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00:00 Hey gang, Aaron Fisher here and welcome to lesson one on the shuffle system.
00:06 Now it's a big lesson and there's a lot of material to cover because today not only are
00:11 you going to get introduced to fundamental techniques of card handling that you're going
00:16 to use every time you handle cards, shuffle cards, and every time you perform magic for
00:20 the rest of your life, but for many of you today is going to be your first real sincere
00:26 introduction to the fundamental concepts that dictate natural, deceptive, astonishing card
00:33 handling.
00:34 Now before we get started, I just want to give you a brief overview of sort of how we're
00:38 going to approach today and what sort of topics we're going to discuss and in what order.
00:43 So first we're going to talk just a little bit about the importance of the shuffle system
00:48 and why it matters so much in our magic, what position it fills sort of in the overall schema
00:54 of our card magic.
00:55 Then we're going to talk a little bit about the specifics of the overhand shuffle control
00:59 system and why even amongst all of the many technologies that are available today to control
01:06 and manipulate cards, the overhand shuffle control maintains its position at the top
01:13 of the heap and is still sort of the essential technique that all cardicians need to master
01:18 if they want to perform great card magic.
01:20 Now after that, we're going to dive into the specifics of the overhand shuffle and that's
01:26 going to start not only with how to hold the cards, but then we're going to get into the
01:30 specifics of how to run the cards.
01:33 Now if any of you have practiced the overhand shuffle before, and I know many of you have
01:36 and probably had some frustration with it, you're going to learn today all of the different
01:41 finger positions and exercises that will make it possible for you to learn how to run the
01:47 cards singly, one at a time, comfortably and confidently in front of any number of audience
01:54 members that are watching in such a way that it doesn't matter if you're on a stage or
01:57 you're surrounded or you're in close up behind a table, you'll always be comfortable running
02:02 any number of cards without missing all the time.
02:06 Now after that, we're going to work on how to shuffle the cards in packets, which uses
02:10 the same basic techniques, but it's actually a lot easier, a lot simpler than running the
02:14 cards one at a time.
02:16 Now this is where it gets really interesting because after that, we're going to get into
02:19 integrating the run and the shuffle so that it becomes one cohesive shuffle so that no
02:25 matter who's watching, no matter how many people, no matter what the circumstances,
02:29 no one ever has any sense that you're manipulating the cards at all.
02:33 It just looks and feels like your natural, normal method of shuffling.
02:40 Now once we've got that together, we'll have a foundation to begin working on the overhand
02:44 shuffle control.
02:46 Now you're not only going to learn the technique behind the overhand shuffle control, but the
02:50 blocking, the presentation, and the entire manner of performing it so that by the end
02:56 of today's lesson, you'll have all the skill and confidence that you need to actually use
03:01 it in the field, to have a card selected and controlled naturally so that nobody watching
03:07 has any idea that the cards are under any control at all.
03:12 And after that, we're going to give you an example, a wonderful trick that you can use
03:16 to practice your new skills.
03:18 So if there's no questions, I guess we'll just get started.
03:23 Now let's talk for a moment about exactly what makes your shuffle system such an important
03:30 part of your card handling.
03:32 Your shuffles, it's sort of like the trunk of a tree, right?
03:36 It's the thing that everything stems on.
03:38 In some real way, all of the other techniques and ideas that you'll use, they hang like
03:44 sort of bulbs on the Christmas tree created by your shuffle system.
03:51 If you look at it like the basic slights or like primary colors or like three chord rock
03:56 and roll, you know, each and every trick you do is going to have the shuffle system in
04:01 it somewhere, or at least the vast majority of the tricks that you ever do are going to
04:05 have the shuffle system in it somewhere.
04:07 So if one trick's got a control and a switch and a force, another trick's got a control
04:12 and a switch and a reverse, you're going to find that the control sort of remains constant
04:17 no matter what you're doing.
04:18 It's always going to be in there somewhere.
04:20 And the ball of yarn that sort of is the ball of deception that you're creating when you
04:26 do magic, it can unravel at any spot, right?
04:29 But that control, it's going to be everywhere.
04:31 So in a really sincere way, it's got to be protected.
04:36 It's got to be reinforced.
04:37 It's got to be solid.
04:38 It's got to be deceptive.
04:40 It's got to be above suspicion in any way, because if they begin to get the idea that
04:46 there's something going on when you shuffle those cards, it's not only going to raise
04:50 suspicion and spoil the effect that you're working on in that moment, but even worse,
04:56 it's going to make it impossible.
04:58 It's going to scorch the ground and make it impossible for you to really even have a card
05:04 selected and controlled again before that same audience.
05:06 You're going to have to sort of wait until they forget that you were even using shuffles,
05:11 and it could be quite some time before they forget that.
05:14 So it's really important when you're getting started to take a lot of time and energy to
05:20 make sure that your shuffle system is impervious to detection.
05:25 Now another thing you need to keep in mind about your shuffle system is that it's not
05:29 like a regular slide.
05:30 It's not like an isolated move or a moment that needs to be covered.
05:34 It's a sequence, right?
05:36 Your shuffles, they don't just happen and then stop happening.
05:39 They happen underneath.
05:40 They're almost like a baseline or a drumbeat.
05:43 They take place while you're talking to people, while you're having cards selected, controlled,
05:47 returned, while you're doing presentation, while you're playing with the audience.
05:51 It takes a while to get that shuffle system ingrained into your actions so that it's literally
05:59 sort of locked into your muscle memory, and it's a part of how you work, right?
06:04 So for that reason, it's like a dish that takes a little bit longer to cook.
06:08 You have to put it on the burner before the rest of the faster cooking vegetables that
06:13 you'll be serving in the meal.
06:14 You need to start today to work on that shuffle system so that you have it nice and prepared
06:20 in time, which leads me to the final thing.
06:22 Pardon me.
06:23 I want to make sure that I look at my notes here.
06:26 The second thing, the final thing I should say, is this.
06:29 Your shuffle system provides this overall framework for your natural card handling.
06:34 Now, many students that I work with, they think, "Wow, it's all about the pass or the
06:41 palm or the side steal, these sort of glamorous slights that we all sort of ooh and ah when
06:48 we see and we imagine ourselves, 'Wow, one day when I can do that move, then I'll be
06:52 really great.'"
