Hand Positions for Card Fanning

Series Summary

When a magician asks you to pick a card, letting the deck of cards fan out into a neatly arranged display, he or she is fanning the deck. While this elaborate display of cards and the hand motions and position might seem like a subtle but elegant way of presenting a card deck, it's actually a very calculated arrangement designed to begin a sleight of hand card trick or illusion. Though most of us enjoy a good card trick, we will delight in watching a magician perform one using the methods and techniques demonstrated in this video series. The tricks our expert will demonstrate will also give you an opportunity to try your own hand at card tricks and illusions.

In the series, the expert will discuss and demonstrate the position of hands needed for a successful card fanning, explain the various types of fans and how to display them, as well as ways to use multiple decks of cards for the most impressive fans of all. Watch as the magician demonstrates using finesse and style during the trick, and learn a wide variety of methods such as the reverse fan method, the twin fan, and the one-handed fan trick. Additionally, you will learn a set of exercises for practicing your card tricks and fans, helping you become the master magician in your family or group of friends! Impress friends, co-workers and loved ones with your skills as a card trick pro after watching these easy to duplicate tricks at home.

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m Joe Marshall with expertvillage.com and today we’re going to learn about fans and spreads. I want to take a moment to discuss the actual positioning of the cards in your hand, what type of affect that’s going to have on your fan, if they’re real at top and you do your classic fan you’ll get a wide almost 3 quarters moon with the cards, if they’re kind of deep down in your hand you’ll get a half crescent and if they’re real deep down you’ll get kind of like this type of thing it just looks really small. This is actually something they’ll judge on if you are doing a fanning routine, it is also known as the diminishing deck, you start out with a giant fan which we’ll get into later, it goes down to a fan like this size and it goes down even smaller to something like this size and then get it down to as small as possible basically and then the deck will actually vanish but we’re just going to focus on fans and spreads for now. And again the way to get the big giant three quarter fan is to have it high up on the tip so that most of the deck is sticking out of the top already, it starts back like that so when you got a fan it’s an even 3 quarters and if it’s kind of down in the middle you’re going to have that type of a fan and that’s really important to know because when you do your reverse fan it’s real high at top and you come up and it makes that fan like so. But be aware of that when you’re fanning depending on where your thumb and fingers are on the deck depends on how big your fan is actually going to be."