Small Hands

[Nicholas17]

I have pretty small hands (or at least I think I do) but have been doing card magic for many years. I've always preached to other magicians that small hands don't effect sleight of hand ability at all other than having a more difficult time palming cards.

Lately though I've been getting discouraged when practicing flourishes, and part of me can't help but to blame the size of my hands despite what I have been saying for so long. I want to blame my thumbs being too short or my fingers for not being long enough even though part of me still thinks that it really doesn't matter much.

I just wanted to hear some more opinions on the matter.

 

[ElisG]

You don't need big hands but it certainly helps.

 

[morpheis91]

Exactly right! What he said above. You might want to find some bridge size cards. I know many magicians and flourishers who use them. It really helps I dont have mall hands or very large hands but I must say bridge size cards are much easier to handle Well at least for me anyway. I wish that I used them more often but I dont have many bridge sized decks so I really dont use them as much as I would like to. Search online and you can easily find bridge sized bikes too

 

[joshrobarts]

i have no idea if i have big or small hands. i have no real idea what the average is. i do believe however my thumb is bit smaller than average which does pose some problems but with subtle tweaking and refining of tricks and flourishes i can make anything possible... so far

 

[brainblower]

i have really big hands... All my friends fingers are almost an inch shorter. I think that is good thing with cards...

 

[Ahmed Fouad]

I have small hands too , it let me down in the beginning because i thought i would never be able to do the pass well or do a revolutionary cut, but i got them by practice, flourishes are more challenging with small hands but nothing is impossible to do , don't let the fact the you have small hands let you down

 

[4LeafClover]

Small hands are just an excuse. Not saying that you are lazy, by no means. But think about other palms, other than the classic. Most, if not all the other palms have some sort of an angle issue. And it is just a matter of holding your hand the right way, like in the Tenkai. If your hand can't completely cover a card, it doesn't mean you can't pull of a classic palm, or a back palm.

Just keep working, until you find what works for you. Then keep working at that.

 

[Samuel]

I agree, small hands don't necessarily mean you're out of luck. Just keep working at it until you get it to work for yourself. I visited a magic shop in Arizona last weekend and met with a guy from IBM who talked to me for a good bit. I brought up my small sized hands and he told me to hold my hand up to his. They were practically the same size, so you can imagine my surprise when he continued by saying he only uses silver dollars to perform with.

I know they're coins, and you're talking about cards, but the point is that I imagined it to be nearly impossible to work fluently with silver dollars without having larger hands. It's just about working things out for yourself and keeping at it.

Peace

 

[Dizzi]

I heard a great quote: if you can hold a deck comfortably in your hands, you can flourish' so don;t blame your hands.

I can because my left hand is partially webbed (But I can do most flpourishes, just not really ones that involve holding a packet in my left middle,ring fingers)

 

[jazzhands1]

I heard a great quote: if you can hold a deck comfortably in your hands, you can flourish' so don;t blame your hands.

I can because my left hand is partially webbed (But I can do most flpourishes, just not really ones that involve holding a packet in my left middle,ring fingers)

Whoa, that's awesome...

 

[TheBlack&WhiteIllusionist]

Hand size with flourishing is a funny thing. If you can't do something, try to change it and modify it to fit you. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to do running charlier cuts lol. My thumb just can't seem to make it. However, my thumb does happen to be great if i'm gonna try something like Bone's Furious Angels lol.

 

[CaseyC]

Hand size with flourishing is a funny thing. If you can't do something, try to change it and modify it to fit you. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to do running charlier cuts lol. My thumb just can't seem to make it. However, my thumb does happen to be great if i'm gonna try something like Bone's Furious Angels lol.

ewwwwwoooaah....that thumb thing is.........interesting

lol

 

[Dizzi]

my thumbs the same way

 

[TheBlack&WhiteIllusionist]

Thanks CC...

You serious Dizzi?

 

[A_Money986]

My problem...

My problem isn't my hand size... at first i thought it was. I think it is just a matter of how nimble my fingers are. I have rather large hands, but when it comes to controlling certain fingers without moving other ones, i don't stand a chance. It might just be that hand size doesn't matter and its just a matter of being ambidextrous enough.

 

[TheBlack&WhiteIllusionist]

I kinda have that problem too. Most recently with d+M's Fly.

 

[CASEACE79]

yet another one with small hands!

I have really small hands too. I mean my girlfriend is 5' 2" and has the same size hands as me. I have found that certain moves get really tricky and do require more practice. I thought that I would never be able to do a revolution cut but after hrs of practice I can. Not running but I can do it. I do think there is a point where I will run into a situation where I just won't be able to do something because no matter how nimble my fingers get I cant change the length of each finger. I'm not saying this as a "poor me" statement, but more as it really doesn't matter. Because I have smaller hands I'm actually at an advantage to those with larger hands that get things a lot quicker than me. Almost every flourish or move I encounter I have to figure out how to make it work with my hands. It usually means modifying a move to get a desired result. It means that I have more time to understand how my hands work and to get creative with handelings and flourishes. So you big handed people go right ahead and stay ahead of me on the learning curve. Plus if I ever decided to get into escapology I got ya beat hands down.(really bad pun intended.)

 

[tally-ho]

i am ambidextrous and my fingers on my right hand are about a cm or so longer than my left. dont blame it on small hands. blame it on abnormal hands. just kidding blame it on lack of practice.