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daleshrimpton wrote:

My point was that there seems to be more folks trying to remember to burn the hands, and they even say "I learnt from off of that TV show that you have to ignore what the magician says and just watch the hands..."

sorry but..b*ll*cks.

Misdirection, makes this impossible.
the thing about misdirection is, it uses natural, uncontrollable reactions, to the magicians advantge. Things that are ingrained in every man, woman & child since caveman days.

If somebody talks to you directly in a day to day non magical situation, what do you do? You look at them, you answer them. If somebody points at an object in the distance,what do you do? you look.

The thing I am getting at is, if they look at your hands when you dont want them to.. your misdirection just isnt working.

It's not impossible Dale, just very very difficult. It's not polite either, and it fully goes against social norms but it can be done. Pen and Teller can do it as was demonstrated when Michael Vincent failed to 'fool them'.

sleightlycrazy wrote:Work on visually perfect methods ALA Jerry Andrus

I enjoyed watching some of Jerry's work. Thanks!

jim ferguson wrote:

Nic Castle wrote:Like most new skills it takes time to master but suddenly the proverbial penny drops.then you wonder why you did not master it earlier.

Thats a good point Nic, do you have the Magic of Michael Ammar ? This is mentioned in the essay on Vernons Theory of Artistic Advancement. According to his theory (and i have found it to be sound) we, as magicians, dont actually get better gradually. Instead we make leaps to a higher plateau when certain principles and ideas 'click', usually suddenly in our minds. There is a world of difference between knowing something and actually understanding it.

Sorry for veering off topic

jim

I have got it but not read that, it was just my observations of what seems to happen from my point of view. I have read it now and it sums it up perfectly.

Nic

Nic Castle wrote:

jim ferguson wrote:

Nic Castle wrote:Like most new skills it takes time to master but suddenly the proverbial penny drops.then you wonder why you did not master it earlier.

Thats a good point Nic, do you have the Magic of Michael Ammar ? This is mentioned in the essay on Vernons Theory of Artistic Advancement. According to his theory (and i have found it to be sound) we, as magicians, dont actually get better gradually. Instead we make leaps to a higher plateau when certain principles and ideas 'click', usually suddenly in our minds. There is a world of difference between knowing something and actually understanding it.

Sorry for veering off topic

jim

I have got it but not read that, it was just my observations of what seems to happen from my point of view. I have read it now and it sums it up perfectly.

Nic

Yes! direction is a better way of looking at it, thanks for pointing out that essay Jim. Great stuff by Ammar.

daleshrimpton wrote:Misdirection, makes this impossible.
the thing about misdirection is, it uses natural, uncontrollable reactions, to the magicians advantge.

No, those natural reactions are not uncontrollable.
A good magician can break against those reactions consistently and act contrarily to them when directing the attention by looking in the "wrong" direction when needed, and avoid looking in other directions when needed.
A layperson can do the same, but since being untrained, it is much more difficult and more unreliable. An untrained layperson can keep it up for about 8-12 seconds before giving up.
Had those reactions been uncontrollable, there would have been no need for Tommy Wonder - a master of misdirection - to devise his Richochet technique to defuse the "burning the hands" problem

I dont think thats what Dale was meaning, not in the way I read it anyway. I think it was more about us taking advantage of certain things that seem to be 'inbuilt'. Things like folks attention dropping slightly as they react to a magical effect thats just happened, or that the human eye is naturally drawn to motion etc. We use these things to our advantage. When he said 'uncontrolable' I read it as uncontrolable from the spectators point of view, not the magicians - ie they cant help but look at a moving object, and so on

jim