06:54 But the truth is, those advanced slights, which we're going to be talking about in later
06:58 episodes and later lessons of this series, those are upgrades.
07:03 Those are upsells on this basic system that we're trying to create.
07:09 Even the handlings that we're going to be working on in the next chapter, the sort of
07:12 fundamental handlings, the interstitial handlings that connect all of our card magic like spreading,
07:17 dealing cards, and dribbling, and stuff like that, it all fits inside the framework that
07:23 we're going to create today with the shuffle system.
07:28 In a very real way, the shuffle system is sort of like an operating system.
07:32 You're sort of like a software architect.
07:34 We're going to create reality.
07:36 We're going to get the audience accustomed with our shuffle system to what is normal,
07:42 what is natural card handling, what can they expect, and when they see what they expect
07:47 can be taken without any suspicion.
07:50 We're going to set those rules starting right now today with the shuffle system, and then
07:55 we're going to stick to them.
07:56 So anytime we break those rules, that's what's going to cause the audience to experience
08:02 suspicion and maybe begin to watch us a little more closely than we want them to and sort
08:07 of bring about the downfall potentially of any of the magic we do.
08:10 So later, when we begin to work on those advanced techniques, it's important to understand that
08:18 they're going to be fitting within the framework we're going to be establishing today.
08:23 So it's very important that you pay extra close attention to the shuffle system because
08:28 right now we're laying the foundation on which all of the very specific advanced slides that
08:34 you may be very excited to learn about are going to be plugging directly in to the sort
08:39 of schema that we develop right now.
08:42 Now as we get into discussing the overhand shuffle itself, you might be forgiven for
08:48 asking honestly, "Aaron, why the overhand shuffle?"
08:51 You know, there's the table riffle shuffle, and then there's the dovetail shuffle, there's
08:57 the Hindu shuffle, there's all kinds of shuffles.
09:00 And you'd be right.
09:01 You know, there's as many ways to control cards with shuffles as there are shuffles
09:06 itself.
09:07 And it reminds me of the words of the famous coach John Wooden, who once said that it's
09:13 not really what you do, but how you do it.
09:18 And he was right because at the end of the day, I think many people assume that, you
09:23 know, we always talk about working on the fundamentals so that we can then move on and
09:27 work on something higher and greater.
09:29 But from my perspective, you know, there isn't really anything greater or higher than the
09:34 fundamentals.
09:35 You work on the fundamentals, and if you work on them to the point where you've really got
09:39 them, that's mostly all you need.
09:42 And I think it's very telling that so many of the students that I meet, the magicians
09:46 that I meet all around the world, either have never even tried working with the overhand
09:52 shuffle, or they have, most of us have, and I know many of you have, you know exactly
09:57 what I'm talking about, and sort of not felt very comfortable with it or not really had
10:02 a great time with it or felt like maybe if they had some other technique that that would
10:07 fix the thing.
10:08 But the truth of the matter is, you know, the overhand shuffle appears in the first
10:12 several pages of Erdnase's Expert at the Card Table, where Erdnase, you know, perhaps the
10:16 greatest author in the history of all of sleight of hand, seemed to think it was a very, very
10:20 powerful technique.
10:23 And if you ask me, as you're going to find out, it is not only the easiest of the control
10:29 shuffle systems to master, it's also the most deceptive and the most versatile.
10:35 Because I think, first and foremost, is because the overhand shuffle really does feel and
10:42 look like a regular shuffle that folks can do who can't even really do magic or handle
10:48 cards or shuffle cards at all.
10:49 They can still get through an overhand shuffle.
10:53 And that's, I think, one of the things that many students have a hard time putting together
10:57 is that your shuffle system is not supposed to stand out.
11:01 Quite the opposite.
11:02 It's supposed to disappear.
11:03 It's supposed to be taken as normal, natural part of your card handling, and people aren't
11:09 supposed to give it any thought at all.
11:11 So while some shuffles, like the dovetail shuffle, they sort of feel a little bit fancier,
11:15 especially when you're getting started out in magic, or the Hindu shuffle, things like
11:20 this, they draw attention to themselves.
11:23 And even if you listen to the sound in the dovetail shuffle, it really draws a lot of
11:29 attention to itself, and it makes it hard, harder for you as a performer to have the
11:34 shuffle blend into the background.
11:38 Further, these other shuffles can be used to control cards, but not very, very easily.
11:43 I mean, the dovetail shuffle, the table riffle shuffle, it's easy to control or keep stock
11:48 on the top or the bottom.
11:49 But if you really want to control cards around with those shuffles, it takes quite a bit
11:54 of skill.
11:55 In fact, so much skill that if you take a look at the control systems that are built
11:58 around dovetail shuffles and table riffle shuffles, well, those aren't even really designed
12:03 with magic as their primary purpose.
12:05 Those were designed for the poker table and all sorts of applications, which we won't
12:09 even discuss here.
12:11 Finally, it's fair to say that, as I already said, the overhand shuffle appears in Erdnase
12:16 and has all sorts of techniques for how to stack all kinds of cards in many different
12:21 hands and all kinds of stuff.
12:22 So as you develop your overhand shuffle ability, you'll not only be able to access all of these
12:28 wonderful magical applications without arousing any suspicion amongst your audience, as you
12:34 get better and better at it, you'll be able to handle full deck controls, all kinds of
12:40 multiple hand stacks, and all sorts of advanced applications that you would ever really want
12:46 from those other shuffles will all be there for you within the overhand shuffle.
12:50 So as they say, it takes a few minutes to learn and a lifetime to master, and to this
12:55 day, it's still singly the most valuable shuffle that I use when I work professionally in front
13:01 of a live audience.
13:02 So let's get into the specific technique.
13:05 Get your deck of cards, and we're ready to go.
13:09 Okay, start with the deck on the table in front of you, and pick it up from above with
13:15 the right hand, thumb behind, fingers in front, and place it into your left hand in dealing
13:21 position, which I will briefly discuss with you now.
13:24 Just to reiterate and say what I hope is going to become pretty clear, all of these finger
13:30 positions count.
13:31 Every single detail I give you is important.
13:34 So if something I say doesn't make sense, you have to continue to work with it until
13:38 you can investigate exactly what it is that's confusing you and resolve the problem.
13:44 So there's a lot of finger positions here, and each one of them is important.
