Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20161003213811/@comment-24674051-20161005163101

Also, from a more practical aspect. When Rumple first taught Emma to teleport, he simply had her picture her destination in her mind, and then she was suddenly just there in a cloud of smoke. (in fact, I don't recall if there was smoke or not). Similarly, when Mal moved to Regina in Granny's, there was no hand movement, nor was there even smoke. She simply just popped over. And we've seen Rumple also use this effect of teleportation.

Many of the hand gestures are more for show than necessity, in my opinion. Although a case could be made that the hand gestures help the practitioner to better focus on the task. But you do bring up a good point, particularly with magic inhibiting items like the cuffs. However, I imagine that even that could be adjusted to ankle cuffs or a collar to account for the lack of arms/hands.

Of course, if the magic involves the use of wands, staves, daggers, potions, or some other tangible item, then lack of hands would definitly increase the difficulty of performing that particular element of magic.