal’s opinion is the final answer. So what do I mean by dolphin hands? I think the term (which I made up because i have a fetish for dolphins) describes how to successfully execute a classic color change.
The classic color change. While holding out the card in a classic palm, our hands assume the dolphin hand. It would flash if it wasn’t. That’s the easy part. The hard part is the ditch and what happens after the color change. The reason I feel that the last two parts are the most crucial is because if you do it wrong, the spectator can back track and figured out how you do it. The simple answer is to say that you had a card and added it on right? So how do we make sure they don’t go down that path.
The Ditch. So here is my thoughts on the ditch. The hand must stay in the “dolphin hand” position even after the addition of the card. As magicians, we have a tendacy of over proving the cleaness of our hands after doing something dirty. You know what I’m talking about. When magicians do a color change, all of us open our fingers up like we are doing jazz hands. It’s a very subtle thing but it tips off to the spectator that it was at that point where the card was added. Sure its a subconcious thing, but it is something we can avoid.
This is probably the main point of the post. Get used to having dolphin hands at all times. Why? If the magician’s natural tendency is to have closed fingers, then having a card palmed will not be out of context. Just like having your hands in finger palm gestures all the time while doing coin magic. Instead of having your hands wide open all the time and then close it when you palm something, it keeps your actions natural and doesn’t raise a subconscious flag in their heads.
What Happens After. Similar to the ditch, what do you do afterward? The need to disguize when the card was ditched is very important. Many people doing a color change will stop the waving, magic gesture when the ditch is made. Mission accomplished. The card has been changed. The spectator can feel the ditch because of this simple flaw. Many color changes (in the classic sense) have the magician fly the hand toward the deck to drop the card and then back up to expose the change. The simple change in direction is a major tip off when the color change was made. It doesn’t matter how much waving you do before hand, if the last motion the associated with the color change seems different, then its game over.
The main point is to keep waving even after the change. It’s all by feel of the color change so to speak. If you can’ tell when the ditch happens in the color change in its whole, then you are on the right track.
Ricky Smith has probably one of the sexiest classic color changes I have seen. He has taken all of the above to heart. He didn’t even need my help or know of my existence. check it out here. This is what you should strive for.
IVIrIVIagic
I know this has been up forever, but just went back through the posts. I just have some things to add:
I love the idea of conditioning a spectator. What I think is a good idea is to see when the laymen person (or magician) notices you with cards, and when you then approach them, have a “Dolphin Hand” it is important to already have it before you introduce yourself as the entertainment (pretentious). Maybe shake their hand or go into your pocket with a dolphin hand to grab some cards. Basically do something subtle that makes them notice your hand is already in dolphin hand without announcing it, but don’t do something like look at your hand ask them to check out your palm, that would be drawing unnecessary attention to your hand. Another thing is to always look at your actions before you go out and perform. By this I mean take the cascade control, look at what your cascade already looks like and sounds like, and try to make your control the same. Also, another thing I notice about controls, is that in practice, a magician is always very focused on the control, and not what’s around the control. If you were to do a regular cascade, you wouldn’t think twice about it, but if you were to do the cascade control, you might seem more focused or stressed about a simple cascade. We as magicians or whatever you call yourselves have to be aware of our naturalness, I believe casual, natural move is better than a focused move, even if they are both done smoothly. So look at all your moves and try to make them natural. Another thing is that when people learn a move, they are so focused on the move that they don’t think of what happens before and after, like Tony Chang always says. After you master a move don’t let bad practice habits fester and carry over to when you are refining and performing that move. You can always go back to the source you learned the move from, and take in all the subtleties. I find this helps a lot.
- Andre