Often times when I introduce myself in new settings I’ll do a feat of strength.
Lately, I bring a couple decks of cards with me and tear them in half. I use to use phonebooks because they were readily available, but that’s not the case anymore.
It shows and tells people a little bit about me and then it always gets the conversation started.
You can actually see a video of this on my Facebook page.
I’ve done this enough times that I always get the same questions and comments.
“Is there a trick to it?”
I reply, “There’s no trick but there is technique. There’s technique in any exercise like a squat or bench press. Once you have the technique down, it’s a matter of becoming as strong as hell.”
“You don’t look like you’re that strong. I’d expect you to be bigger.”
I reply, “Most people think strength is all about muscle size, but that is just one component. For a lot of feats of strength the tendons, ligaments and even bone strength is more important. Plus it’s all driven by the nervous system. This is what I like to call deceptive strength.”
“What else can you do?”
Here I reply with a list of some of my other abilities and feats that I’ve done. I often point people to this page which showcases some of my best stuff.
So after this demonstration, at a later time we were cruising around a yacht in the New York harbor.
On the yacht some people were more interested than most about the technique. So I was giving them the finer details of card tearing.
Like your posting hand needs to squeeze the cards hard together, but not so hard you start curling the deck.
How the right and left hands put force in opposite directions, and how that force must be angled in a specific way through the S-curve so that the tear begins.
And they tried…and failed.
Of course, no one I’ve met tears through a deck of cards the first time they try.
It takes progressive strength training as you practice the technique and skill of strength.
The good thing about cards is the progression is easy. Start with somewhere around 15 cards. Then add a card or two until you work your way up to the full deck (or even beyond…)
If you want much more on card tearing check out this article.
And if you want to master Feats of Strength, card tearing and so much more, this video set is the best place to get started.