13:48 So the left thumb tip goes about as close as possible to the front edge of the pack.
13:55 The right, or sorry, the first finger, second, third, and fourth fingers come just a little
14:02 bit above the front of the deck.
14:05 So you don't want your fingertips sticking up like this, or the first finger either,
14:10 for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is if you later, when we get into holding
14:14 breaks, all of a sudden you'll have a disappearing pinky trick, right, because your fingers are
14:18 sticking so far up.
14:19 And when we do things like spread and push cards over, you're going to find that these
14:23 are like speed bumps, right?
14:25 So if they're sticking way up, you won't be able to get the cards over.
14:28 So what you want to do is you want to have your first, second, third, and fourth finger
14:32 sticking up, but just little baby bumps, just as lightly as possible right over the front.
14:39 And then what you want to also make sure is that the deck itself is not resting in the
14:43 palm.
14:44 It's actually resting along the base of the first finger like this.
14:48 So it doesn't matter whether you have big hands or little hands, right?
14:53 It's always going to look exactly the same from above, sort of like an iceberg.
14:57 You're always just going to see the same facade from the top, which is the deck in dealing
15:02 position.
15:03 One other thing that I will tell you about holding the deck in dealing position that's
15:06 really important, and I spend a lot of time working on this with my new students, and
15:10 it does take some practice, is you want to learn how to hold the cards down to the right
15:16 and forward a little bit so that they rest in that bracket between the first and second
15:20 fingers pretty much at all time.
15:23 That's because in this position, the cards are cradled in the hand, and that means it's
15:28 much easier to make sure that there's no pressure coming from the thumb or these fingers.
15:34 The cards are just resting there, literally like eggs in a basket.
15:39 That's really very important because any pressure that I don't ask you to put on the cards,
15:44 like with your thumb or your fingers, like how we normally hold these cards in dealing
15:48 position sometimes when we get started, well, that's pressure that's not supposed to be
15:53 there, right?
15:54 That's almost like if I ask you to place some pressure somewhere, now you're placing that
15:58 pressure on a dirty canvas.
16:00 So to keep that canvas nice and white and clean until we ask you to do something, you
16:06 want to hold that dealing position down to the right and forward a little bit so there's
16:10 that nice cradle.
16:12 You'll know that you're doing that right if you can lift your thumb like this and nothing
16:17 moves.
16:18 So that's dealing position.
16:19 And of course, once you're in this position, you know that there's no pressure on the cards.
16:22 If you'd like, you can bring those cards back parallel to the floor a little bit.
16:28 Just make sure that you don't all of a sudden start squeezing with your thumb or your fingers
16:31 there.
16:32 Keep that nice, relaxed cradle.
16:34 Now this is dealing position.
16:35 Now the first part of what we're going to do here is an exercise where we take dealing
16:40 position and we transfer one-handed to overhand position, left-hand overhand position, which
16:48 is of course the position that the left hand is going to hold the cards in for the overhand
16:51 shuffle.
16:52 Now to do that, you want to place your thumb across the top of the pack.
16:57 You want to place your second, third, and fourth fingertips below the pack and have
17:02 them press up against the face of the pack just like that.
17:07 Now you want to keep your first finger planted here, right at the front edge of the pack.
17:13 And I want you to keep that in mind during this next action because if you don't, you're
17:17 going to find out that it's going to wiggle around and you don't want it to do that.
17:22 So just remember to plant it there.
17:23 And what you're going to do is extend these fingers like so until the pack literally clears
17:31 that first finger right here, clears it, comes up onto its side, and now rests at a 45 degree
17:39 angle.
17:40 With the first finger staying exactly where it is, it should now land right along the
17:46 front edge of the pack.
17:48 The thumb is still on the top.
17:49 The second and third fingers are pressed up against the underside.
17:54 And the pinky, just at the very cuticle, overlaps the back edge of the pack.
17:59 That's very, very important as you're going to find out as we get into the shuffle itself.
18:03 Now this is the left hand over hand position.
18:07 When you look in the mirror, back in my day, we used to use mirrors to practice.
18:13 These days you can pretty nicely use the camera on a computer just like this.
18:18 What you want to really do is you want to see that 45 degree angle coming straight up.
18:23 If you start to hold your hand like this or like this, it's going to be very easy for
18:26 you to lose that 45 degree angle.
18:29 But if you stay exactly where you were at the beginning and bring it right up, the hand
18:34 position stays relatively the same and the cards are now at this nice 45 degree angle.
18:41 You literally want to see that nice diagonal line like that.
18:46 Now that is the basic left hand over hand position.
18:50 But we're only halfway there for this exercise because before we get into the shuffle, I
18:54 always ask my students to practice not only getting into the over hand position one handed,
18:59 but getting back into dealing position one handed as well.
19:03 And so this is how you do it.
19:04 Because if you see, you've actually sort of changed where the left edge of the card is
19:08 now.
19:09 So if I just sort of let these go, you're going to see they sort of splay way out here
19:12 and they're nowhere near dealing position.
19:14 So what I do is I take my second, third, and my fourth fingers and I sort of dig them down
19:20 deep.
19:21 So those knuckles go way down low and that sort of scoots the left edge of the pack back
19:26 over.
19:27 Now I pop them right out and the cards fall back into dealing position.
19:32 So let me try that again for you so you see exactly what we're talking about.
19:36 Here we go and pop.
19:38 And they come right back down.
19:40 Now just to be clear, when they come right back down, we don't want to fall back down
19:45 into the palm or with the thumb out here with these fingers way up here.
19:48 The thing you want to practice doing is letting the cards fall directly back into that same
19:54 dealing position that you started in.
19:58 Like so.
19:59 That's one.
20:00 That's two.
20:02 That's one.
20:03 That's two.
20:04 Now when I work with students regularly, one-on-one, they often will take several weeks to get
20:13 certain exercises down and start to put it all together and that's sort of the practice
20:17 process.
20:19 Because we're doing this in a slightly different fashion, there's a couple differences, right?
20:22 One of the differences is that I have to anticipate your questions instead of waiting for them
20:27 and then giving them to you in response to your questions, giving you answers in response
20:31 to your questions.
20:32 But in addition to that, you have to sort of be in charge of self-pacing your learning.
