Hey guys. I've been having a lot of trouble with this. I look at other magicians and they always seem to have a really relaxed finger palm that looks great, but when I try and do it I always seem to have too big of windows. So it seems I either have to have too rigid of a hand or flashing.

Hi SmileAndNod,

You mention two issues: (1) being relaxed, and (2) eliminating or dealing with windows.

As to (1), try this on:

Stand up straight, arms totally relaxed (as in limp, dead weight) at your sides. Shake out your arms, wrists, and fingers then let everything relax and go limp even more than before. The fingers will naturally curl/contract more or less slightly. Now you have to insert a coin into FP position in one of your hands, let's say the right (RH). So, stare at your relaxed RH and make sure that it doesn't move. Grab a coin with your LF and place it in classic finger palm position at the base of the 2nd and 3rd fingers, right on top of those fingers' inner phalanxes. But MAKE SURE that your RH has NOT moved since you shook it out and relaxed it. Your fingers will want to curl to grab the coin. You spent the first year or so of you life learning to do this. Don't do it. If your fingers contract at all, shake it out and start over totally relaxed.

You'll notice that the coin sits right in place, the bottom edge resting on the middle phalanxes of the 2nd and 3rd fingers. This is the most relaxed finger palm possible. It's not even a palm. You're not doing anything but standing there. The coin is sitting on and against your fingers in the same way that it would be sitting on your shoulder or your head. (Aaron Fisher's notes on tension, following his explanation of the Gravity Half Pass in "The Paper Engine" are relevant here.) If your audience is immediately in front of you, the only adjustment required is to turn your hand in slightly at the wrist so that the back of the hand faces a little more forward (instead of to your right). This kills the exposed angle for folks on your left. But don't turn too far, else your hand looks unnaturally cocked and those aforementioned windows will be exposed.

To lift your hand so that palm is towards the ground or towards the audience in Ramsay subtlety, slowly raise your hand and try to contract the fingers as little as possible. Contract so little that you risk letting the coin fall out. Let it fall out a few times even as your raise your hand to test the limits of how little you can contract your fingers from their naturally curled position and still hold the coin in place. Bobo mentions that classic palm should be so soft that you can tap the coin and it will fall out of place. Giobbi talks about holding a deck of cards as though it were a dove: you don't want to crush it, but you don't want it to fly away either. Same thing here.

As to (2), your windows; hands vary (from person to person, that is... not from left to right [hopefully]). I'm a rather wiry person with boney fingers and accompanying windows. But windows are not fatal. The issue is the angle of your blinds (to extend the metaphor). It's easier to hide windows by angling your hand, such that the coin is still behind the hand but there's no sight line straight between your fingers. So as long as the plane of the back of your hand is never perpendicular to a line of sight, but rather at a 45 degree angle, like blinds, you should be fine. A mirror is your best guide at first. Keep the hand relaxed, and test your angles, rather than trying to squeeze your windows out of existence.

And finally, if all else fails: "[T]he wand will be found very useful... when any palm has been effected, and the coin has to remain concealed in the hand, the wand should be taken in the hand containing the coin. Beginners, especially, will find this of great assistance, as in the course of a somewhat defective palm the coin can be pressed well home by clenching the wand hard. Besides this, the fact of carrying a wand in the hand keeps the idea of the coin being there from the minds of the audence; and the mind is what the conjurer has to deceive." (Sachs 1885, page 12)

Happy dropping coins less and less,

-Akal

Very well said Akal!!

As far as windows are concerned, stagger your fingers to get rid of them. Hold the coin with only your third (ring) finger.

Kainoa Harbottle has some good advice in this video:

Kainoa Harbottle Coin 1 o 1 Intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzzecGZoU7g

Yes, I have often made this same suggestion, to "stagger" the fingers a bit. I've done this for quite a while now with the larger dollar size coins, as I typically hold the coin there in the finger palm area but with Liwag Subtlety…Very deceptive.

-Mb

Hey guys! Thanks for all the responses.

So I've been messing around with it a lot and I came up with something that seems to work well with me. It's about halfway between a traditional fingerpalm and the nowhere palm. Basically I moved the coin down, holding it with only my ring finger (as Ray suggested) but I'm also angling it a bit. (If you're holding a traditional fp with the face pointing towards your body, push down with your thumb so the face is pointing towards your face)

This allows a more relaxed hand than fp did (for me) and allows for more vertical freedom than the nowhere palm did.

And I can still do the FLOP move out of it.