page_title: Card throwing
section_title: Techniques
hierarchical_section_title: Card throwing / Techniques
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Griff beim Kartenwerfen: Die Spielkarte wird mit der kürzeren Seite zwischen Zeige- und Mittelfinger festgehalten. Dadurch kann man die Karte mehr drehen als bei der Herrmann-Methode und somit einen größeren Schwung erzeugen. English: Card-throwing grip: The card to be thrown is gripped between the first and second fingers, usually of the left hand.
context_page_description: Card throwing is the art of throwing standard playing cards with great accuracy and/or force. It is performed both as part of stage magic shows and as a competitive physical feat among magicians, with official records existing for longest distance thrown, fastest speed, highest throw, greatest accuracy and greatest number of cards in one minute.
context_section_description: Playing cards and similar paper objects have very little mass and are not very aerodynamic except under certain circumstances. Simply throwing a card with no technique (that is, applying lateral speed only) usually will result in it fluttering about and falling to the ground. Achieving accuracy, distance and force with a card requires giving it both lateral speed and angular momentum (i.e. "spin") along its z-axis. The spin creates gyroscopic stabilization so that the card's flat profile remains mostly parallel to the direction of travel and thus suffers the least possible air resistance.
  There are multiple techniques for throwing cards in this manner. The technique often attributed to Alexander Herrmann, and taught in Ricky Jay's book Cards as Weapons (1977), involves gripping the middle of the card horizontally between the thumb and the middle finger, while the index finger rests on the corner of the card nearest the hand and away from the body. The wrist is cocked inward at a 90-degree angle, then flicked briskly outward, propelling the card. For distance and power, the technique adds motion of the forearm bending at the elbow straight outwards from a 90-degree angle simultaneous to the flicking motion of the wrist.
  In another method created by Howard Thurston, the card is gripped between the first and second fingers, usually of the left hand and propelled in a similar manner. There are also variations on both grips and throwing styles, some which depend on the type of flight the magician is attempting to achieve.
  Forceful throws will usually spiral somewhat on the way to the target when thrown at long distance, since most cards are not perfectly flat. With a given deck, the bend of the cards are usually similar enough to each other that this spiral is easily predictable, and a practiced magician can hit very small targets even at many yards away. It is also possible to throw a card very flat at lower speeds to get the card to land in or on top of something.
  Many tricks done with thrown cards are designed to not only impress with the magician's dexterity, but work on a common theme in stage magic: the illusion of danger. While the illusion of danger can be achieved by outright deception, another method is to play on people's popular misconceptions. In the case of card throwing, the magician achieves this effect by throwing the card at fragile targets such as newspaper, cigarettes, fruit, hot dogs, foam, or any other substance that the card will easily imbed in or break. While none of these objects act like human tissue in terms of wound ballistics, the magician is counting on most audience members thinking they actually are comparable, and therefore believing he or she has turned a harmless playing card into a deadly projectile.
caption: The Thurston grip
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