Hello, again!
In this article I will cover the whole “underground” aspect of card handling, its purposes, pros, cons, etc.
To begin, what is “underground”? What sort of thing falls under this category? To be simple, something that is “underground” is a move, person, group, or community that is kept to oneself or to a select few people. One of these kinds of things that isn’t public and is kept somewhat secret. We all have these sorts of things, usually in the form of moves, so we’ll discuss that aspect first.
Moves:
This is certainly the most common aspect of the “underground”. Moves. We all have those moves or ideas that we created ourselves, and sometimes we want to keep them to ourselves. This is fine, but you also must consider to what purpose you are doing this. Are you planning to release a product in the future, a series of tutorials, or are you just keeping them to yourself for the sake of having a secret? If it is the latter of the three, then you may want to give it some second thought; imagine how much more recognized you’ll be for releasing cool material than you will be for having secrets. Additionally, it is important to ensure that your moves are, to some degree at least, original. While it is normal for those new to the art to create moves that are variations of what they already know (this is fine), it is also important to explore things that are truly original. It may take some time to get the hang of it, but you can do it!
But I digress.
People:
Not nearly as common as underground moves, we have underground people. Those who keep themselves out of the public eye and maintain an air of mystery about them. They keep themselves and things about them secret, or only shared with a select few people. I don’t see much of a reason to do this unless it is to serve a specific purpose. I have yet to find a purpose of that nature, but I’m sure that there are some out there. I will further address this in later articles.
Groups:
Occasionally an underground flourish-group will be formed. The group may be made up of people who, as individuals, are in the public eye, but as a group they are not. This isn’t very common, but none the less it exists.
As with many other forms of “underground” things, these don’t have much use if they aren’t the way they are for a purpose. A group that keeps only to itself, for the sake of keeping to itself, doesn’t serve much purpose. But there ARE reasons for a group to be underground; albeit temporarily.
These reasons are simple. The group may want to organize itself, gather it’s resources, and prepare itself fully before it makes itself known. It is fair to say that any group that emerges should emerge ready to take on the flourishing world, and should emerge with a game-plan.
Communities:
Sometimes there are also whole card-communities (forums and other related things) that are kept secret. These are also not entirely common, but they do arise.
I feel that a community could be kept “underground” if, perhaps, you only wanted to invite friends into it, you were in the process of constructing it, or it was just not for the general public, etc. It’s really up to the person making it how he handles the community.
Overall, I don’t mind it too much as long as it doesn’t get too dramatic (”this move has been passed down, in secret, for 12 generations, it’s power has been known to turn hair gray”, etc).
There there you go, those are my thoughts on “The Underground”.
-Vince
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