talkmagic.co.uk

Lawrence wrote:

taffy wrote:

Lawrence wrote:

taffy wrote:Smack her in the chops with a big wet fish!

Or the back of your hand.

Just like Gibbs on NCIS

I'm all for equality!

spooneythegoon wrote:Learn card throwing...

Or Knife throwing, making sure the knives get close enough to cause her to have a bladder or Bowel reaction, meaning she has to excuse herself from the party and go home......otherwise I agree with other comments about a sucker trick then walking away

Despite Mark's hilarity through his facetious exterior he is making the perfect point. Be reasonable, be polite and then sliently shut them up from by retaining the moral highground and showing them something you are confident they can't mess up. Then from your politness you smile gently and force a nonverbal unequivocal recession and if they do not back down now, then war is more acceptable but it is never a good idea to initiate war quickly. Once you are at war it is then alright to manipulate the social situation to create peer pressure, one of your most potent tools behind razor blade edge cards which are equally effective. But the important word is ONCE, it is after you have warned them reasonably and politley- it is OK to even ask them to stop it, then you can embaress them and fight. But as Mark said, if you can turn it around and amaze them with your charm and demeanor then they will be your best of friends. I used to avoid all the difficult people to perform for until I realised that they are actually the best people to establish a reaction from a group. Its like some convertees being stronger advocates for a religion than some poor indoctrinated soul. Performing where I do, I get some real arses and au contraire some spectators who are absolute dreams. Both are aces up my sleaves to enhance it for the middle ground group.

SamGurney wrote:I get some real arses and au contraire some spectators who are absolute dreams. Both are aces up my sleaves to enhance it for the middle ground group.

And knowing how to use both the bad and good spectators to your advantage and to make the performance better for everyone else is a commendable skill on it's own.

Indeed. I have no perfected it yet, but it is something that you get practice with when dealing with diverse audiences. You pretend you're an authority, elicit compliance with rapport and pacing and leading techiques and some compliance building and it works a treat. Everything you do must communicate or suggest that this isn't a joke or some cheap card trick. Finally have respect for them and you'll find these things are reciprocal.
There are some people who want to get you to show you something just so they can try and mess it up. This needs adressing, you can feind reluctance and then overtly check (in a friendly way) that they're not going to try and mess it up for the sake of it. As long as they know that it is YOUR ground they are treading on by asking you to do something and they must abide by your rules upon doing so, there won't be a problem I find. But if you mindlessly comply they think they have control. And last time that happened I had a nice game of 52 card pick up which was not very nice. I am not even joking, but the spectator was a complete and utter... (cencored)... and thats why you should never have sexual intercourse with that species of rat. There is no dignity in picking up a scattered deck of cards. But this does lead me niceley to my substantiated finale- perform for diverse spectators, maybe activley seeking them might not be idea, but taking a step outside your comfort zone really can shake up your reality a bit and make you a lot better and more confident when you take your foot off the pedal a little.

I have written extensively on this before. If I find the energy I might do so again.

Hi - newbie here just looking to break the ice with a few peeps

Re narky specs, Paul Brook has some great advice in his TAT book - I know it's mentalism-based and not for all, but really his approch to dealing with a problem person.

Oh - I'm not endorsed by PB by the way - I just think his work is brilliant

not sure where iv read it, possibly in a TM forum but its worked for me. if you pick a trick your confident at and not just a 30 second quicky. then make them the star! once theve had some impressive magic done for them they will relax a bit more and enjoy the rest of your show

I tend to assume that one of the following is happening inside their head:

1
They feel uncomfortable with the tension between the fact that I'm acting like I possess magical powers and the fact that they know that magic doesn't exist. They want to break this tension by demonstrating that they know the methods or whatever.

2
They feel uncomfortable because they feel like I'm superior to them.

Either way, I simply explain to them quietly (and slightly patronisingly) that "magic isn't actually real" and that if they keep trying to mess up the performance then they'll succeed and no one will get to see it.

In the case of 1 above, this makes them feel comfortable because I've broken that tension by admitting that the magic isn't real.

In the case of 2 above, it makes them feel comfortable because I've lowered myself to their level. It's like they're trying to knock me down a peg or two, knock me off the pedalstall (spelling?), so rather than fight it I STEP OFF the pedalstall and say, 'OK, you got me...' (But then I sneakily get back on it again by performing some good effects...)

If this all sounds lame, bare in mind that I don't say it so that everyone can hear, I just say it to them. Also bare in mind that no matter how much you tell people that "it's just a trick", when you then do a strong effect they still respond as though you really do have magical powers. They just seem to forget that you admitted that magic isn't real.

It's a bit like you're politely saying, 'I'm going to have to ask you to suspend your disbelief now.' They agree to do so and they enjoy the performance.

More broadly and generally, it's a bit like when Derren performs a magic trick then says, 'Now let's do something more serious...' or whatever and switches to mentalism (he discusses this in the Devil's Picturebook DVDs).

(Before I do any of the above, I might peform a standard Ambitious Card, wait for them to say, 'You put a different card in' or 'You turned over two cards' or whatever, and then blow them away by performing Ambitious Card again using a completely different method that allows them to check the signed card carefully and insert it themselves. 'Oh... I thought you... oh...!')

Tommy Wonder had a fantastic psychological way of dealing with this.
First way, was VERY simple and overlooked. Don't pose it as a puzzle.
This means it is not about showing how clever you are and becoming an intellectual challenge. It seems obvious, doesn't it? But in my experience the magic society is as feeble and conformist as any, and magicians tend to vehemently advocate sensible ideologies but turn out to be some of the biggest hypocrites I have come across since Jingoist America.
If you agree with Tommy Wonder on that, then you have to actually make a change in what your doing in accordance to that belief. Just saying it and nodding along, won't help anything. Mini-rant officially over now.

This is, in my opinion, one of the big things to consider in magic theory and Tommy summed it up much better than I can:

'If you can transport people out of the role of detective or, better yet, prevent them from entering into that role- you will have done them a good service, since you can offer them something of much greater interest'

However, Tommy agreed that even if you were being charming, likeable, entertaining e.t.c. there were still going to be some people who had the psychological disposition to treat it as a puzzle and the threat of anything affiliated with deception leads them to feel socially obliged to demonstrate their intellectual erudite by rejecting the magic.

His initial response to this was to involve the spectator in some way. If the spectator is sat eyes-glued to hands then he would get them participating in some way, which psychologically took down the barrier they had erected in trying to remain distanced and disassociated from the performance.

He was also an expert at using social pressure to elicit a desired response from a trouble maker. He avoided confrontations and challenges with the spectator directly, so rather than show the spectator that they are wrong about a method, he would ingeniously show everyone else, but the spectator, that he was wrong. This meant that he had proven the spectator wrong to everyone else and there was inherent social pressure.

I could go on all day at Tommy's ingenuity- but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. Learn everything you can about the man, the guy was an absolute legend.