Penny Wonderful

We all can be quite compulsive sometimes. Whether it's chewing on our fingernails relentlessly or tapping our feet to the annoyance of everyone else. For some it helps them to concentrate and for some it's just a fixation. Whatever it is that drives us to do it can be channelled to something a bit more worthwhile. That's right. You can be fixated on fidget spinners and be the greatest spinner to ever live one day. 

Okay okay, I kid. I'm talking about coin tricks. 

Magic is an extremely vast and constantly evolving art form. But we're going to talk about a particular type of magic and that is coin tricks. The thing about coin tricks is that they don't normally employ a gimmick, or modified instrument. To raise the stakes even further, unlike card tricks there is less room for the required deception. 

So how do you make it work? With pure unadulterated skill. The thing is someone can tell you exactly how they performed a coin trick but you would still be baffled by how it was executed. This is why even a simple coin trick would require relentless practice. Not to say any other magic trick won't require that practice but a coin trick will usually require just a hand and a simple coin. 

The beauty of a coin trick is the simplicity of it. Once you learn the common palming techniques, retentions, false passes, you'll craft your own little tricks to wow people with. The first and foremost thing you'll learn is the palming technique. Palming techniques are seemingly easy and bland manoeuvres that are essential to almost every coin trick. In your idle time while you try to keep yourself busy with something you'll find yourself hiding a small 1 Taka coin in your palm and then seamlessly shifting it to a back palm or a thumb palm and so on once you learn them. As your movements keep getting more fluid you'll find yourself crafting and improving your own technique. And it's not just tricks. It can be flourishes as well. A quite popular coin flourish is rolling the coin over the back of your fingers. A simple technique that once you get the hang of, you'll keep doing. 

Even if you're terrible at magic tricks, just like me, you'll find yourself being occupied with a simple coin. A good step to rubbing off stress is investing yourself in something intricate yet mundane. It helps the brain to shift the focus of the frayed nerves from what you're stressed about to the task at hand. And as you keep shifting that coin from over your fingers or keep swapping it from one part of your hand to the other, your brain does just that. 

And for the added benefit if you get the hang of it and start pulling off the illusions then you have got something in your pocket to make a good impression or start off a conversation. Coming from someone who fumbles whenever he tries to do a trick, even I got to enjoy the utter delight in my 3-year old nephew's eyes when I pulled a coin from behind his ear. A trick no matter how simple it is can produce some of the most spontaneous and fulfilling emotions, bewilderment and joy. 

It won't be that hard finding sources to learn the coin trick basics from. Search for basic palming techniques on YouTube and you'll find yourself a lot of source material. Jump down that YouTube rabbit hole and see for yourself what you want to learn. For starters, I'd recommend the channel Howcast and searching "coin tricks" there. SankeyMagic, 52Kards are some other good channels that you might want to try. 

So what are you waiting for? Pull out that coin from your pocket and learn how you can bring it out of your sock after vanishing it from your hand.

Nuren Iftekhar is your local stray cat in disguise; he interacts with people for food and hates bright light. He got Hufflepuff 3 times straight in Pottermore so no walking around that one. Send him obscure memes at n.iftekhar18@gmail.com