How to do the Swing Cut Card Trick

Video Transcript

" Hi Malik the magic guy for expertvillage.com. Now I want to show you a basic cut called the swing cut. This doesn't look like much, but there is actually other cuts that are based on this that are going to be really important as you learn more card magic later on. So what you are going to do is take the deck in a overhand grip like this. You are going to have your three fingers. First, middle, and ring finger here, your thumb here on the back of the deck. Now you are going to use your first finger and you are going to break off some cards like this and just swing them to the side. Now I'm going to grab them right here in this part of my hand, between my thumb and the base of my first finger just like this, and then I'm going to put this one top. So the swing cut looks like this. Now you can do this with multiple packets. Really this just requires practice. But it is a nice elegant looking to cut cards in your hands. This is a genuine cut, so it will change the order of the cards, but the swing cut looks really cool. And the real key to this is really not to hold the deck too hard; you don't want to be pinching things too hard. And again just practice and hold it by the ends, and you want to break this up and swing it. You don't have to swing it far, just about a ¾ of a inch or a inch and you can grab that just like that. With multiple packets, that can actually be a cool looking way to cut some cards just like this. I should point out that is you are using a key card on the bottom of the deck, multiple swing cuts can be a way to have that card replaced. So if that is a selected card, if you do a few swing cuts and they say stop, we put that back and you can drop this right on top, and that is another way to place a key card... but that is how you do the swing cut."