Ok, here's the scoop. I am very good with my paul fox (penguin magic) look alikes. I just don't want to damage them with my wand and so on when praticing. I want a cheap set to knock around and practice with and yet still be able to perform with. I have two sets in mind because the penguin cups emptied my wallet. I have found aluminum bazar de magia cups for 14.00 and copper uday cups for 14.00. Now I have read that uday's cups are crap compared to bazar's. BUT I haven't read too much about aluminum bazar cups. While I have read both sets are light(but on bazar's website it says they are rather heavy) are the uday copper set heavier than bazar aluminum set? And can the bazar set nicely hold 3 7/8" mike roger baseballs on the top of the cup? Can the uday? Can the Bazar take mike roger's final load baseball....Can the uday's?


Thanks in advance
JBK

Practicing with a different cup than you use in performance will throw off your timing. Practice with what you will use. P.S. you can find the Magic Makers cups way cheaper than at Penguin.

That is right.
you already have a cheap set to knock around and practice with.

Don't worry about it. use them and abuse them. just have fun with them.

then when you want a real set visit http://www.rnt2.com

Don't feel bad giving penquin your money. lots of folks do. they usually have good prices, I think (I don't shop there). My only beef with those huge "stores" is that they will sell you ANYTHING and look you straight in the proverbial eye and tell you it's AWESOME. And you will KILL with it. No matter how horrible the item is.

They will also sell you things you could have gotten elsewhere but dress it up nice and provide a DVD that provides little more than a poor demo and explanation for 10x the price.

Enjoy.

I make a practice set of Uday cups that are all chop cups - that is, double walled that makes them very sturdy. I do use the chop feature in my routine, so it's good for me. But they are a lot heftier than their regular cups, and fairly cheap.........

Practise with the set of cups you have now until you are proficient with the techniques. The go forward and develop your routine and enjoy cups and balls magic. Until then don't worry about getting a second set. With more knowledge and skills there will come a time that you would know what other cups set you want to get.

I know it seems like you spent a lot on those cups, but you got a good set of cups (the design obviously is awesome). Use these cups and practice with these to get a feel for a real set of cups. Pay attention to how easily or not they dent with the wand and cup thru cup move, if you keep them polished, practice polishing with them and just have a great time with them. Eventually when you feel you need a new set or these are too beat up, get a nice set and you will have all the knowledge to keep them in good shape, and you still have a nice practice spare set to keep with you in your car for surprize performances and the like. Also copper cups look great all tarnished and beat up so don't feel too bad about them getting dinged up, you will probably find that look attractive after a while of using them.

You do NOT want to practice with light cheap cups. The weight makes a big difference in how you handle the cups and will throw you off when you switch to the heavy cups and vice versa. And besides you won't even want to touch those other light cups anyway. Another thing about the wand. You don't have the beat the hell out of the cups, especially for close-up. Just a light tap is fine, and you will not damage the cups in anyway. There is no need to whack the cups hard enough to put a dent or scratch in them. I assume you are using these for close-up and not street performing, in which if you were, you should probably get a different set anyway.

One more thing about new shiny cups: The potential to flash the ball concealed in your hand is much greater with a new shiny cup than with a tarnished cup so keep that in mind if you are just starting out with the cups. The reflection will show up in the cup as you go to grab it like a mirror and expose what is in your hand. There are ways around this (Al Schneider has some great advice on this on his Technique DVD's) but this usually isn't a problem with a patina on the cup.

Hope this helps and enjoy your new cups!

Stevie D

You'll have to give those Penguin cups quite some abuse for them to get really bashed-up. If you perform your usual routine by whacking them with the wand, then they're going to get dented sooner or later. If that's the sort of routine you do, then the cups might even look better once they're weathered. If you're doing a more sophisticated routine or you want to keep your cups looking new(ish), you could either ease-up on the whacking, or get a wooden wand that's less likely to cause significant dents.

The only time you'll be in danger of inflicting real damage is if you drop them onto a hard floor - but if you're practicing tossing the cups, you're better-off practicing using your performance cups to get a feel for their weight. You can partially protect against this by making sure you practice in a carpeted area or over your bed.

Either way, getting a lightweight aluminium set isn't going to help much in your practice. You've got a nice set of copper cups. Take Frank's advice - have fun and enjoy using them.