20:37 So when I say to you that this exercise is important and that you'll need it before you
20:41 move forward, well it's all well and good.
20:44 Watch the entire lesson and go through all of these exercises as best as you can and
20:51 still remember that it is your responsibility, what you really need to do is work this exercise
20:57 until you can really do it flawlessly because it will come together in the finished product
21:02 in a way that is really very, very important.
21:06 So here's this exercise one more time.
21:19 And that's what it looks like, dealing position to overhand position and back again.
21:28 Practice that for a little bit and then we will begin the overhand shuffle run itself.
21:34 Now we come to the overhand run itself.
21:38 Now this is the part of the overhand shuffle where you literally shuffle cards singly,
21:42 one at a time, into your left hand off of the pack like this.
21:46 Smoothly, confidently, without ever missing, no matter how many people are there watching,
21:52 while you're talking to the audience normally, like I'm doing right now.
21:57 Now I have to say, there's a lot of elements of the overhand shuffle that we're going
22:00 to be talking about, but the overhand run itself, getting those cards off the deck singly,
22:05 confidently, every time, is easily the most challenging part of the entire process because
22:12 this is the nitty gritty, right?
22:13 This is the fundamental unit of the overhand shuffle.
22:17 It's responsible for all of the card control, bringing the cards to wherever you want them.
22:21 It's responsible for the end jogs.
22:22 It's responsible for the entire secret mechanism at the heart of the overhand shuffle.
22:27 And I will also say it's also the hardest part to learn because this is where you have
22:31 to practice so that you never miss, right?
22:34 And there's a lot of very specific details required to get this going.
22:38 Now before we get started, just understanding the theory behind the run, you have to understand
22:44 it's a lot like a casino dealing shoe, which you've seen before.
22:48 The cards go into this sort of shoe and they fall sort of at this angle and they're sort
22:54 of being bolstered by the piece of plastic here and the cards get dealt off one at a
22:59 time.
23:00 Now it's really interesting that those casino shoes, sure they can be faked, but they work
23:06 really, really well and without any aid of any electronics in there, those cards come
23:11 off one at a time.
23:13 And so what you're going to have to do with your hands is build a very similar mechanism
23:19 inside your hands that gets the exact same thing accomplished.
23:22 So starting with the deck in dealing position, as we've already discussed, bring the cards
23:26 to overhand position again, as we've already discussed.
23:29 And you'll notice now that that 45 degree angle looks a little bit like that 45 degree
23:35 angle I was just showing you in the shoe with one or two essential differences.
23:39 Do you see that bevel?
23:40 That bevel is really important.
23:42 Now in a casino dealing shoe, that bevel comes just literally from the deck being on a hard
23:48 surface slanted just like that, and you get that nice clear bevel.
23:55 Now in your hands, it's a little bit harder to get.
23:58 And so I'm going to really caution you to take your time as you start to learn this
24:02 and really work with getting this bevel because that's what it's really all about.
24:09 So what's going to happen is your right hand is going to come over to that deck, which
24:13 is in a 45 degree angle, and you're going to contact the lower card of the deck with
24:20 the second joint of the second finger and the joint of the thumb just like that.
24:25 Now at this point, we're not really going to grip anything because what we're really
24:28 trying to do is find that bevel because without that angle, without that nice bevel, there's
24:33 not going to be any run.
24:35 And the sooner that I tighten down with my right hand, the sooner that whatever position
24:39 the cards are in, they're going to be locked.
24:42 So what we really want to do, especially when we're learning, is really just work with letting
24:47 those cards fall.
24:49 You sort of want to let your left hand act as the table and sort of create that nice
24:55 bevel.
24:56 So the second finger is there, the thumb is here, just like so, and the first finger now
25:02 is very, very handy because if you're holding the cards loosely and that first finger just
25:07 rests right across the top, right in the center there, it can sort of create that clean downward
25:14 line, just like that, and that's exactly what we're going for.
25:19 Now when you start to have that nice downward line, then you very lightly begin to apply
25:26 just a little pressure with that second flange of the second finger and this part of the
25:35 thumb like that, and you're going to apply that pressure.
25:39 Now you'll notice, this is also really very important, the thumb and the second finger
25:43 are completely even.
25:45 They're equidistant from the top, right?
25:47 Now later when you get really good at this, you might want to bring that hand down a little
25:51 bit to give you more cover.
25:53 Here you can see, that's a lot of cover.
25:55 But when you're starting, it's actually going to make it much easier to jam those cards
25:59 coming out, right, because you've got some playing cards there above these cards, it's
26:04 going to make it easier to pull these cards out, not even, not in alignment.
26:09 And that's really the thing that we're going to start working on now.
26:13 It's all about alignment, right?
26:16 Picture these cards coming off the deck, it's a lot like a dealing shoe, but it's also a
26:19 lot like sort of pulling paper out of a Xerox tray, or not a Xerox tray, but out of a ream
26:25 of paper.
26:26 Have you ever opened a ream of 500 sheets of paper and it was sort of ripped open badly,
26:31 so there was sort of paper closing in on one side but not on the other side, and sort of
26:36 the paper sort of jams coming out of there.
26:41 I'm sure you've seen that before.
26:42 So that's what we're trying to avoid.
26:44 The whole point of the way we're learning how to run these cards is that we're trying
26:49 to learn how to do it so that the cards come off evenly every time.
26:53 So not only isn't there a jam, there's not even a thought of a jam, so you never even
26:57 have to wonder, even for a moment, if there's anything like a jam.
27:01 So if that third finger and the fourth finger are here, and the thumb's there, now that's
27:06 uneven pressure.
27:07 Now those cards are going to jam.
27:09 If that second finger is down a little and the thumb's there, that's uneven pressure.
27:14 And you see that?
27:15 Those cards are going to jam.
27:16 Same if they're here.
27:18 They're going to jam.
27:19 So what you really want to do is you want to find this position with that nice angle,
27:25 that thumb and the second finger are equidistant from the top, near the top, right?
27:30 We're not going to move them down, although you see, that's going to be nice later, but
27:36 for right now, much, much easier to keep them way near the top, first finger there, and
27:42 that is sort of the position of the overhand run.
27:45 A couple other things, right?
27:46 To keep that third and the fourth finger out of the way, you'll notice there's a nice illusion
27:51 there.
