talkmagic.co.uk

A most monstrous accusation has been made by Gurkha from Birmingam on another thread that I lack sleight of hand ability and only rely on gimmicks.

On the contrary. I happen to be one of the greatest sleight of hand artists in the world but my well known sense of modesty restrains me from bragging about it. However even if I weren't that would make no difference whatever since I believe that sleight of hand is only a method and a means to an end.

I would advise those of you who perform for laymen that manipulating the people is far more important than manipulating the props. If you have no sleight of hand ability there is no shame in it although your repertoire may be restricted. However you can still ENTERTAIN people with gimmicks etc; and that is far more important than trying to prove you have 25 fingers.

I am completely ruthless about methods. I will use whatever turns out to be the most efficienct way regardless of whether it needs sleight of hand or not. And I contend this is the best way to approach things. It is foolish to use a difficult method if an easier method is available. This of course comes with the proviso that the easier method is the most effective. If it isn't then do the more difficult one.

It makes no difference if you use a trick deck, prearrangement, psychology, a mathematical subtlety or intricate sleight of hand. It is the effect that counts and the method is not the important thing. It is the effect.

I am therefore not impressed with somebody who can do a million sleights but cannot entertain with them. I have the technical ability if I need to use it but if I don't care to then I won't.

I hope Ghurka from Birmingham absorbs this lesson. I bet he can if he really tries.

Exactly what I wanted to post. Ghurka also accused me of this, and I am ratherc insulted

I want to make it clear that I NEVER use gimmicks. I love sleight of hand and practice it about 4 hours a day. The only gimmick is use is a Self Tying Shoelace Gimmick.

Michael Kras

I want to make it clear that I NEVER use gimmicks

But what mark is saying, is that it doesnt matter. YOu can entertain without sleight of hand. And bore people with it. You use what you need to do effect wise, and also taking into account situational restrictions. i.e. if you are table hopping, you may not want to carry and reset a load of different decks.

Thank you, but I still don't rely on gimmicks. I do occasionally rely on a self-working effects such as Richard Sander's Shuffle By Choice, in which I never touch the cards once yet a spectator manages to cut to the four aces, but I more often use SOH Magic. But NO gimmicks.

Thats fair enough, but the thing you need to be aware of, is that you sounded quite proud that you DONT use gimmicks. The thing is, the spectator wont (shouldn't) know whether you used a gimmick or sleight of hand, and hopefully wont be able to fathom a possibility either way. So in that respect, it doesn't matter. You cant finish you act and them say "yes, and I did it all without gimmicks. I used pure sleight of hand!"

ya, it doesn't really matter if you use sleight of hand or gimmicks or what-have-you. As long as you entertain. However, I love using sleight of hand. There is some kind of satisfaction when I do a move and no one notices. But that's just me. When it comes to a routine if front of a prepared audience or whatever it is, it doesn't matter how u do it. However I do find it important to practice it for at parties and stuff when someone hands you a deck of cards and say.."do that trick you did"

Gimmicks, sleight of hand.... the most important things it the performance.... The audience doesn't know the difference anyway. I prefer sleight of hand as I think any true magician would, but if a gimmick gets the job done: hats off to it...

The venerable Mr Lewis speaks a lot of sense in this posting in my opinion. The magic is in the mind of the spectator, not in the tools of the magician.

dat8962 wrote:The venerable Mr Lewis speaks a lot of sense in this posting in my opinion. The magic is in the mind of the spectator, not in the tools of the magician.

True, but it's done in such way (as usual) as to provoke indignant responses from members who are still learning to ignore him, and whom he will subsequently accuse of attacking him when they rise to the bait.

Leave it lads. He's not worth it.

Um, why is this in "File Sharing"? Was there a link and it's been edited out?

Mark Lewid was just continuing an issue discussed in a thread that is now locketd in File Sharing. Ghurka said we rely on gimicks rahter than pure sleight of hand which is nowhere near true.

I'm with Mark on this one - as I am about most things. I'm such a brown noser.

Another brown noser here as well then

Just to add my twopenneth - if you can perform a routine and get exactly the same effect using gimmicks; rather than using sleight of hand, then why not .
Hats off to you if you can perform the required knuckle-busting moves, but as mentioned earlier .......

Brookish wrote:Gimmicks, sleight of hand.... the most important things is the performance.... The audience doesn't know the difference anyway. I prefer sleight of hand as I think any true magician would, but if a gimmick gets the job done: hats off to it...

I agree with Brookish's comment 100% .

Sleight of hand is a very useful thing but it can be taken to excess and if used at the wrong time can actually be a detriment to the effect. You have to know if and when to use it.

Murray the escapologist was a good friend of mine and I learned a lot from the little snippets he would come out with. One was "you are not a magician unless you can do something with your hands" He was advocating some technical proficiency when he said that. And I agree with him.

However it is foolish to be skilful beyond the bounds of necessity. By all means have a good background in sleight of hand if the subject interests you. It will be found very useful. However you mustn't let it run away with you. There is nothing worse than finger flinging every second during a performance. An audience won't know what happened but they will know that SOMETHING has happened.

A judicious and wise mixing of sleight of hand and subtlety is the way to go. I can understand young Michael's love of sleight of hand. All the young monsters in Toronto who do magic revel in this stuff and that is all they do day and night. They practice for hours and hours with it. I see these kids everywhere working on this stuff at magic shops, magic meetings, magic shows and also those dreadful magic camps.

They are expending their energy on the wrong things. Fascinating as it is to learn every move under the sun they should be concentrating on the less exciting business of learning how to present it. Working on patter and presentation may be drudgery to an extent but it is far more useful to the budding performer than all that finger flinging.

I am quite sure that Gurkha is mistaken when he says that Michael does no sleight of hand. On the contrary I expect that our Canadian child genius does nothing else all day. I see hundreds of 14 year old kids flipping cards around all day in Toronto and it gives me the heebie-jeebies and I swear it is the bloody magic camp's fault.

It is not manipulating the cards that is so important. It is manipulating the PEOPLE. When Michael can learn how to do that he will be a good magician. Alas Ghurka is beyond hope. Besides he comes from Birmingham where nobody will understand a word he says outside the Midlands so his market will be pretty limited.