Pinky & Thumb Break

How to hold a good pinky and thumb break- essential card sleight tutorial HD

3 PRACTICAL WAYS OF CATCHING A PINKY BREAK card control tutorial

1) Thumb Fan Control - Spectator returns selected card to fanned cards. You close the fan from the outside to creating an injog. Push the injog in from the top to thumb break to pinky break

2) Overhand Shuffle Control - Injog to thumb break to pinky break

3) The Charlier Cut Control - Injog to thumb break to pinky break

Magic in Theory: An Introduction to the Theoretical and Psychological Elements of Conjuring (Notes)

Introduction

There are generally speaking four fundamental aspects to a magic trick: Effect, Method, Misdirection & Reconstruction.

Effect is what the spectator sees, and includes an event that the spectator regards as incompatible with his view of how the world works (ex. magician places a coin into his hand. When he opens it, the coin has vanished).

Method is the secret behind the effect such as a secret move or 'sleight', or it may be a secret device or unknown procedure of some sort (ex. magician used sleight of hand to make it appear has if he placed the coin in his hand but actually didn't).

Misdirection are the physical and psychological ploys that the magician may use to enhance the effect and conceal the method. (ex. magician looks at and raises the hand which he appeared to place the coin into drawing attention away from the coin actually holding the hand).

Reconstruction is when, following a conjuring trick, the spectator attempts to reconstruct events with a view to understanding what happened. Magicians often times will do things to try and influence the reconstruction process.


Chapter 1 Magic tricks and how they are done

A Classification of Conjuring Effects
1. Appearance - An object appears where it was not (ex. rabbit from hat).
2. Vanish - An object disappears from where it was. (ex. coin vanishes from hand).
3. Transposition - An object changes position in space. (ex. coins invisibly travel from one hand to the other).
4. Transformation - An object changes form. (ex. coin changes into another coin).
5. Penetration - An apparently impossible case of matter through matter. (ex. linking rings)
6. Restoration - An object is damaged then restored. (ex. torn and restored newspaper).
7. Extraordinary Feats
a. Mental Feats - Display of extraordinary mental abilities. (ex. memory, rapid calculation feats).
b. Physical Feats - Display of extraordinary strength or invulnerability (ex. lying on a bed of nails.
8. Telekinesis - Apparent ability to control movement of objects without physical contact
9. Extrasensory Perception
a. Clairvoyance - The acquirement of information not known to others apparently via extrasensory means.
b. Telepathy - The acquirement of information from others apparently via extrasensory means (ex. mind reading effects).
c. Precognition - The apparent acquirement of information from the future (ex. any prediction effect).
d. Mental Control - The apparent control over another's mind. Rather than predicting the selection, the performer influences the selection process.

B. Methodological Strategies
1. Appearance
Three general strategies:
a. Object was already there but was concealed.
b. Object was secretly put in position.
c. Object is not actually there but appears to be.

2. Vanish
a. Object was not there but appeared to be there
b. Object was secretly removed
c. Object is still there but concealed

3. Transposition
a. Object appeared to be at A but was already at B
b. Object is still at A but appears to be at B
c. Object was secretly moved from A to B
d. A duplicate object was used

4. Transformation
a. Object A was secretly switched for B
b. Object B was already there but was disguised as A
c. Object A is still there but is disguised as B

5. Penetration
Methods generally the same as those used in transposition and restoration.

6. Restoration
a. The object was not really damaged
b. The object was not really restored
c. Duplicated object was used

7. Extraordinary Feats

8. Telekinesis
a. Action caused by external force
b. Action caused by internal force
c. Action did not take place but appeared to

9. Extrasensory perception
a. Forcing information
b. Discovering unknown information
c. Revealing information as if known (ex multiple outs, swami gimmick)


Chapter 2 Misdirection

Misdirection - That which directs the audience toward the effect and away from the method.

A student magician performs a new move. He shows a coin in his right hand, then apparently passed it to his left but secretly retained it in his right. He opened his left hand to show that it had vanished. But much to his disappointment, he realized the spectator was staring at his right hand. 

Successful magic requires that the spectator perceive the effect and not the method. In this case, the spectator did perceive the effect, but he also perceived the method.

At any given time, the spectator will have a primary area of focus. From an infinite number of visible stimuli, the spectator must select what to see at any given moment. The magician simply influences this selective process through establishing certain areas as more interesting than others.

The method may then take place in an area of secondary interest, while the effect should take place in an area of primary interest.