27:52 If you look from the front, it really does look as though the third and the fourth finger
27:55 are touching the deck, but they're not, right?
27:59 That's an illusion.
28:02 It's just the second finger and the thumb.
28:05 Now look at the thumb of the left hand.
28:08 That's in the exact position it was in when we first brought the cards to overhand position,
28:13 and now it's very, very important because it's right here in between the second finger
28:21 and the thumb.
28:22 One more note here.
28:23 This is also a really important thing to notice, right?
28:26 What we want to do is we want to maintain this angle during the run, and to do that,
28:32 what we're doing is we're holding these cards.
28:33 These cards are still pretty loose here, you see?
28:36 We're holding them tightly enough to maintain the angle, but not so tight that it's hard
28:39 to get the cards out.
28:41 The first finger becomes a real aid here because it doesn't really press down.
28:45 It's almost like one of those shoulder bars that you use in a roller coaster.
28:50 They're not meant to press down on you, but they're meant to keep you from flying up.
28:54 This is doing the same thing.
28:55 This is like that overhead bar.
28:57 By placing that first finger here, you're keeping those cards from changing that pivot
29:02 angle, and you're just doing it by having light pressure here and it's sort of maintaining
29:06 the angle.
29:07 That's really, really very important.
29:09 Now here's another thing.
29:10 As we begin to pull those cards down off the pack like this, you'll notice that right here
29:19 you've got that axis between the thumb and the second finger.
29:23 That's where it's secure.
29:24 If I press down here, that card can come right out, and that's exactly what we're looking
29:29 to do.
29:30 If, however, I pull all the way down to here, as most students do, they'll yank and then
29:36 they can't get it, and they get it right around here.
29:39 Well, look at this.
29:40 You're not secure now.
29:41 The axis is ... You've passed the axis.
29:44 If you press down here, those cards are going to literally pivot.
29:47 As soon as those cards pivot, you lose that 45 degree angle.
29:52 Remember, the right hand is coming straight across, and these are at a 45 degree angle.
29:57 As soon as you lose that angle, successive cards that you run are going to be harder
30:03 and harder and harder to run because you're going to have lost the angle.
30:08 This is one reason that students have such a very, very difficult time learning how to
30:12 run the cards because they can't maintain these angles, and running the cards is all
30:17 about duration.
30:19 It's all about being able to shuffle cards this way ad infinitum for as long as you want,
30:26 always maintaining the angle, and always maintaining the sort of perfection and comfort and alignment
30:33 of the cards as they come off the hand.
30:37 That's a lot of details you need to work on right now before you really even run your
30:41 first card.
30:43 You're going to have to watch this talk that I've given over and over again, really, and
30:47 look at all of these details.
30:49 When you finally sort of narrow in on it, what you want to do is you want to take your
30:54 thumb pad and you want to press firmly against that first finger, and then the thumb and
30:59 the second finger relax, and one card comes off.
31:05 You don't want to do this.
31:07 It's not really operated by holding these cards tightly and then the thumb yanking down.
31:14 What you want to do is you want to relax that thumb and that second finger, and you want
31:18 to let those cards smoothly come off the pack.
31:22 Now, when one of these cards comes off the pack, it goes directly back into left hand
31:27 over hand shuffle position, and this is the exact same position we've already learned.
31:33 The thumb is on the top.
31:34 These two fingers are underneath, and this is where that pinky overlapping the back edge
31:38 of the card becomes so important in the first finger in the front.
31:42 This position literally allows you to keep this card in register, and as you run successive
31:49 cards, they go into that same exact slot, and you become very, very good at shuffling
32:02 those cards into that position.
32:04 So what you want to start to do is practice running these cards, and I'll tell you what
32:09 I tell the students that I work with, except I have to tell them over and over and over
32:13 again because it often takes a student several weeks to begin really understanding.
32:19 You have to practice at this point slowly, and if I were you, I would practice more slowly
32:25 than you would ever consider shuffling in real life because the whole point is you never
32:31 miss.
32:33 If you can practice slowly now, running the cards so that it's perfect, so that you never
32:41 miss, you never think you're going to miss, and it's always very calm and comfortable,
32:46 what will happen is as it starts to speed up a little in the coming weeks and months,
32:52 it'll maintain the perfection that you're going to get right now.
32:55 If you try and start to shuffle at regular speed right now, it'll never attain that calm,
33:02 confident, sort of perfectly predictable, relaxed air that you're really looking to
33:08 achieve.
33:09 So it's my suggestion that when you practice this, you practice slowly running through
33:14 every single card in the deck, as slowly as possible, until it starts to be very, very
33:22 comfortable.
33:23 A couple other things I want to tell you.
33:26 Notice that I'm not yanking down with my thumb.
33:29 I'm working mostly with my arms.
33:31 It's very important.
33:32 Let me make sure you can see this here.
33:34 I'm shuffling with my arms.
33:36 Second, some students wonder, "Am I supposed to pull down with my left hand, pull up with
33:42 my right hand?"
33:43 And the answer is neither.
33:45 One of the reasons that we can shuffle so economically and still shuffle so very, very
33:50 slowly is because I'm actually moving both.
33:55 My left and my right hand are moving away from each other, and that means the cards
34:01 clear each other much faster, even though I'm working very, very slowly.
34:06 And you'll notice if you learn how to do this comfortably and slowly while you're talking,
34:12 there's no way that anyone watching you would ever know, no matter how slowly I'm shuffling,
34:17 that I'm running the cards.
34:19 So I can literally look like I'm giving these cards a shuffle, but I literally am counting
34:23 these cards into my hand one at a time.
34:26 I always know exactly how many there are, and I'm always very, very comfortable and
34:31 confident that the answer in my head of how many cards that I'm shuffling is exactly the
34:36 amount of cards I'm shuffling.
34:38 So that's the overhand run, and that's what you want to practice.
34:41 If I were you, I would give it some real sincere practice.
34:46 I would shuffle, run those cards for at least a week or two before even moving on in my
34:53 mind, in your mind I should say, to the next stage of the practice, which is going to be
34:57 shuffling off in packets, which as you're going to see here in a moment is a quite a
35:03 bit easier thing to do than learning how to run the cards.
35:05 But running the cards, must come first.
