The Clasic Force with Paul Green (DVD)

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Postby costas » Jul 6th, '06, 12:48



I am glad you decided to post on this thread Mark; your input on the Classic Force and presentation has been a gem!

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Postby mark lewis » Jul 6th, '06, 13:06

Naturally.

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Postby costas » Jul 8th, '06, 15:37

And humorous at the same time :lol:!
(Of course in the typical Lewiesque fashion :lol:)

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Postby mark lewis » Jul 23rd, '06, 14:11

By various nefarious means I now have a copy of the Paul Green tape. I am delighted to say that it is in VHS form. I have seen 15 minutes of it only. I am too tired too watch the rest but one day before the year 3000 I will get to it.

After that I shall comment upon the matter. So far it looks like a good tutorial. Until I view the tape in its entirety I have no idea if my two points concerning the classic force are covered. That is that you should use common sense and good judgement in selecting the correct person to take the card. This is really half the battle and in my opinion is the real secret of the Classic Force. You select the person and they select the card. If you choose right they will choose right.

Since I have used the awful word "choose" in the above sentence I should point out an interesting philosophy of Robert Houdin's regarding the classic force. He believed that you should never say "choose" a card when doing the classic force since this implied a liberty of action that should best be watered down. An interesting take on the matter from 1850 or thereabouts. And when I say "take on the matter" there is no pun intended.

The other point I believe important is that the deck should be shuffled beforehand when doing the force. I have mentioned this already. Mr Green in the tape seems to simply cut them into position as does the vast majority of card magicians including the redoubtable Eddie Tullock. I think it is worth the extra few seconds to shuffle the top card into position and injog it and hold a break. The Royal Road to Card Magic describes this procedure and importantly provides the reasoning behind it.

I used to just cut them too but discovered that it is indeed much better from a psychological point of view to shuffle beforehand and eliminate the cut.

I shall view the tape further when I have the energy. I am doing a lot of kid shows at the moment and they tend to tire me out. I get more exhausted from doing a 40 minute kid show than doing a 90 minute hypnosis show or even a full day at a trade show.

When I have recovered I will view the tape properly.

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Postby B0bbY_CaT » Jul 23rd, '06, 14:29

hmmm... anticipation beckons.

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Postby mark lewis » Jul 28th, '06, 11:36

I had another look at the tape in the company of another magician. I must confess that I fell asleep after around 40 minutes of watching it. This was not because of any deficiency of Paul Green's I hasten to add but simply because of exhaustion. I am doing a lot of kid shows at the moment and they tire me out more than anything else probably because they are all in the afternoon heat and I use up a lot of energy when doing them. It should also be taken into account that I am very aged.

The magician who was with me kept awake and said that it was a very good tape. He said that he wasn't comfortable with Mr Green's style but I couldn't see anything wrong with it. My friend said that he couldn't put his finger on what was wrong and I was too tired to help him figure it out. I asked him what he thought of it from a teaching point of view. I have often thought that one of the pitfalls of tapes is that magicians tend to look at them from an entertainment point of view instead of using the tape for the purpose for which it is intended. To teach.

From a teaching point of view it is very useful and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn the classic force. I am a bit disappointed that my two main points are not included. That is that Paul cuts before going into the force which I don't agree with. And I think it is a serious omission not to mention that you choose carefully who you force cards on.

However if you keep these two points in mind then the tape is very useful indeed and I would recommend it if you want to learn the classic force.

I was struck at how much of Eddie Tullock's work has crossed over into the Paul Green tape. It is obvious that Paul is a fan of Tullock and has been influenced by him. So have I and when I first started to do trade show work I studied Tullock assiduously. I don't use his force methods because he cuts rather than shuffles and I am a little concerned that although his force works every time sometimes I wonder if the person knows that his choice is influenced. Maybe not but as I say-I wonder. There is no point in having the card forced if people know you have forced it and some of the more aggressive methods that Tullock and others use might tend to give this away.

Ignore me. I am a quibbling mood.

The tricks Paul Green uses are as old as the hills but are practical for laymen and very effective.

Generally I would give the Green tape a 7 out of 10 which is pretty good for an old curmudgeon like me.

There. The review is done. I am going back to sleep now.

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Postby john1960uk » Jul 28th, '06, 12:28

Hi,

I have to say that with all the best teaching in the world, the classic' is one of those moves that reqires the performer to be a relaxed and for want of a beter word 'sorted' individual.

Knowing what to do will not help if you haven't got that quality of relaxed confidence.

