PRACTICING MAGIC.

PRACTICING MAGIC. The strongest impression I have from FOOLING HOUDINI is how much skill magicians have and how much practice it takes to acquire that skill. Palming, the most basic sleight of hand, consists of holding a coin in the palm of the hand by a contraction of the muscles at the base of the thumb and the base of the pinky. When I was young, I read that that is how a coin is palmed and tried doing it, but, of course, I couldn’t do it. The reason I couldn’t do it is that it takes hours of practice to strengthen the groups of muscles (the thenars) that are used in palming. Stone says that—after days of practicing (300 reps a day) until his thenars were bruised–he was able to see see that his palm muscles were larger. Here is a very good illustrated explanation of how to palm a coin. The first illustrations shows the muscles used in palming highlighted in yellow. Stone points out that the main advantage of a wand is thought to be that a hand that is palming a coin looks more natural when it is holding something.