35:08 Now if you've already gotten sort of your head around running the cards a little bit,
35:12 you'll realize that actually doing the packets and integrating them is actually a little
35:17 bit easier than learning to run the cards themselves, because as you've already learned,
35:22 running the cards properly sort of gets it done in such a way that people aren't really
35:26 even aware that you're shuffling only one card at a time, especially if you've sort
35:30 of gotten your actions down, you're feeling smooth, you're not really sort of telegraphing
35:34 that you're just sort of counting the cards off in your hands one at a time.
35:37 So if you've already started to make some progress with that, I think you're going to
35:40 find this part to be much, much easier.
35:43 And so to shuffle the packets, you see here, to shuffle the packets, you are in the exact
35:49 same position, it's the exact same thing.
35:51 All you're going to do is you're going to bring that thumb up, that nice bevel, and
35:55 you're just going to lay that thumb instead of here, here, just so it rolls over the top
36:02 edge a little bit.
36:03 And then just like before, the thumb and the second finger of the right hand are going
36:07 to relax in just about that area, and a packet's going to come off.
36:11 So what you really want to try and do is shuffle in such a way that you're not splaying these
36:18 cards down or spreading them or that it's imprecise.
36:23 What you want to do is learn to get a clean amount of cards.
36:29 And you can do that with three or four big packets, two packets, let's see, one, two,
36:37 three, four, five packets, or you could do that with a series of very small packets like
36:43 that.
36:44 What you don't want to do, and what I see a lot of students doing, is they will, when
36:48 they start, they will sort of hook up in there because they're uncomfortable with how to
36:52 get this done, so they will sort of clamp down and make that happen.
36:56 But really, it's the exact same technique as the run, except you bring the thumb up
37:02 a little bit and start to get those packets off.
37:06 Now you want to shuffle that so that those packets come off in much the same speed, rhythm,
37:14 and cadence as running the cards.
37:18 At the end of the day, you want those things to feel more or less the same.
37:24 So when I do this, it's very important, not only when I do this, but when you do this,
37:31 it's very important that every time you shuffle the cards, you integrate the runs and the
37:37 shuffles.
37:38 So I run some, I shuffle some packets.
37:41 I run a few, I shuffle some packets.
37:44 And if I stop telling you what's what, you shouldn't really have any sense of which I'm
37:51 doing when.
37:52 So you want to practice running the cards for a couple weeks.
37:58 Then you want to start getting in those packet practices, and then you want to start after
38:04 that making sure that every time you shuffle the cards, you run a few, you shuffle a few
38:09 packets.
38:10 You run a few, you shuffle a few packets.
38:12 You run a few, you shuffle a few packets.
38:15 Because as you're going to see here as we get into the overhand shuffle control itself,
38:20 there's always going to be runs, series of runs, even if it's just one in jog, whenever
38:25 you control a card.
38:26 So it's very important that whenever you shuffle the cards, you sort of mimic that same pattern.
38:31 Like I said before, we're creating an operating system.
38:35 So whenever people start to see you shuffle, it should sort of feel like this, so that
38:40 when we get into the actual controlled versions of the overhand shuffle, right, they literally
38:46 conform to the rules that we're setting up right now.
38:51 And so that's integrating the run with the shuffle of the packets.
38:55 And now we will move on and get into the nitty gritty of the overhand shuffle control itself,
39:01 which you will use to control cards and amaze your audiences.
39:05 Now it's time to take the shuffle techniques that you've already learned and add a few
39:10 new ideas, the in jog and the undercut, to the overhand shuffle that you've already been
39:15 practicing and put that together in what's called the overhand shuffle control, which
39:20 is an incredibly versatile card control that's going to allow you to control a card to the
39:25 top, the bottom, or actually once you get comfortable with it, to any position in the
39:29 deck.
39:30 So we're going to talk about how to do that overhand shuffle control in actual performance.
39:34 And this is one of the things actually that I have to work on with students pretty much
39:40 all the time, because no matter how long we're in magic, we all like to practice because
39:46 practice is great.
39:47 You can do it on the couch, you can have fun, you can work on stuff, but we don't really
39:51 like to do so much rehearsal.
39:53 And rehearsal is the thing that really gets a piece of magic ready to show to an audience.
39:58 So it's really a question of doing the thing exactly as it's blocked in the actual show
40:06 as it's going to actually play out in front of the audience.
40:09 And the overhand shuffle control, since this is the first thing you're actually going to
40:12 be taking out in front of the audience and using, is a perfect example to start talking
40:16 about that concept of blocking and really putting something into the format that you're
40:21 going to use it in in front of an audience.
40:23 So what I'd like to do here is we'll just take a card.
40:29 In this case, I'll use a, let's see, queen of diamonds, and we'll place it face up.
40:37 And I recommend that you use an easy to keep track of card sort of as a stand in.
40:43 And you'll see exactly what I mean, because one of the things that students always have
40:47 a hard time with when they're trying to show me some magic and they don't know how to practice
40:51 when they're alone is how do you sort of make up for the fact that you only have two hands
40:56 and the spectators got to take out a card and then they got to put it back.
40:59 But now how do I put my hands back where they're supposed to be?
41:01 And all of a sudden, as soon as you start to practice that way, you're getting out of
41:06 sync with how it's going to be an actual performance.
41:08 So watch as we do this and you'll see how it really plays out during the actual show.
41:15 Another thing is during our next lesson, next round, we're going to be talking about some
41:21 handling techniques like spreading the cards, riffling the cards, dribbling the cards.
41:25 But for right now, I just want you to spread the cards between your hands as best you can
41:29 and have no fear because we really are going to get into the specifics of that as these
41:34 lessons progress.
41:35 So here's how it works.
41:38 You spread the cards between your hands and you say to a person, "Take a card, any card."
41:43 Now in reality, they're just going to take a card out of the deck.
41:45 You don't have to worry about that because this queen of diamonds is going to play the
41:49 role of the selection when they place it back in a few moments.
41:52 And in this particular example, I'm going to show you now how to control that selection
41:56 to the top of the pack.
41:57 Just so you realize we're going to the top of the pack.
42:01 Take that card out, look at it, make sure you know what it is.
42:03 Now while that audience member is looking at their card and remembering it, as they
42:08 go to take that card and look at it, grip shift the pack to left hand over hand shuffled
42:13 position.
