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Jaspas, Ling, Bowen and Leon met Eugene Soh some weeks ago at a mall in singapore and shot a short jam video.

I liked when Leon asks Eugene what does he think about De’Vo, Jaspas’ Passion flourish and that smoothie “5 alive” by Scott and Sean.

Marcos Pérez aka Digital Artist, a member of the handlordz community made this tutorial a while back and now it’s been posted at youtube so here it is for you guys.

I’ve never been a fan of the SSS (self standing sculptures) nor the HL style of flourishing or pure XCM but i’ve been changing my style lately and im drinking from all sources.

With this tutorial you will learn how to do a triangle sculpture on the back of your hand with a deck of playing cards using one hand only.

Currently i’ve developed a nice utility move to get a packet of cards onto the back of the hand lenght wise and you’ll hopefully see it in my upcoming videos.

The credit for this move goes to De’vo Vom Schattenreich of course, Handlordz and Superhandz leader.

The teaching is clear and the move is astounding. Five stars from me DA.

-Alejandro Portela

“De’vo invented the Vierek, a square self standing sculpture (SSS) done with one hand. Matt Lang pwned him.”

-Alejandro

I’d like to thank the ppl that allowed me to use their moves, Bone Ho, Daren Yeow and Jaspas Deck.

List of moves in order of appearance:

Double Lepaul - Bone Ho and Paul lepaul
Smear Fan - Classic
Mockingbird - Daren Yeow
Pressure Fan - Classic
Double One Handed Fan - Unknown Creator
Armspread - Classic
Kryptonite Variation - Cerberus and D&D
F.O.T.F. - Cerberus (inspired by Jonas Haglund)
Deck Twirls - Jerry Cestkowski
Fan Twirl - Jerry Cestkowski
Upside Down Spring - Jerry
Deck Flip - T.G. Murphy
SSS Triangle - De’vo
Broken Triangle - Bone Ho
One Handed Cuts (L-cuts, Charlier, Thumb Cuts) - Jerry Cestkowski
Fan Display - Dan and Dave Buck
Jaspas Cut - Jaspas
Index Angel Spin - Cerberus
Carnahan Fan - Dan and Dave Buck
360 Fan - Naoki Ogi

My friend TicaL has just contacted me because he listed some very rare auctions at eBay.

Two original decks of Jerry’s Nugget playing cards:

-One red and one blue. You already know about these cards…

Flourish/XCM DVD Bundle:

- Xtreme Beginnerz Dvd 2nd edition sealed from De’vo.
- The Encyclopedia of Playing Card Flourishes “Performance Dvd” Parts One and Two - both signed by Jerry Cestkowski.

Manipulation DVD Bundle:

- Cradle to Grave 3rd edition - signed by De’vo
- The Cobra Collection 1st edition - includes signed card by De’vo.
- Xtreme Beginnerz feat. Jeff McBride, Daryl, Crack Irwin and Q also includes a signed card by De’vo.

De’vo (Bernd) would call this “The Xtreme Bundle” and sell it for $99.95 in his store - here you got chance to get them for way less money and still in perfect condition.

XCM or ECM (Extreme Card Manipulation) is the most visual branch of live performance with cards which is also called “Flourishing”.

Flourishes are not “works of magic” in and of themselves, but rather lend a difficulty and dexterity level to any magic routine that is performed. In their present form, playing cards have only been around for about two hundred years, but the techniques that are applied to their handling are ageless.

As those techniques are improved and refined, the Master Card Conjurer is able to not only find a selected card hidden in the deck, but so manipulate the cards through artistry that the magic “trick” turns into a “card kata” of sorts (much like the martial artists who know how to wield a sword, but at the same time, can place together a group of movements to demonstrate skill in a given set).

With the rise of 21st century media and the internet, there has never been such an explosion of concentrated interest in the artistic handling of ordinary playing cards. Taking the manipulation of cards to a level that goes beyond “pick a card”, shuffle, cut, and spread, the XCM master demonstrates a keen skillfulness in the art of card conjuring.

XCM is now in its most popular phase with the worldwide communication medium of the internet, and the ability to reach across the globe and band conjurers of like-mind together.

XCM “officially” stands for Xtreme Card Manipulation, though the ECM acronym is also used for Extreme Card Manipulation. XCM was first introduced by De’vo Vom Schattenreich and published for the first time in his interview in Genii Magazine in August of 2004.

XCM is set within the category of card conjuring, but as a subset of card flourishing. It relies solely on the agility of sleight of hand card manipulation without engaging the spectator in a magic presentation. It does not involve card productions, color changes, back palming, or other “mystery sleights” that are often accompanied by a magician’s patter. Rather, the deck itself is used in an ingenious manner to demonstrate the ability the card conjurer has in “manipulating” the 52 cards as a deck of cards.

As a matter of fact, the identities of the cards themselves mean little in XCM. The Ace of Spades, for example, is simply a card that is part of a larger stack of cards. It is the deck as a whole which is broken up into parts and moved with nimbleness that attracts the viewer’s eye.

The reason this art is not called simply called “card conjuring” or “card manipulation” is because of the nature of the act. It takes on the challenge of handling the full deck to move within extreme examples of agility and dexterity in both hands. The term “Xtreme” or “Extreme” does not refer simply to the difficulty of the moves but to all the aspects of an XCM routine. Now, the card conjurer who takes the independent moves of XCM and incorporates them in his card conjuring routine will benefit himself greatly.