The best classic force I ever saw was by my Father, he wasn't a magician, he liked magic (grew up at the time of St georges Hall etc) and knew a few 'magic uncle' type tricks. He REPEATEDLY forced cards on me as a child, then explained as best he could how it worked, basicly just give them the one you want!!! Then proceded to succesfully force cards on me again! I just have not seen anything like it since, and no I'm not able to emulate him.

I think the best magician classic forcing I have seen (haven't seen everybody of course!) is Paul Daniels, who is so comfortable with the move he has used it on live TV, again a relaxed and confident individual.

I can classic' but nothing like the level of surity and confidence of these guys.

Just keep practicing, remind me to mention dads 'fingertip coin vanish' sometime as well :D

Cheers
John

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Postby paulgreen » Jul 28th, '06, 14:25

Thank you Mark Lewis.

When researching, or learning, something new; I think it is important to seek out as much information as possible. For those of you that want to learn the Classic Force, I hope you will consider my DVD along with written sources such as Card College, The Royal Road to Card Magic, Forcing In the Classic Manner, and the Tullock book.

Mr. Lewis adds much.

Thanks again,

Paul Green

PS Feel free to contact me with any questions. I cannot promise to have all the answers, but I will be honest with my opinions. PG

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Postby mark lewis » Jul 29th, '06, 10:36

I agree with John that you have to create a feeling of relaxation when doing the force. If it appears that you really do not care which card is selected then the spectator won't care either.

I have heard that Paul Daniels claims 100% success with the force. He must be genius personified if this is true. I can't believe he never misses as he claims. If he isn't just bragging then he must have a gift from God providing the person doesn't know that the selection has been influenced. I have always said that it doesn't matter if you force the card perfectly if the person knows or suspects that he didn't have a free choice. That is why it is not wise to overuse the classic force.

As for 100% success like Daniels claims I am afraid I don't get anywhere near that success rate. With me it is more like 7 times out of 10. I note that Paul Green also admits on the tape he doesn't always get the right card selected.

If they don't take the right card I have various outs that I can use. However if it is vital that the card has to be forced in the context of the trick (such as the insurance policy or suchlike) I will often use a more certain alternative force. The best one I have found to use if the card MUST be forced with no chance of failure is a Vernon one for which I cannot remember the title.

It is in the forcing chapter in the Ganson book where incidentally Ganson gives all the reasons that it is better to have the force card above the break rather than below when using the Classic method. Anyway before I go off on another tangent the dead certain Vernon force that I referred to is a sort of sliding card thing. You fan the deck and slide the bottom card over. It is really excellent and I think I have given enough clues to it's whereabouts if you wish to look it up. I always use this if I HAVE to force a card.

When I was a kid and couldn't do the classic force I used to use the Glide force. Crude but it works. You keep taking cards off the bottom of the deck and say "tell me when to stop". You can work out the rest. I am getting all nostalgic writing about it. I haven't done it for nearly 50 years-I might try it out for a while for sentimental reasons.

I have just realised after writing the above that I will have been doing magic for 50 years in a few months. I feel quite queasy just thinking about it.

I have never considered myself a magician all this time though because Jean Hugard said that you cannot call yourself a magician until you have mastered the cups and balls. This has given me an inferiority complex for the last 50 years since I had never mastered it all that time.

However last week I finally put together a masterful cups and balls routine. I got in touch with Mr Hugard in the spirit world in my capacity as a psychic reverend and he approves of it.

I can now call myself a magician. I will probably drop dead now.

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Postby mark lewis » Aug 21st, '06, 23:44

Incidentally I was wrong in my previous assessment that Paul Green has the force card above the break. I was misled by someone posting here on the matter. On closer inspection of the video in question it appears that he has the force card below the break in the usual way.

It probably doesn't make a lot of difference either way but Vernon/Ganson felt that the break should be below the force card since this means that you hardly need to look at the deck since you are controlling the card by sense of touch. You are also avoiding the slight adjustment necessary when the card is below the little finger.

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Postby dat8962 » Sep 17th, '06, 17:58

I finally got around to buying this DVD and watched it through this afternoon.

I thought that the teaching of the force along with the psychology was fairly good although I very much doubt that I will use any or the accompanying routines that are also included. Still, at least they do present you with some ideas although I maily looked upon these as padding.

Comments on the ommisions by Mark Lewis were interesting and the main one that I agree with is that the DVD does seem to impress that you can force on just about anyone but on the other hand, there arereferences to it not always working and what then to do. It would be better not to force in the first place rather than having to recover.

Overall, it's a DVD worth recommending to those who are looking to learn or improve their force.

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