I'm pretty new at it, and magic in general, but I'm really starting to enjoy learning flourishes and fancy moves every bit as much as learning tricks and effects.

After I learned to handle a pack of cards for magic I wuickly wanted to 'look the part' and for me this meant learning to fan, ribbon spread and spring the cards. In learning these, and in searching YouTube for tutorials (my books weren't helping me enough) I came across cardistry - and I thought it looked great!

So, slowly, I'm building up my repatoire of both sleights and flourishes - even though I'm not sure how I'm going to combine them successfully. Still, there's a satisfaction that comes from mastering a difficult move, and I've had reactions every bit as positive and awed from people looking at a flourish as a trick!

My story has some valleys and hills. As a kid say age 10ish I got the Klutz book of magic and was enthusiastic but not obsessed with magic. Later in 6th grade I went to the Maryland Renaissance festival and an exhibit there taught me how to juggle balls. I became totally madly in love and obsessed with juggling. Not magic not card stuff but traditional juggling. At one point I could even juggle 5 balls. I also had pins and a unicycle! I would unicycle around my typical middle class suburban neighborhood. Everybody was like WTF?! Heheh. Anyways then around this time my dad was on a trip to South America and someone sold him a Mark Wilson video magic course. He gave it to me. Totally loved it. Really was a huge Mark Wilson fan for a number of years or at that time. Still love how Mark in his prime was a MAGICIAN not just a guy doing tricks. He was himself a wonderful charismatic pleasant personality. And his magic was solid. Anyways, I started getting more into magic. Would hang out at Al's magic shop in Wash. DC for hours and hours each weekend all during 7th and 8th grade and high school. Got into the Card College books. Started learning about flourishes from there and also McBride's tapes, Bill Malone, then Tudor and Buck twins. Card flourishes gave me a lot of pleasure. It is kinda sorta magic and kinda sorta juggling. Both of my long time artistic interests. Also it is affordable and portable which is handy. I never imagined back in the day that my flourishes would go onto be seen by millions of people. (Thanks Dynamo!)(When C4 mixes with dynamite, hells yeah that is some powerful magic.)

Cook story.

I agree that flourishing is a sort of mix between juggling with cards and magic

I saw Carlo Tornedo do card fan productions and an armspread and turnover flourish on an all-magic broadcast of "International Showtime" and at that moment my on-again/off-again interest in magic became a permanent addiction. I learned to spring the cards and pressure fan them from Henry Hay's _The Amateur Magician's Handbook_ and the armspread/turnover from Ottokar Fischer's _Illustrated Magic_, which Hay had coincidentally translated.

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

I see there are some fairly strong opinions on this forum about the value of flourishes...lots of people calling them juggling, rather than magic...
As both a magician, and a juggler, I must say that I love flourishes. They are fun to learn, fun to perform, and I have gotten lots of positive feedback about including them in a performance.

I just bought the Encyclopedia of Playing Card Flourishes, and am looking forward to learning lots of new flourishes. I sure wish I had a resource like that back in the late 70's when I first started learning card manipulation.

Those that think flourishes are not suitable, or detract from their magic, should avoid them. For others like me that have the passion for them...the sky's the limit. It's all good...

I saw De'vo's Cradle 2 Grave Trailer on Ellusionist when I was looking into magic and I was hooked... Then I found Brian Tudor's Show Off DVDs and then Dan and Dave's The System and the rest is history...

I remember seeing Jeff McBride's mask routine and card manipulation on World's Greatest Magic (NBC) many years ago. My journey evolved from there....

Brian Tudor!

Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VDB6UK_DEI
it all started from here.

I've been doing magic since I was six years old.
But I've had always breaks inbetween.
Some for many years...but I always Come back to it.

And in 2007 I stumbled across a Video. ..unfortunately I don't remember wich Video.
But I wanted to have this skill...so I researched, found the DVD xtreme beginnerz and placed my order.

In the beginning I thought I would never be able to do this stuff properly, because I was convinced that my hands
are too small, but I noticed improvement...soon I ordered the encyclopedia of playing card flourishes, cradle to grave and the cobra cut dvd.
At that point I was totally addicted and the small hands Argument nonsense...by time I was even able to Do the King cobra.

I moved on to Dan and dave stuff..was on the forum decknique and learned from the community.

I still Do cardistry and love it but I very rarely learn new stuff.