We love watching manipulators and flourishers do incredible things with cards. Only problem is that we wish we saw more of them doing their thing live.

Apparently, Ekaterina Dobrokhotova agrees. We found this vid of her on TheCuso’s Youtube page (his study session is pretty slick, too) challenging viewers to give more live performances during the new year. To show that she walks like she talks, she performs for some random folks at a mall. We love the reactions she gets. Seriously: She’s half performing and half demonstrating in this video, and the guys watching are floored.

We back her up in her challenge. Hey, manipulators and XCMers: Why are you not performing live? You pour hours and hours of practice into your craft. Share it with the world.

If this is something you want to learn, De’vo’s Xtreme Beginners is the best place to start.

It’s good to see the Handlordz crew putting out some new work. And who better to be featured on their latest DVD than two former champions of De’vo’s World XCM Tournament?

Max Vlassenko and J.S. Lin, two of the past champs, are featured in this 2-DVD set, which is filled with 50 impossible-looking maneuvers and manipulations. Jerry “The Flourishman” Cestkowski also makes an appearance. If you’re wondering about what it means to be a world champion, just watch a few of the first round of entries from the current tournament. And the stuff these guys can do made our eyes bug out.

De’vo tells us that this is a video meant for intermediate and advanced manipulators, so consider yourself warned. If you’re just getting started, Xtreme Beginnerz is the place to begin.

World XCM Champions is now available for purchase, for those of you ready to take on a new level of XCM. See for yourself:

Girl did it again. Ekaterina Dobrokhotova, one of our favorite magicians and flourishers to watch, worked her magic with a deck of Gold Arcanes. Yes, that is a freaking butterfly knife. We’re not entirely sure that she didn’t manipulate those cards directly over an ocean, but we trust her to keep the cards safe.

In case you forgot, she blew our minds once before with the white and black Arcanes. Check out her Facebook page to see what she does with the Golds.

Attention pen spinners: Fletcher Nelson of Fletch Creations is your new best friend.

Check out his creation: These LED inserts for your favorite spinnin’ pen light up in different patterns based on how fast you go. Nailing combos triggers different light patterns, and the lights dim as you slow down. Based on his ComboSense technology, these lightweight circuit boards react to physical movement.

“If the pen is dropped, the color fades back to the original color and then disappears,” Nelson said in an e-mail. “Similar to the Nintendo Wii, the ComboSense insert detects movements which changes the color, not a timer.

Fletch is one of the more respected flourishers in the XCM community. We always liked him for this review of our decks of playing cards. A change in employment led him to devote his time and energy into these unique inserts that will give a lot of flash to your fingerwork.

Watch his engineering expertise in action:

If pen spinning lights a fire for you, learn the basics and more in XB2.

Look who is coming out from under the cloak.

De’vo vom Schattenreich, he of the incredibly fast fingers, has been named as a guest on the next episode of the iTricks Clinic. The co-creator of Xtreme Card Manipulation (along with Jerry Cestkowski) will review videos sent in by you and give you pointers on how to improve. And it will be LIVE.

De’vo said in a post on the Handlordz forums that the live chat is a new venture: “This will be the very first time I’ll be doing something like this and not sure if I’ll ever do it again, so you probably don’t want to miss out on this one,” he wrote.

Those of you who perform XCM should get your videos ready and send them to iTricks at iTricksClinic@gmail.com. De’vo’s clinic will be next Monday (time to be announced). If you’ve never seen an iTricks Clinic, Justin Robert Young rocks. His live chats are so. Epic. That. Normal. Punctuation. Rules. Don’t. Apply. Past clinicians include Card Star Lee Asher and CelebraCadabra coaches Asi Wind and Simon Lovell, and each session was incredible.