I decided to sit down yesterday and actually learn the paddle move yesterday. After only a couple of minutes, I felt confident in my technique. I did care for the presentation that was included with the book I was studying, so I do not yet have an effect to present; however, once I find one, I expect to spend more time practicing the routine than I did the mechanics.

So my question is this: is this the easiest sleight ever? If not, how come? and what is?

I generally don't like to use superlatives to rank things (magic or otherwise), but I think the paddle move is definitely up there among the easier sleights. I learned the paddle move when I was a cub scout...or was I a "Weblow"?

I know some rubber band moves that I think are easier, so I wouldn't consider the paddle move the easiest sleight. The two rubber band sleights I'm thinking of (one of which is the jumping rubber band from one set of fingers to the other) are basically self-working, and the rubber bands can be examined, while the paddle can't be.

I like that you mentioned a distinction between technique and presentation; getting the technique of a particular trick is always just the beginning. =)

I've seen a lot of cool, interesting variations on the paddle move (there's a demo of one on Penguin magic, I believe) so if you get real confident with one presentation, you can try others.

Easiest to do? Maybe. Easiest to do well? There is no such thing. Every move is improved by any time you devote to it. There is no slight who's execution can not be improved upon with time and effort.

The Paddle Move is one of the oddest moves in magic from a teaching perspective. I've mentioned that I have run and designed the classes for four different magic schools in Southern Cal. I say that just to give the background for statements that are generated from 20+ years of experience. I taught the Paddle Move thousands of times over the years and here is a really odd fact: About 1/2 of the folks you try to teach it to have a heck of time with it and about 1/2 nail it fairly quickly! And, that percentage never seemed to vary, no matter what I tried to do to make sure that everyone got it. Everyone did, but just not at the same speed and it drove me to distraction for a number of years until I just tossed in the towel and had to admit that it was just the reality of the situation!

Here is something that is NOT obvious about the move when you first learn it and then I will give you a nifty little impromptu trick that laymen love.

Note that the paddle move is so called because the original use what with what looked like small wooden paddles. That may be obvious, but there's more. Because, of the shape of the thing you would hold it by the small end and turn it up and down while performing the move. The move works because of simple mechanics of the shape itself. A small motion to the small end of the stick is transmitted as a faster move to the larger and thus the illusion of seeing both sides.

Then someone clever noted that if you took a pocket knife and colored one side different than the other you could do the move and the knife would apparently change color. Personally one of my favorite pieces of magic and in my list of the 25 best effects ever devised. So what? Note that a pocket knife is NOT a paddle in the classic sense of the term. It has no large end. And, thus, although you can hold the knife at one end and do the move and do it so it will fool someone that is NOT the proper way to turn a knife or any other ROD shaped paddle trick!
The best way to hold it is by the middle. And, turn it from the middle. Why? Because then both ENDS of the knife are turning in such a manner that they appear more to be turning the same speed. Try this when using a knife: Hold the knife in the middle with your R.H. thumb on top and fingers below. Now, turn the knife towards yourself and do the move. STOP. Take the knife by the ends with your L.H. and then let go with the Right and turn the R.H. around and regrip the knife in the starting position. Repeat. That's all you have to do. Show one side and show the other. PERFECTLY natural manner of showing the knife without the countless back and forths that some folks get into the habit of doing. In magic it is much the same to attempt to prove too much as too little.

Now, the application. Take any match from a book of matches. In about 95% of the cases unless something has changed drastically the match will be darker on one side than the other. Show the match using the move above on one side and note the color. Do the move again to show other side. Have the audience say change and then just turn the match over normally using the exact same action! The match changes color. Until you try this little bit of business you won't appreciate how strong it is! No it's not going to cause the end of Western civilization, but it's a great little thing that's always at the ready. Best,

BradBurt, thanks a lot! that's just improved my "jumping lighter warning sticker"
no end! this is why the Café rules. I ditch some effects if I cant "naturalize" the handling enough. I really didn't want to give up on a good impromptu effect people like. I automatically held the lighter by the top end paddle style trying to adapt the situation to the move when I should have been adapting the move to the situation.
Well done, thanks again.

[quote=Daoist]I know some rubber band moves that I think are easier, so I wouldn't consider the paddle move the easiest sleight. The two rubber band sleights I'm thinking of (one of which is the jumping rubber band from one set of fingers to the other) are basically self-working, and the rubber bands can be examined, while the paddle can't be.

I like that you mentioned a distinction between technique and presentation; getting the technique of a particular trick is always just the beginning. =) [/quote]
Yes, now that you mention it the jumping rubber band would be easier than the paddle move. I'm glad that you mentioned it! I have always skipped over this due to the fact that I always felt it was too simple and never thought it would work on anyone. I realized after reading your post that I simply had no presentation for it, and as I was driving home from work last night I had and "Aha!" moment, a bit of patter popped into my head. I jotted the notes down and today I plan to sit down and begin polishing it up. Thank you for the prompting!

Even with my limited experience, I realize (much due the Café, I am sure) how important presentation is, and how separate it can be from technique. After all... "the greatest sleight I never saw."

