Flourish

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Flourish, in magic, is a visual display of playing cards commonly requiring physical dexterity (sleight of hand). Unlike most other sleights, flourishes are performed openly (or by the way) in front of the audience, to entertain, display the performer's skill or to divert attention. For instance, a deck of cards may be fanned, riffled or shuffled in extravagant patterns. The art of Flourishing was only popularised in countries like USA, Singapore, UK, and some others in the year 2003/4 despite the fact that classic flourish moves have been performed together with magic since the era of Houdini. Flourishing could also be known as Cardistry or Xtreme Card Manipulation (XCM). The latter is spearheaded by the Superhandz organisation. Other prominent communities are Decknique, Dan and Dave Buck and The 3Cs

Flourishing was brought to its peak when Bone Ho from Vietnam started the now-defunct TheCheater's Cheaters online community in 2002/3. After which saw the poliferation of flourishers worldwide, espcially Singapore. Flourishers flaunt their skills by filming short videos and have regular meetups, where flourish battles are commonly seen.

Flourish battles start by one flourisher doing a relatively simple move, such as the charlier cut or thumb fan. The challenging flourisher would bring the battle up by a level by executing a more complicated and difficult move, until one of them couldn't continue. Flourish battles are usually very entertaining to watch, given they are extremely skillful.