First, let's know how a lock works. I'll only be discussing about the common pin-tumbler lock (generally called a Yale lock, after its inventor in 1860). This is the sort you likely have on your entrance door, with a key having a series of mountains and valleys of various heights. While your key may slide into other locks, the height of those bumps causes whether or not it will rotate.
Brass pins keep the lock cylinder from turning and un-latching the door. Each pin is in two parts, and it must be aligned precisely for the cut in the pin to match the edge of the turning cylinder. If even one of those pins (most of the locks feature five) is too high or too low the pin would bind and prevent turning.
The proper key corresponds to the cuts in the pins to fix everything in alignment. If you've ever seen an old lock, or a poorly cut key, you might have to jiggle the key to make the lock to work. That's basically very similar to the process of picking a Yale lock.
Essentially, learning how to pick a Yale lock you arbitrarily move the pins up and down until you get them to the proper height. However, if they move easily up and down it seems doubtful that you'll quickly find them all aligned at once. Even if you did, you would never know if you didn't turn the lock at that moment. So, the first step of picking a lock is to apply some torque.
You turn the cylinder of the lock, winding it with a small screwdriver, so that the pins are gripped against the chamber walls. Then, with friction the pins will not move freely up and down, but they can be moved by tapping gently with your lock pick. (a professional lock pick would have a small steel spring attached to help you 'twang' it and create a subtle tapping movement).
The torque will need to keep that in place as you move in to the second pin, and so on.
For modern day Houdini picking a standard Yale lock is not too big a problem, which is why a lot of houses and companies employ more complex locks (such as Medeco brand). These involve precise pin rotation combined with height.
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