One of the books I brought with me to read while I’m performing on this cruise ship is Seven Thoughts by Sungwon Kim. This is all card magic, and I brought it to give me something to do, and two work on. The second trick is called Swing Cut Aces. Basically you swing cut a deck and a face up ace appears. You do this until you’ve produced all four aces.
When I first tried it, it looked like garbage, I wasn’t even
sure how the trick looked “magical”. I
kept plugging away and doing it over and over and finally it’s starting to look
intentional, not like I accidentally cut to a face up ace. Mechanically, it’s not too difficult, but it
needs to be done smoothly.
The key to this was to keep going, and not give up on it until it got smooth(ish). I think if I was on land I would have bailed
on this before it got smooth, however at sea I’ve got a ton of time. I’m glad I did put in the time for this. It’s not something that I’ll use in my main
card set, but it’s another tool I’ve added to my toolbox of sleight of hand
moves with a deck of cards.
Now this has me thinking about all the moves that I’ve read in books that only tried a dozen times and dismissed them a junk. I think that deciding to “learn” a new move or not is a balance. It’s a mix of how much time you, and how useful the move may be in the future.