[quote=JackScratch]Easiest to do? Maybe. Easiest to do well? There is no such thing. Every move is improved by any time you devote to it. There is no slight who's execution can not be improved upon with time and effort.[/quote]
I quoted what you said, because it is well worth being read again. I definately plan to practice and repractice even this "easiest of moves" because I know that I can always improve my presentation/execution of it. Thank you for reminding us all of this fact!


Brad,
Thank you for your presentation advice! This touches exactly on why I was not impressed with the presentation given from the book I am learning from, "the countless back and forths."
I appreciate this advice, and the nifty little match trick! I am reading a lot here in the Café, and learn quite a bit from all of your posts.

The pass is much easier (when working with a deck of cards).

The jumping rubber band is interesting from the perspective of a handicapped amateur, such as myself. I have nerve damage in my hands, so that I can no longer hold my fingertips together. So I use the variation of the jumping rubber band that involves using a second rubber band interleaved through the fingertips as a supposed impediment to the jump. It not only looks more impressive than the plain jumping band, it serves the secondary purpose of holding my fingertips together for me!
And, by the way, the paddle move is so simple that I can still do it quite well, even with limited grip strength in my fingers. In fact, the decreased strength of grip, I think, actually makes my paddle move look more relaxed and natural than it did before I lost strength.

The Paddle Move is a great and versitile addition to any magicians arsenal. For instance not only can you do some neat effects with things as small as matches, but if you look around you can do magic with items that at first you might reject as being too wider for instance. One is a Domino! I used to have this neat routine with a couple of dominos that looked great. It came about becuause I got a set of dominos that had one that was in effect a back on both sides! It was like when you would get misprinted Bike card that was totally blank on the face before they were making them that way. Wooooooooo! We'd go nuts when we found one. Got six in the same deck one time and it was like I had just won the lottery!

Anyway, by slightly changing your grip and using the method above for anything this is the same size on one end as the other (knife, match, etc.) you can turn a domino and show it both sides the same. Then useing knife moves you change it, etc.

A regular pen with a clip? This is killer. Rip the clip off a duplicate pen. Finger palm in your L.H. Show an undamaged pen in the R.H. in the Classic Paddle move position with the Clip showing toward the front. Your L.H. comes over and you pretend to rip off the clip as the R.H. rotates the clip to the bottom of the pen. You have to experiment with this to get comfortable with it. Display the clip openly with the L.H. And, do the Paddle Move with the pen: Up and down. Once, no more, don't overprove the obvious. Done correctly it looks exactly as if you have ripped off the clip. Here's the restoration that I use: Show clip on the open figners of the L.H. and then curl the L.H. loosely closed making sure the clip can no longer be seen and turn the L.H. Palm down. Stab the end of the pen into the into the side of the L.H. and turn the clip back to the top and remove the pen to show the clip has reappeared in it's usual place and restored. Hand pen to spectator and take your time in ditching the extra clip.

The metal clips on a lot of pens look enough alike that by carrying 2-3 clips around with you you can be ready to do a very neat piece of apparently impromptu magic. I had a friend year and years ago that liked this so much that he spent money to buy every major pen in use at the time, even some REALLY expensive ones and tore off all the clips and kept them in a little index. He could be a high paying corporate event, see an expenive Mont Blanc pen for instance and proceed to do the routine! Freaked some folks out, but it was so impressive that he also booked a lot of shows with it. BEst,

I would like to just say that the paddle move is one of the first I have learned and one that is very useful. So, it is indeed an easier move to master than say the bottom deal.

I think the Glide.

I love using the paddle move with lighters, I always have a black lighter with 2 "heart" drawn on it, like this the lighter itself reveals wich card has been choosed...

Since you're using lighters, you might as well try learning some moves from "50 Ways to Rock Your Lighter". Just a suggestion.

Could anyone tell me a good place to learn the paddle move without needing to buy a paddle?

I've seen several nice routines using random objects utilising it, I know the basic idea of it, but I'm not ENTIRELY sure whether I've got it.

I'm sure it's in tarbell, but that's a bit out of my price range for the next few months at least.

Thanks.
[offtopic]

Also, to rmoraleta: I have the feeling that if someone is doing a paddle routine with a lighter sticker, it'll be a Bic, the dvd you mentioned is for zippos only (it looks good though, as a zippo user and knowing about a quarter of those tricks, I'm tempted to get the dvd since the teaching appears better than on lightertricks.com). Sorry for the pedantry. [/offtopic]

Mark Wilsons Complete Course in Magic has a few pages decitated to the paddle move.

Rmoraleta, I don't have a zippo (I wish I did but it costs to much) I just use bic lighters (perfect for the paddle move)

A fun and (to me) very easy slight is pushing a pencile (pen, wand, wahatever) up my nose. With a little bit of acting, this looks so realistic that I've had otherwise smart people really believing that this was a skill I learned, like sword swallowing.

While it is possible to push it all the way in and then pull it out of your mouth, ear, eye or whatever, I think it's more convincing if you hang on to the end and don't lose it entirely up the nose.

Cheers,
Daniel

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I learned the paddle move using an imprinted hexagonal pencil. The sides of the hex provide a nice grip for feeling the move, and the location of the imprint shows you when you've got it right.
But the final effect looks better with a round pencil, once you've got the move down.

I think that ones perspective on the easiest sleight guides their decision, for instance I find many "difficult" sleights to be easy, for me the easiest sleight is the one handed convincing control.