42:14 Say, "Look at it, show it to all your friends."
42:16 And as they go to show it to all their friends, take the deck in position for the overhand
42:20 shuffle and undercut half the cards.
42:22 Now undercutting is just like shuffling off a packet, except it's a really big packet.
42:27 In this case, about half the deck.
42:29 Now it could be, you could say, undercut two-thirds of the deck or undercut a quarter of the pack.
42:35 Really it all depends on what instructions you're given in a particular trick.
42:38 But in this case, when we're just basically learning the essential skill, we're going
42:41 to undercut about half the cards.
42:43 Now that means your thumb comes up about halfway, and just as before, the thumb and the second
42:49 finger of the right hand relax and let about that many cards fall off.
42:54 Now what's interesting about this is remember, take that card, look at it, show it to everybody.
42:59 As I undercut, this is where a little variation happens.
43:03 As I say, "Show the card to everybody," and I undercut, let those cards in the left
43:07 hand fall directly down and into dealing position in the left hand.
43:15 If you remember, we spent a lot of time and energy making sure that you started to practice
43:20 doing those grip shifts properly.
43:22 And as you can see now that we're getting into the overhand shuffle control itself,
43:26 it really is very important because when I say to you, "Hey, look at that card.
43:30 Remember it.
43:31 Make sure you know what it is."
43:33 As you're looking at the card, that's the moment that I have to get this work done.
43:38 You want to have that work done by the time the audience member looks up at you because
43:42 otherwise you're going to feel pressure.
43:44 You're going to feel like people are looking at your hands while you're trying to do secret
43:47 moves.
43:48 And one of the things that you're going to find out during the course of these lessons
43:52 is that's one of the things that I'll probably never ask you to do, I'll try never to ask
43:57 you to do, ever do anything secret while people are staring at your hands because that's
44:03 one of the reasons that all of us feel so uncomfortable when we're trying to learn
44:06 magic is because for some reason we think we're supposed to be able to do this stuff
44:10 comfortably with people just staring at us and we're really not.
44:15 Sleight of hand, the gods that run sleight of hand do not like to be watched.
44:19 So take that card, look at it, show it to everybody and drop your card back in the pack.
44:28 Now this is a really key moment to discuss because it doesn't matter how skilled you
44:34 are or how many techniques you have at your disposal.
44:38 The moment when you say to the audience member, "Place your card back in the pack," it's a
44:42 really sensitive moment and there's no amount of skill that can get you around the fact
44:48 that you have to be confident and reassuring to the audience at that moment because if
44:55 the audience says to you, "I don't want to place it back there, I want to place it somewhere
44:59 else."
45:00 Now of course as you get better with cards and as you have more techniques at your disposal
45:04 and more handlings that you can use, you'll have ways around that.
45:09 But the essential problem is still the same.
45:11 The audience needs to drop the card back in the deck and feel okay about it.
45:15 And if they don't feel okay about it, it doesn't matter how fair it was according to Hoyle
45:21 because if they don't feel like it's fair, it's not fair and you're going to lose all
45:25 chance at a magical experience in best case scenario and in the worst case scenario, you're
45:29 going to get into a kind of a confrontation where the audience says, "Well, they smell
45:33 fear.
45:34 I don't want to put it back there."
45:35 "Well, why can't I put it back where I want to put it back?"
45:36 "You know what?
45:37 In fact, give me the cards and I'll take them and I'll show them."
45:39 That starts to happen, things fall apart, right?
45:43 And that can happen to anyone with any kind of skill level if that sort of thing breaks.
45:49 So it's really important as you practice this, that's why we rehearse it this way, is so
45:54 that you can be so comfortable, so relaxed in the pocket that the audience can relax
45:59 and trust and have faith that everything's going to be okay and sort of go with the flow.
46:04 A moment after the card gets dropped back in the pack, you're going to be shuffling
46:07 and talking and things are going to get a lot fairer.
46:10 But there's just no doubt about it.
46:12 The moment of the replacement of a selection in the deck is one of the most vulnerable
46:18 moments in all your magic.
46:21 So it's very important how you handle this.
46:23 Take that card out, look at it, show it to your friends.
46:27 I won't look.
46:28 Drop it back in the pack.
46:29 Now notice, I tap these cards, the right-hand cards, on top of the left-hand cards.
46:35 And I do that so that it really does look and feel as though I'm extending the middle
46:40 of the pack to the audience member for them to drop the card back in the deck.
46:44 And of course, when I say drop it back in there, they're going to drop it back in.
46:46 Bam!
46:47 And that's where our stand-in comes in, the Queen of Diamonds.
46:51 Right?
46:52 Drop it back in.
46:53 Now look at this.
46:54 If you don't do it that way, if you just say, "Take your card, look at it, show it to everyone.
46:58 Drop it back in the pack."
46:59 Well, now it's going just in the same spot, but it doesn't look like it to the audience.
47:04 It looks like it's going on top of something.
47:07 So it's very important because it's all about the impression that you leave the audience
47:10 with that they feel the card's going in the middle.
47:12 Just go ahead, drop it in there.
47:14 Excellent.
47:15 As they drop it in there, you say, "Thank you."
47:18 And as you turn back and say, "Thank you," now you grip shift back to the overhand position.
47:26 Another reason you really have to be comfortable with those one-handed grip shifts.
47:30 Now, as I come back, I'm going to injog the top card of the right-hand packet.
47:35 And I'm going to do it like this.
47:37 As this is coming back, I come to this moment right before the cards go completely square,
47:43 and I'm just going to run that card.
47:46 Now, of course, from this position, nothing could look any fairer.
47:50 And I injog that card, and it's a nice, big, healthy injog, about half the length of the
47:55 card, which, of course, you can't see from here.
47:58 And now run a few, shuffle some packets, shuffle off, and you can't see anything, and everything
48:05 looks absolutely wonderful.
48:07 And when the students get a little uptight about this idea that maybe if it was a smaller
48:11 injog that they would have a better shuffle, but that's really not the case.
48:15 This is like what my father used to say, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."
48:19 And at this point, you really do need a nice, healthy injog.
48:24 And of course, you can see there's a pretty big, darn injog there, but you couldn't see
48:28 it at all.
48:29 Now, at this point, what you're going to do is you're essentially, in principle, you're
48:33 going to press up with your thumb there.