I. Physical misdirection: directing the spectator's attention
A. Directing where the spectator is looking
1. Passive diversion: the use of natural conditions of primary and secondary interest using:
-Novelty - People are attracted to the novel (newly introduced object, unfamiliar action, etc)
-Movement - The eye is drawn to movement (moving hand vs stationary hand, larger movement vs smaller movement)
-Contrast - (court card among spot cards will stand out)

2. Active diversion: the creation of areas of primary and secondary interest using:
-Eyes - (if you want somebody to look at something, look at it. If you want someone to look at you, look at them)
-Voice - Use of patter to direct attention, addressing spectator by name, asking a question
-Body Language - Tension draws attention. Conversely, relaxation induces relaxed attention.
-External sources of diversion - Ex. action of assistant or member of audience. An appropriate magical surprise could direct attention away fro the area of method for a subsequent magical effect.

B. Directing when the spectator is looking
Reducing attention at the moment of method:
-Outside the effect
-Inside the effect

Increasing attention at the moment of magic:
-Separating the moments of effect and method
-Reinforcing the moment of effect

2. Psychological misdirection: directing the spectator's suspicion
a) Reducing suspicion
Naturalness
-Consistency
-Necessity

Justification
-Familiarisation
-Ruse

Conviction
-Charisma
-Self-conviction
-Reinforcement

b) Diverting suspicion
False solutions
False expectations

Arm Twist Illusion

Created by Shinkoh

Performance

FOUL PLAY , FAIR DICE

FOUL PLAY , FAIR DICE

Here is a fast-moving and novel variation on a betcha-can't racing game. It is similar to the 100 POINT RACE except that you use the face numbers on dice for your counting. Required: One pair of dice, the secret, and a willing Victim. Take turns adding any one side of a die to the accumulating total until the goal of 50 is reached. The winner reaches 50 first.

THE KNOW HOW
The secret is to choose the figures you show on your die so as to capture these key numbers for yourself : 8, 15,22,29 , 36,43. Note that after you reach 8 you control the addition so that your Victim's number plus yours equals 7.

THE SHOW HOW
Make the choice of figures on your die seem quite random. Be casual, shake the di e as if any number would do, but—to yourself—watch your adding! I'll bet you can't win if you don't!

Also see Mark Esldon Penguin Lecture @3:21

Hypnosis/Pseudo Hypnosis

Hypnosis
The Trilby Connection (Notes)
James Brown Penguin Live Lecture (Notes)


Hypnosis (General Notes)

Pseudo Hypnosis

Amnesia/Forgetting a card 

-Cerebral Steal by James Brown

-Patrick Redford

Equivocation/Equivoque/Magician's Choice

Wikipedia: Equivocation (magic)

Equivocation (or the magician's choice) is a verbal technique by which a magician gives an audience member an apparently free choice, but frames the next stage of the trick in such a way that each choice has the same end result.[1] For example, the performer may deal two cards to the table and ask a spectator to select one: if the spectator chooses the card on the left, the performer will say something like "you keep this card, I'll take the remaining card". If the spectator chooses the card on the right, the performer will take that card. Thus, the choice of which card to use is really made by the magician.

The effectiveness of the equivocation involves the "information gap" between what the spectator knows and what the spectator thinks they know.

Equivocation tends to lose its effectiveness if repeated in the same context, since the spectator gains more information from one performance to the next, thereby shrinking the information gap. For example, a spectator may wonder why their choice was kept in some cases and discarded in others.

Equivocation is a particular form of alternate ending forces where double entendre wording is used and a different pattern of results to questions can be noticed, but its real strength is best realized when augmented with artful psychological techniques.

See:

E'voque: Docc Hilford

Tricks using Equivocation:
-Proof Positive
-Max Maven Routine

Pre-Prefiguration

See Mark Elsdon Penguin Live Online Lecture 1 for instruction @7:00

Performance example here

Partial Performance example here

1) Starting from the top of the deck spell the value of the first card, then put that packet on the table. 2) Continue going through the deck until you come to the first card which matches the value of the card you originally spelled. Take that packet, including the matching card, and place it on top of the first packet. 3) Continue till you come across the next match, put that packet, excluding the matching card, on top of the packets on the table. Continue till you find the last match, remove it then put the remaining packet on top of the cards on the table.

With the cards face up, start dealing them down one at a time and tell your spectator to say stop at any time (just make sure you get past the two setup cards). They say stop. Turn the two piles over so that the force pile is on your left (the one you were dealing from). Say "point to either pile" and magician's choice the selection (if points to force pile have them look at the top card if the point to the other pile, have them pick it up). Have them spell the forced card. Reveal the match. Then reveal your prediction. Then have them turn over the card from the pile in their hand for the final match.