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I agree with you, exposing tricks is encouraging people to overlook the traditional, and always better, approach to learning magic.

It just shows that the person exposing the tricks has entered magic the cheap, lazy way, by ignoring the fundamental and traditional basics.

Aside from the rights or wrongs of exposure, I wonder why you'd want to expose something in at all and at the end of the show too? The end of the show should be something big, something that the audience is going to remember. Showing how trick is done, at the end just devalues your whole performance in my opinion and is telling the audience, see all that I did, it was just easy tricks.

Guys, What N taught to his audience was NOT Meir Yedid's Arm Twisting effect but an old party trick of twisting both arms. As has been said, it is a body trick that was published many times.

1.I took him through various presentations of TOD & he came up with his own.

2.Also that IF you are going to put an effect into your regular act then LOOK at EVERY version /method/presentation, available, BEFORE you decide on YOUR presentation.

3.Along the line I gave him pointers on the Presentation of Magic
I also did this, 18 months ago, for a couple of 18 year olds in Cyprus and they too won their Competition.

When he said 'my people worked it out' I think he was referring to family members not his entire audience.
They were possibly used for rehearsal purposes.

He hasn't got back to me yet on this.

But he is to be congratulated on winning a Competition, long dominated by musicians,singers & dancers,
Well Done Leo --- Well Done Magic.

Why can't it happen on Britain's Got Talent|??????

Allen Tipton

Well done man. Got a video?

Allen Tipton wrote:When he said 'my people worked it out' I think he was referring to family members not his entire audience.
They were possibly used for rehearsal purposes.

I meant my audience , I guess I was thinking one thing and typing something else. But I came up with a good explanation for the people who said to me "I know how it's done, you only have..." (can't post it here).

I'm glad that we all agreed on a compromise on the exposure. I got about 9/10 of the school interested in magic

As for the video, my school is trying to make a profit out of it. They'll be selling DVDs next week and I have no idea when the DVDs will arrive. I posted the video ASAP

I'm with Iain on this.

Exposure and teaching are two different concepts.
If you desire to learn magic, you can go to a magic shop or a library and find information. But if you attend a show as a spectator, you don't expect to be taught magic. That's blatant exposure and if the exposed trick is not the performer's own trick, it's theft!

Exposure:
This has been a VERY SORE point with magicians over the years.
In the 30's Camel Cigarettes on their Cig. Cards exposed Goldin's version of Sawing. Think of how many packets of the USA's favourite cigs were sold!!
However Sawing is still performed and still baffles..today.

Next came the Chinese Rings. Harbin used to show the cheap set on stage and the 'secret'. Then he'd say something like,' These are the real ones that professional magicians use'. And proceed to baffle everybody with the same method!
Some years back I tutored a Rings workshop for our Magic Club.
Its Finale was my friend David Charles's 3 Rings routine.
Wow they all said...Are you using a NEW method?? ' He then proceeded to show them a 2 INCH ----!

Luckily magicians kept their mouths fairly shut and their protests down to an absolute minimum when the Masked Magician first appeared. The TV people were hoping for a huge outcry--publicity. None really came--it died down--and subsequent series have have low ratings in the USA.
Our 'bin man' said to me, 'I saw the MM perform the Sawing In Half Mr. T and the box was big enough to hold you me and one of the crew. It's OBVIOUS that you magicians DO NOT DO IT IN THIS WAY!' He went on,' I saw the magician in Mystique, Blackpool, perform it last year with a box only 3 INCHES thick!!!!'

The MORE you cry out the MORE secrets are looked on as being SO important.

2 years after My Dante Tribute show I asked 2 of the assistants how things were done. One said he remembered pushing a lever--the Bengal Net but had no idea how it worked--it was under his nose the explanation every night-not concealed but right there. He saw its workings.
The other who worked the Spirit Cabinet remembered hiding behind a curtain
but not an iota had stuck as to its workings!!