48:35 I'm going to expose this.
48:37 Press up with your thumb there, and then you're going to undercut there by lifting these cards
48:42 and throwing them on top, like so.
48:45 But you see the big mistake a lot of folks make at this point is they go from that nice,
48:50 deep grip that we learned at the beginning, and when they go to undercut, they go right
48:53 here.
48:54 Now, I can literally see I'm cutting in a really specific spot there, right?
48:58 So you don't want to do that.
48:59 What you want to do is when you come to undercut, you want to come back to that nice, deep grip,
49:05 second finger, deep, deep grip.
49:07 And that thumb, of course, it's right there.
49:09 It just touches that injog card, and the cards below it just fall, right?
49:15 Look at that big gap.
49:16 It's a nice, big gap.
49:19 And what you do is, once you have that nice, secure grip there, you undercut and throw,
49:25 and that selection goes to the very top of the deck, just like that.
49:32 So I'll show you now, one time, just so you can see, I'll turn this card face down this
49:36 time so you can remember.
49:37 I'll say, "Take a card.
49:38 Look at it.
49:39 Make sure you know what it is.
49:40 Show it to all your friends.
49:41 Good.
49:42 Drop it back in the pack.
49:43 You're going to remember it.
49:44 It's super important, because if you don't remember it, there's not going to be much
49:45 magic.
49:46 Excellent.
49:47 I'm going to show you a little something."
49:48 And that card is back on top of the deck.
49:49 And at that point, once it's on top of the deck, it's another easy matter to bring it
50:01 to the bottom of the deck.
50:02 You just run the first couple cards, shuffle packets, run, shuffle packets, run.
50:08 And now that card goes to the bottom of the deck, just like so.
50:14 Or you can control the card to a number from the top of the deck.
50:18 And you would do that just by running whatever number of cards you would like before you
50:24 drop the end jock.
50:25 So in this case, what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring the selection to the fourth
50:30 position from the top of the deck, and I'm going to do it by running three cards on top
50:36 of the selection, then dropping an end jock, then doing the rest of the sequence, as we
50:41 already discussed.
50:42 So that would look like this.
50:46 Take out a card.
50:47 Look at it.
50:48 Make sure you know what it is.
50:49 Show it to all your friends.
50:50 It's very important.
50:51 Drop it back in the pack.
50:53 Thank you so much.
50:54 Are you going to remember what the card is?
50:55 It's super important.
50:56 If you don't remember the card, there's not going to be a whole lot of magic happening.
51:00 Excellent.
51:01 And now, of course, that card is one, two, three, fourth from the top.
51:06 And of course, if I wanted it fourth from the bottom, all I would have to do is that
51:10 same sequence, followed by running the first few cards of the deck, and then shuffling
51:18 off.
51:19 And now one, two, three, four from the bottom.
51:24 So that really is the basic fundamental idea behind the overhand shuffle control.
51:31 Don't worry about trying to master it all right now or in this lesson, because one of
51:36 the reasons, the reason we introduced it to you in this first sort of robust lesson and
51:41 really got heavy into it, is because you're going to be seeing applications of it over
51:45 and over again, different kinds of applications that allow you to do different combinations
51:50 of things, depending on what the needs of a various trick or a particular trick might
51:55 be.
51:56 What I'd like to do to leave you with today is a nice, simple trick that you can do with
52:02 the overhand shuffle control, and just one of these simple applications near the top
52:06 of the deck.
52:07 And this is one that I use all the time in casual situations, bar situations and things
52:12 like that.
52:13 And it's called Think Stop, and it's a classic trick.
52:16 And all you do, and really it's pretty much just the control itself and a little bit of
52:20 showmanship, what you're going to do is, here let's, we'll use the same card just to make
52:25 it easy on you, but see if you can figure out what's going on here.
52:29 Okay?
52:30 So we'll assume that you've taken a card out, looked at it, make sure you know what it is.
52:35 So, sorry, take that card, look at it, make sure you know what it is, show it to all your
52:39 friends, I won't look, drop it back in the deck.
52:41 Excellent.
52:42 And now are you sure you're going to remember it?
52:44 It's really important, because if you don't remember it, there's not going to be a whole
52:47 lot of magic happening.
52:48 Excellent.
52:49 So here's what's going to happen.
52:53 I'm going to look away and I'm going to show you these cards one at a time.
52:57 Don't say anything.
52:59 Don't let any expression show on your face or smile or wink, because I can feel that
53:04 stuff, I can see it.
53:05 And what I'm going to try and do is I'm going to ask you that when you see your card, just
53:10 to let the word, the thought in your mind, stop, come out of your mind, just the word
53:15 stop.
53:16 And I'm going to see if I can hear that thought at the moment it happens and actually read
53:21 your mind.
53:22 So I won't look, in fact I'll keep my eyes shut.
53:25 I'm just going to show you these cards one at a time.
53:29 Is that your card?
53:48 And that's all you have to do is control a card to any position in the deck that you're
53:52 comfortable with.
53:53 Now what's nice about that is if you're just getting started, you want to use four cards,
53:58 use four cards.
53:59 If you're getting more confident, you want to use seven or eight, use seven or eight.
54:03 Nine or ten, use nine or ten.
54:05 You can do as many or as few as you want, but don't feel as though the more cards you
54:11 use the better the trick is, because the truth of the matter is we're always in magic trying
54:16 to counterbalance two different things.
54:18 The goal of theatrical entertainment with natural appearance.
54:23 And one of the things that happens in one of the old methods for this trick, which is
54:26 the key card, is the card would be below a key card somewhere in the deck, maybe 30,
54:30 40 cards down sometimes, and you'd have a person showing 40 cards to the audience waiting
54:35 for it to happen.
54:36 And of course it would be really natural, really believable, but boring as all hell.
54:41 So in my experience, if you run six cards on top of the selection, then drop the end
54:48 jog, undercut, and then go on with the trick from there, it's actually more than enough
54:53 cards to create the illusion that it's really happening, and not so many cards that it gets
54:59 particularly boring to watch.
55:01 And it really is a very strong trick, and you'll be using it for a very long time, regardless
55:09 of how many cards you're trying to run.
55:12 So that does it for our very first lesson on shuffle systems.
55:16 Thank you so much for watching, and I will be speaking with you very, very soon.