The concept of the art of card magic #3: The Force. What is a force?

Hey there fellow Steemians!

This part will be about the force. A very useful card technique.
The force is used by magicians to know a chosen card before it is even selected.
There are a lot of different ways to achieve this goal and i will show two ways of it.
It is one of the four key principles in card magic and I think it is the most important one of them.

You have to keep in mind that not every force is a guarantied success. It is important to always have a plan B in mind if something goes wrong or the guy you are performing to is a heckler and insists of taking the second to last card or whatever. In that case you have to improvise and go into an impromptu card trick or if you have a counterheckler routine.
So let me show you now some different ways of forcing a card.
One will be a really easy one without very much practice and another one is one of the cleanest but needs a bit of practise.

Riffle Force:
The nobrainer under the forces is the riffle force. It is the most seen choice of selecting a card or in this case forcing a card. You simply riffle trough the deck and ask someone to stop you at any point.
If you want to force a card that way you start with the card you like them to take on top of the deck. Cut the deck so the card is somewhere in the middle of the pack. Keep your pinky finger in between the two packs and start asking to say stop.
Slowly riffle trough the first half of the deck until they stop you. When they shout "Stop" you lift up everything above your pinkybreak.
Now show them their "selectec" card.

Pinky-Break

Classic Force:
The classic force is the most clean force there is. It is simple the timing of someone taking the card out of the deck. This need some serious practice but if you get it down it is a very useful tool in the future.
You should start with the card on top of the deck so you have complete control of the card. When it comes down to select a card you cut the deck but hold your little finger in between the cut like in the picture.
Now you tell them to take out a card but don't hold the cards to them yet.
You start spreading out the cards and keep an eye out for the card you want them to take. If you have spotted the card, bring your hands out closer to your spectator. Start slowing the spread until you have four or five cards left until the preselected card.
When he reaches out to grab a random card, simply slide the preselected card at the exact position they like to take a card out and it should work.
This move really comes down to the perfect timing and the way you let them choose the card. You cannot use this move with every spectator. Sometimes they grab way to fast or sometimes they hesitate and take a really long time before selecting and you already passed your preselected card.

Stair Force:
One of my favorite ways of forcing a card is with the following principle:
You need to place your card you want them to take on the bottom of the deck.
Start forming something like a stair with the cards like in the picture.

Pull the preselected card back with your pinkyfinger so you can grab the second to last card with your other hand.
Now you ask them to say stop. You start going down the stairs until they let you to stop at a freely selected position.
Now you take all the card below the point they stopped you out, but let the pulled card still on the bottom.

Quickly square the bottom card with the remaining pack, place the cards you took out on top of the deck and show them the card they selected.
This one works every time but if you use it to often then someone might get suspicious.

If you distract your spectator right when he takes the card then you get away much easier. Distraction is very important when doing card magic. If you do your force well they don't suspect a preselected card and that is the goal you want to reach.

Sybil Cut

Sometimes I even force s card in a trick where it is not necessary to know the card previously. It is a good way of practicing because even if the force failed you can continue with the normal trick. When the force worked you can improvise into a little funny guessing routine

Thanks for reading and enjoy a new technique in your repertoire.
Next one will be the double lift.
If you liked it please upvote and resteem.

Pictures are original by girlfriend and myself.

Cheers and have a great day.
Steem on!
@Rheteric