Secrets are of Such Importance to magicians but not really to the public.
Although I personally still deplore ad hoc exposure. Especially magicians who have not rehearsed thoroughy! and who expose at the drop of a hat!

SO GUYS--CONCENTRATE ON YOUR PRESENTATIONS MORE THAN YOUR SECRETS.

Allen Tipton
Allen Tipton

One point on this:

Arkesus wrote:As the old saying goes, give a man a fish and he will feed himself for a day, teach a man to fish and he will feed himself forever.

The man must know that fishes tastes good before he goes through all the trouble to learn how to fish.

Oh dear lord. What the heck kind of response did you just make make up to try to validate your position? As if I didn't already have a low enough opinion of people your age.

No offence Naruto, but you can't counteract a traditional saying with one of your own.

And to be honest, your response is a complete contradiction to it...

Arkesus wrote:As if I didn't already have a low enough opinion of people your age.

Tell me about it
I think what he's saying is you need to give them motivation to get into the magic. Which, if he read what anyone was saying, is what everyone else said before: show good, strong magic and get them motivated that way- rather than exposing.

I really really don't care about him exposing methods. All I care about is his success, and he may have done well in this talent show, but if he wants to progress, he needs to listen a bit more . I think that if he had just left out the exposure, which essentially just exposed his work as easy tricks, then he would have had extra performance time, which he could fill, not with effects, but with extra entertaining patter. But well done to you, anyway!

So then Guys, what do you say about:
1.Howard Thurston exposing in The Coloured Pictorial & The Black & White Budget 1901 &1902!

2. Talma (Servais Le Roy's wife) exposing in The New Penny Machine, The B & W Budget, 1900 & 1901

3. Lawrence Crane , Servais Le Roy, Clement de Lion Max Malini, T. Nelson Downs, David Devant, Horace Goldin, P,T. Selbit, Charles Bertram, Frederic Culpitt,J.N. Maskelyne & Houdini EXPOSING in :
The Royal Magazine,The Penny Magazine, The Strand Magaine,The London Magazine, The New Penny magazine, The English Illustrated magazine, from 1896 onwards.
?????????????????????????
Reference : The Wizard Exposed: from the Collections of Douglas Johnstone, with Introd. & Biog notes by Edwin A. Dawes, David Meyer Magic Books, Illinois,
1987

-----------------------------

And more recently, amongst my favourite people of all time,Patrick Page with The Big Book Of Magic; everything from the Sub Trunk, the Canes, the Levitation, The Cremation, The Thumb Tie, The Rings, Miser's Dream to Sponge Balls, The Classic, Finger, Thumb & Tenkai Palms, Back & Front Palming, to the 6 Card Repeat.

Then there's Will Blyth's, Will Goldston, Nicholas Einhorn, Mark Wilson & Prof. Hoffman's public books etc .etc. etc.

YET Magic still goes on & on and much of the material in the above is still used.

This, in spite of magicians like Harry Green (a name from the past again)
who went to the newspapers in the 50's to 'expose' the Piddington Mind Reading , detailing a number of magic secrets, which incidently were Not used by the Piddingtons.

Allen Tipton

congrats on your win, it is well deserved and I have no idea why certain people think you won because you exposed an effect (which wasn't an effect at all) when they didn't even see the act so how can they possibly judge?

Again congrats and keep going.

To return for the FINAL time to the 'trick'?? N exposed by teaching the audience how to do it.

Look in Gabe Fujuri's 340 page book, Mysterio's Ency.Of Magic & Conjuring, published 2008 FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC-- pages 13/14.
In the Body Magic Chapter
and read:
Triple Jointed-- which is the 'trick' N used.
Gabe describes it as ' This participatory piece of Magic, played effectively for a crowd of 5 or 5 thousand.'

Although in the instructions you have to get the audience to follow your moves with their hands/arms, Gabe doesn't say teach the explanation to the audience but once they have seen you perform it several times, which you must do, for them to try it out-- they will work it out later.

Allen Tipton