CUPS kicked in and I bought a dancing cane. However, before I begin I would first like to thank Mike Danata for his time last night in talking me through the various options in his studio. There were a couple of experienced Pro's also there watching and he had us all mesmorised with his 'TWO' dancing canes on the go at the same time, despite the confined space. If you want canes then Mike's
THE MAN!
Lesson 1 was finding out that the secret to the cane is weight and balance. We started off by first looking at the black two peice cane which was nice and seemed farily light to me at the time. My eyes lit up as it came from the box as I was particularly looking for a black cane. But, and a big but was that the tips that I was provided by those present moved me away from this line of thought. More on that in a bit.
Next, the alluminium cane made from aircrafe grade alluminum which is the one that I think is the one that Pyro was asking about. This was noticably lighter than the black cane and was again, a two piece. Despite being lighter, what was pointed out was that because it looks like it's metal (which it is), it looks far heavier to the lay person which adds to the illusion. All agreed with this so it changed my line of thought. It would have been extremely foolish to ignore such wisdom.
Next came the Makrame cane and boy, what a stunning cane that is - but at a price. It was so light that you felt that it would float on it's own and the quality and craftsmanship was something to behold.
There wasn't a David Mann cane available which has been recommended by Lash. No offence, but I would disagree with Lash on the number of points that he made. From what I hear it's a very well made cane but it needs quite a bit of balancing work which will add more weight.
I ended up buying what Mike himself uses which is a Fantasio cane that Mike showed me how to tailor to myself. It's as light as the Mikrame (which was the lightest) and a fraction of the cost and once set up it's
PERFECTLY balanced. Mike took me through the set up of how to do this and it took about 30 minutes to set up, including the time to find what I needed. I have to say that even without watching the DVD (that I also bought) the cane was dancing straigt away and I'm chuffed to bits.
In the end I settled for a silver cane rather than a black - it looks like solid metal and weighty to the spec. At £25 you don't have to spend a fortune to get something that looks good. Remember that you will be performing this at a distance, not at close quarters.
I'd recommend anyone who's interested in a dancing cane to speak to Mike and if possible to visit his studio. There is absolutely no way I would have ever got the amount of info on the cane from buying online and I can't thank Mike enough for his time and guidance. I came away having spend less than
HALF of what I anticipated spending and again, a huge thumbs up for magic
SHOPS.
I'll review the DVD over the weekend when I've watched it
![Laughing :lol:](https://www.talkmagic.co.uk/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
Member of the Magic Circle & The 2009 British Isles Close-Up Magician of the Year
It's not really an optical illusion - it just looks like one!