Try this page on the cards4magic.co.uk site.

Try some plain old talcum powder. Take a shoe box, dump some powder in, then drop in the cards. Shake vigorously then remove the cards. Shake off any excess powder. You should be able to fan the cards easier now, and without having to buy fanning powder.

There is no substitute for the skill though. Just keep practicing the fan until it becomes comfortable. magic doesn't happen overnight. Don't spend all your time on fanning though. Take a break, learn something else, then come back to it.

Don't sweat doing a perfect fan all the time. Most routines don't require a perfect fan when at least a decent one will do. Don't knock yourself out too early in your career.

S. Patrick

SlickFingers, thanks, duly added to Favourites!

S Patrick, I'll also try your idea first, I have lots of spare decks to play with so I love playing with this kind of idea.

One thing that can help is to polish the surfaces of your cards with a silk. This will remove all the dirt and make them nice and slick. Use good cards with a nice finish. I don't think Waddington's will work well for this. Try a deck of Bicycle Rider Backs.

I almost forgot. There is another way of setting up a fanning deck that I learned from one of my old magic teachers. Get a bar of soap -- Ivory, if you can find it. Lay each card face down on a smooth surface, and with the corner of the bar of soap, mark a diagonal line from the upper left to the lower right corner of the back of each card. Once you have done this, stack them up, square them, and apply pressure to them with your hands.

Massage the cards around on one another, and if you can do a faro shuffle, faro shuffle them together several times. The idea is to spread the soap around on the surface of the cards.

I have never tried this myself, but it may be worth a shot.

2 WORDS !!

Keep practicing!!

It will come.... Then you can start practicing to Faro

Good Luck

bb

Fanning powder just makes fanning easier. It doesn't teach you how to fan. Dante King's tutorial is a pretty good deal. It teaches the thumb fan, pressure fan, split fan, LePaul Spread, those are the fans that come to my mind right now, but I learnt my fans from Jeff McBride's Art of Card Manipulation series.

Problem is, I learnt to fan in my right hand, so all the indexes don't show, and I'm having trouble learning how to fan in my left hand now, though my fanning in my right hand is good.

With which thumb you fan the cards? If you fan it with your right thumb...so you hold the cards with your left hand...hold them tightly with your left thumb, cause they actually act as the pivot point. And vary the pressure of your right thumb as you fan the cards out.

Another thing is, try fan the cards with your right index finger...I personally find it easier and I can fan them more even with my index finger...

just keep trying, it worth it...

Yah fanning powder or a new deck will help. But nothing substitutes practice.

Bikes have air cushion and they'll seriously fan by themselves if they don't fall out...
If you're using plastic cards, it's almost impossible to do a thumb fan because it gets all sticky.

Hello:

A couple of considerations: #1- Fanning Powder is great if you are doing ONLY stage manipulations. It gives a consistent look to your fans, etc. The problem in close-up work is that it gets on your hands and makes doing certain sleights almost impossible. For instance the second deal. It dries out your hands and is just plain icky. It happens to not be a factor for stage work, because it actually enhances the grip factors in back palming, etc.

I have taught hundreds of folk how to fan and particularly with the Pressure Fan ALLOW yourself at least a year or more to get it. Work at it every day for about five minutes and then stop. Just keep at it. It really is one of the toughest nuts to crack with cards for reasons that I haven't been able to figure out in years of teaching it.

Just give yourself time. Best,

Brad Burt

Practice and after practice........... just practice more!

And then, after you have practiced enough just.......................... practice even more.

So simple is that, no big secrets.

Believe me, I practiced nearly a year doing fans, cuts, shuffles etc. about 10-25 minutes per day. Watch TV and just hold the deck and practice. Cause it's cool when a magician is able to do stuff like that during his show.

Actually I practiced nearly two years before I stepped out in front of audience. BTW- the result was excellent.