The more a magician demonstrates ability in an art form, while at the same time creating card miracles, will be the real card conjurer.

-Dr. C. Matthew McMahon CardConjurer.com

Picture by Stein Halvorsen

Impossible…no more.

(The formation of a square from the back of the hand, a technique that was long regarded as impossible is finally a reality.)

-Andrei Jikh, creator. (developed in 2006)

Credits: De’vo for the idea of the square (method is original and was released before De’vo’s public release of the Viereck) Editor: Daren Yeow.

Those of you that have been following the discussions in the comments section of my previous post know that I received two emails from Superhandz (De’vo) in which he asked me to remove the content concerning these files because what’s in them is protected with copyright of his company.

I’ve been told not to publish these two emails (and I won’t) but I’ll sum them up for you to understand my position:

• He said that I commited ILLEGAL acts against himself and his company and told me to delete them or I would be in BIG trouble.

• He told me that he retirieved my personal information and my website server’s and he would take actions against me if I didn’t do what he said.

• He’s been kind enough to let me rectify with time because he said he would normally have had my site shut down first and go after me in court.

• As for now i have removed the link to the podcast’s episode 2 because there where some screens of the saved forum pages which he claimed to have the copyright to.

After some days of deliberation and talking to many people directly involved in this issue as well as others who have been ruling blogs and websites for years and have had enough experience with laws, copyright, privacy and security over the internet, I’ve finally come up with a decision.

As a blogger, I’m not going to host or promote these files in any way and won’t even say if they are, in fact, real or fake. I’ll keep this information for myself and my private conversations with other people in a different place than a forum, because I’ve learned with this that the internet is not a place to keep your privacy intact.

However, for those of you that might think I’m backing out, I want to let you know that my job in this field has been succesfuly completed.

Since the beginning, my main motivation was to share with my readers, both new and old, that there are some Handlordz saved webpages and files regarding the behaviour of the, as they like to call him, XCM Leader De’vo vom Schattenreich, that have been leaked and are in the hands of many people now.

I, as a blogger, never shared in public if I support what is in them or if they have been edited or left intact. I don’t have the files in other place than in my head for what I’ve read in them, somewhere, somehow. And, as I said, they won’t be posted in this blog to respect the laws.

However, as I also said, my job is complete up to this point because the information about the existence of these files has been made public and now NO ONE can stop them from being spread all over the internet.

I’m sure you won’t see any link to them in the blogs or forums, but there will always be illegal or alternative ways of sharing them like p2p networks, public file hostings like rapidshare, megaupload, zshare, yousendit… public chatrooms, private msn conversations, emails, PM’s at places like myspace and facebook and so on.

I don’t need to suggest, nor will I, for people to start sending these files around because I know this will be automatically done.

So, as a human being and card flourisher, I’ve learned a lot through this experience and now I know who to trust and who to give my money to in the future.

There will be no more posts about Superhandz / Handlordz unless I’m told to publish them by the staff and I won’t make any reviews or free advertising of their products or events as I’ve been doing for other companies.

If they want to stay apart and don’t want to see us all united, that’s fine with me – it’s their loss.

I want to give big thanks once again to all of you that participated, HLers or not, for sharing your opinions and being so kind and respectful. You have my regards, and I’ll keep praying for a united world for our beloved Art.

I’ll leave the comments open here and I hope you guys understand my position.

-Alejandro Portela,
also known as TheCuso.

Ok guys, i’ve opened this poll because I want to see if I’d get your support if I happened to post the HL Files / De’vo Behind the Scenes / Handlordz exposed / De’ vinci code / whatever, here in the blog.

I do this to cover my back in case I end up with a dagger stabbed in my neck or deadly bitten by a King Cobra.

I’m not sure if this is going to do me any good or any bad, i just happen to have the files as many other people do and i thought that it would be good to open people’s eyes.

I wouldn’t do this for any personal profit. I wouldn’t do this for revenge, i didn’t get banned or anything. I wouldn’t do this to ruin anyone’s career.

I’d do this for the pure and objective information about the history of our Art.

I want you guys to participate in the comments section of this post and encourage people that have been involved to do it aswell.

I’d also like to see some Handlordz / Superhandz people comment here in a friendly way.

I know these are private conversations and stuff but there are some articles that are interesting. To name one that caught my attention the “Pro XCMers vs Kutkiddies” thread.

I think this whole thing won’t end up splitting us more but can be the definitive way to join and unite everyone that share the love of playing card flourishing and manipulation, xtreme or not.

I’d like to see the big names contributing with their thoughts without disrespecting anyone and talking like if we were adults for once.

Of course if you are against this initiative i’d suggest you to contact me to thecuso@gmail.com before trying to hack the site or anything like that.

Let’s be friends and we will all buy your dvds and products in the future.
Having enemies doesn’t lead anywhere, keep this in mind.

Thanks for reading and now go post a comment.

Alejandro

Time for another podcast with our lazy host Adam. In this episode he talks about what happened these last two weeks.

The HL x-files, Allan Hagen’s video, Sick and Twisted Wings of the Mockingbird Tutorial by Kevin ho and some other things that i want you to discover by watching the video.

What does the name of this episode mean? You’ll see.

Here is the download in mp4 for your ipod / iphone / mp4 player TheCuso’s Podcast: Episode 2 - Pussy and make sure you subscribe with itunes using this feed.