Thursday 14 June 2012

Introducing Cardistry :
 First of all, as my twitter website link brought you here, and as you're reading the title of "Introducing Cardistry" .. You'd wonder what's cardistry?
 To begin with, Cardistry is an Art, Just like Graffiti, Music ..etc. but this is not as popular as some, here's the meaning of "cardistry" :  "Cardistry is the artistic movements of a deck of cards or a portion of the deck. This definition is generally exclusive of sleight of hand, which is the manipulation of cards that disguises an effect from the spectator. With Cardistry the effect is the manipulation of the cards and intended to be viewed by the spectator. Cardistry can also be known as Flourishing or Xtreme Card Manipulation (XCM) More on that in the history of Cardistry".



History: 

Cardistry has it's past from the world of magic particularly card magic. Card magicians have been performing flourishes for a very long time. Magicians have generally used flourishes as a way to accent their magic routines, or as a display of dexterity in between magic tricks. Jerry Cestkowski "The Flourishman" is the earliest known magician to specialize in card flourishes. He is an authoritative figure in the Cardistry/XCM/Flourishing community and his book "The encyclopedia of Playing Card Flourishes" (EoPCF) is known as the "Bible".
De'vo Von Schattenreich was the leading figurehead in the separation of Flourishes from Magic. De'vo became well know for his creativity and flourishing skill. Around 2001 De'vo proposed that flourishes could easily stand on their own apart from Magic routines, and his work greatly influenced the development as flourishes as a separate art form. To distance flourishes from magic, De'vo coined the phrase Xtreme Card Manipulation in 2004.
In 2006 as Flourishing and Xtreme Card Manipulation gained popularity, controversy began to arise in a sense of style and direction of the future for the community. Richard Z. coined the phrase "Cardistry" as a new term to define Flourishing and Card Manipulation as it's own art form. There was controversy and XCM and Cardistry generally became known for their different styles. Cardistry contained a style that relied more upon quick two handed cuts, whereas XCM became known for other artistic movements, especially armspreads and displays. Over the years, conflicts have been resolved, the terms Cardistry and XCM have been used interchangeably between Cardists, however the term flourishing, still implies a tie to magic. Where as it is understood that Cardistry and XCM are separate art forms.




I've been into Cardistry since I was 14 years, actually my performance never improved until I was 16 .. I mean 2 years of practice? this is too much! but for cardistry it's all about practicing everyday, to keep your hands running and flowing as you want. getting to know a new Flourish takes time, takes from a week to months depending on how "tough" the flourish is, taking panadora for example, I mastered it after a whole month!

so Cardistry is all about PRACTICE!

What do you think about cardistry ? let me know :)


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