Card Manipulation

Playing cards in their present form have only been around for about two hundred years, but the techniques that are applied to their handling today are ageless. From time immemorial, man has honed his skill with tools, weapons and devices of all sorts by exploring their movement and shape in manners other than their intended use. From martial arts to the manipulative arts, masters of every persuasion have benefited from the advantages of knowing every possible potential motion, pattern and position of those objects they handle for a living.

Applying the timeless methods of small object manipulation to playing cards, master card handlers of old discovered fanning, showy one and two-handed cuts, throwing, spinning and twirling cards, and many of the rudiments and predecessors of popular moves seen today. Never before the present time has there been such an explosion of concentrated interest in the purely artistic, non-magical handling of ordinary playing cards. There is currently underway a renaissance of spectacular card stunts, and you are on the site that is at the forefront of this new surge of attention to them and their inventors. Now is the time to get involved, because the information you need to become an expert is readily available. Take advantage of the resources the new pioneers of the art have provided, and you can be on your way toward producing true, original performance art of your own. Extreme Card Manipulation (XCM), while rooted in the distant past, is now the most popular it has ever been. This is a realm that is just beginning to be explored, and opportunities abound for anyone with any hands at all and a little vision to contribute in large ways. What stunt will you invent that will bear your name forever? What kind of thrill will you experience when you have mastered some of the sublime and beautiful things that can be done with just a deck for cards and your own two hands?

Extreme Card Manipulation is the perfect pursuit for the times, more like skateboarding than baseball, more like freestyle than rule-bound game, more in-your-face than any card trick. This is real, hands-on creativity that anyone with a little desire can pursue to the any heights their imagination will go. Try it. If you like how it feels to control and create, you can choose any medium - paint, music, dance, or you can explore the unusual but just as expressive instrument of today's practitioner of this old but brand new art.