* Circle-Zarrow

FALSE SHUFFLES - chapter 2, page 171

This variant is my best shot at emulating my own riffle shuffle (default action), which is what good gambling moves are all about. The crux of the move is covered by bumping the middle fingers together, then the key is separating the hands a little at a time in small squaring actions, but only separating the hands enough to protect the gaps. The name comes from my right hand making almost imperceptible circular movements during the squaring action.

One of the challenges with the zarrow is repeating the move—if the technique is poor, the shuffle looks worse when repeated. So, I always like to test a zarrow variant within the RRSRC procedure. This is an older clip from my database when I was fooling with the move; it utilizes a base strip and base cut. Also, note that I'm not riffling under any x-cards, making it more of a 'circle shank' or 'circle shuffle-over (not riffling under a predetermined number of x-cards allows a faster more normal riffling speed). I do the shuffle both ways. Once the shuffle starts to feel good, all that's left is matching up the default action and learning to shuffle on the square with the same finger/hand position and same actions.