The Basic Spring is performed by holding the deck in the right hand, grasping the inner left and outer right corners of the cards, bowing the deck toward the palm, and squeezing the deck so the cards squirt in an even stream into the left hand. Do not do as the otherwise wise Bill Tarr and virtually all other authors would tell you, which is grip the pack by the right thumb and fingers on the middle of the short ends. When I first perused the table of contents for Hugard and Braue's excellent Expert Card Technique, I was excited to see a chapter entitled "Flourishes," then disappointed to discover the chapter was only ten pages long, then unhealthily excited again when I read the description of the corner-grip method entitled "Springing The Cards -A New Method." Holding the cards at the opposite corners with pinkie and thumb provides for vastly superior command or, as Hugard eloquently understates it, "will be found to give greater and easier control of the flourish. It makes practical a slower and hence more effective action, and the cards can be sprung with the hands farther apart."
Stunts like the Overhead Spring and the One-Hand Spring are virtually impossible with the old- fashioned, thumb-at-the-middle-of-the-short-end-of-the-deck, or "incorrect" way. What it all boils down to is this: The corner method allows you to control all four sides of the deck, whereas the non-corner grip only allows for the control of the two short ends of the deck. Do not however, keep the index finger curled on top of the deck like the drawing in Expert Card Technique.
So anyway, grab the deck in the right hand and squeeze so the deck bows upward, that is, the middle of the top card is bending up, toward the inverted palm. Figures 4-1 to 4-3 show the correct grip from three different angles. Note that while the index, second and ring fingers contact the edge of the short end of the deck and serve as kind of a guide, the cards will only be consciously sprung off of the pinkie and thumb. With the deck thus bowed, you now have a wealth of spring tension extremely literally at your fingertips. Allow the bottom-most card, then its penultimate brother, then the whole inbred clan of plastic-coated kin, one kissing cousin at a time, to spring off the thumb. Ultimately you will want the cards to spring off the thumb and pinkie simultaneously, but for starters it is a good idea to concentrate on a smooth procession off the thumb. If you do this, the cards will stream toward you, but this is good since they will ricochet off your stomach and into the waiting left hand. Using your belly as a training backboard is not as ignoble as it sounds, and once more control is obtained, the bent pinkie of the left hand will act as a diminutive substitute for the now obsolete ventral plane. A few inches (anything more than three) is fine for starts, but the beauty of the flourish lies in a smooth and grand cascade.
Distance between the hands makes for a more visually arresting display, but many a card will tumble gracelessly to the pavement in the process of gaining precious inches. One trick is to move both hands apart and back again, accordion-style, instead of just elevating the right hand. Another is to try to spring the cards as s-1-o-w-l-y as possible, to provide time for the hands to separate farther. Any breeze will prove fatal to this flourish, so, whenever possible, perform it in an absolute vacuum. For real distance (three feet and more) see the very-soon-to-follow Very Long Spring.
Do not learn to spring the cards off the fingers first. If you fall into this habit, you will drop much more often and will be able to recover from iffy springs far less often. One acceptable variant would be the substitution of the right ring finger for the right pinkie at the corner opposite the thumb, if you happen to be weak-pinkied. Or try wedging this corner between the tips of the pinkie and ring finger.
So, first get the knack and feel of the move by springing the cards from the right thumb corner only. Use your stomach to help catch them in your left hand if necessary. At this point six inches between the hands is tolerable. Once this is comfortable, try letting the cards spring off both the right thumb-and pinkie- controlled corners. Then try using the left pinkie as a back drop to help catch the sprung cards. The left index finger can do the same thing at the front of the deck, so in effect the left hand forms a basket into which the cards are sprung. This basket has the left thumb as one side, the left middle and ring fingers as the other, and the left pinkie and index finger as the remaining two ends. Figure 4-4 depicts the relative positions of the two hands at the start of the spring. Figures 4-5 and 4-6 show a proper left-hand basket grip collecting sprung cards. Figures 4-7 to 4-10 show what your basic spring should look like, from your
Maybe the reason the corner grip never supplanted the other grip is the somewhat ambiguous drawing of the grip in Expert Card Technique. It almost looks like the deck is being held by the long sides. That and the depiction of the curled index finger atop the deck may have acted as deterrents. I cannot overemphasize the importance of using the corner grip, although this sentence sure comes close.