As a magician raised in the era of social media, I almost immediately began recording my magic. While I kept most of the early videos to myself (and we're all glad I did), at one point, a magician friend convinced me to start an Instagram account to share my magic.
Little did I know that sharing card tricks and techniques online would open up opportunities for connecting with people, traveling, and ultimately turning magic into a career. But it all started with many videos featuring one magic technique: lapping.
If you're unfamiliar with lapping, it refers to any technique that involves using your lap as part of the method. In close-up magic, lapping typically involves ditching or retrieving objects from your lap to accomplish vanishes, switches, color changes, and more. You can find brilliant examples of lapping in the work of Slydini and, more recently, Yann Frisch.
I filmed my first lapping video in 2016. I was playing around in front of a mirror with four aces and thought it looked nice to make them vanish by throwing them off the table one by one. I recorded a short sequence and quickly forgot about it. It took a year before I found that old video again and decided to post it. Then I filmed more.
For reasons still unclear to me, one of those videos went viral among magicians, so I continued creating more. I eventually released a major project on lapping, gave lectures on it, and was even labeled as the "Italian lapping guy." Although I've since stopped teaching lapping and now focus on teaching different areas of card magic, lapping taught me some of the most important early lessons in sleight of hand, and I still recommend others to practice it.
