Ive been looking at switches and mainly the top change. Its such a bold move but a switch off the top can save you when an effect goes wrong. Does anyone have any covers for the top change they want to share? Thanks as always. I love the people in these forums, its beautiful what sort of community we have here and im glad im a part of it
Top change
- Thread starter Thebonemagician
- Start date
-
- Tags
- top change
I completely agree with you. This community is fantastic.
The best cover that I have found is to simply make eye contact with the spectator, or turn to another spectator and ask a question. The purpose is to get their attention away from my hands and the best way is to make eye contact and engage them with a question or some statement. A split second is all you need to be able to do the switch. Turning your body to another spectator also provides some cover, but the misdirection mainly comes from eye contact and conversation.
There are some excellent covers provided in the Card College series so I implore you to check those out as well.
Hope this helped!
The best cover that I have found is to simply make eye contact with the spectator, or turn to another spectator and ask a question. The purpose is to get their attention away from my hands and the best way is to make eye contact and engage them with a question or some statement. A split second is all you need to be able to do the switch. Turning your body to another spectator also provides some cover, but the misdirection mainly comes from eye contact and conversation.
There are some excellent covers provided in the Card College series so I implore you to check those out as well.
Hope this helped!
Thank you! In reviewing my own performances, im not the most interesting performer. I either rely on flawless uses of sleights or body movement to cover moves. I always underestimated how not only useful communicating is to a spectator is to covering moves but also to make performance more entertaining. I'll definitely take your advice on board
It is a humbling experience to watch yourself perform. But it enables you to reflect on your mistakes and make it better. Flawless technique is great but these things mean nothing if you're uninteresting to your audience. I would recommend learning and perfecting some self-working tricks. That way you can devote all of your energy to the performance and your audience. You will gain more confidence in your performing skills and you and your audience will have a better time. Most of all, have fun! If you are having a good time that will translate to your spectators and they will have a good time!
Top change is a bold move, yes, because it is not invisible. But like anything visible, it can go unnoticed when communication, body movement, and technique are synchronized properly. Everytime you address someone directly, they tend to look back at you, and when people focus on something specific, the brain does not process anything else, so you can pass a lot of things unnoticed... a lot!
Ever seen this?
I realized this the first time I performed 2-card monte. The last change is a top change, just after faking the card change in the spectator's hand. Once I made the fake change, I put my left hand (holding the deck in dealer's grip) above their cards palm facing down and say by looking at them "don't look at your cards yet and tell me which card is which". Their eyes immediately go up, away from the cards --- in fact their eyes go even higher like most people do when accessing their memory. The deck is now very far from their line of sight, at least 70 degrees angle away --- anything they see around the cards with be blurred at best. I now draw back my left hand, rotating it palm up, and preparing for the change at the same time --- right hand does not move ---, as the left hand passes by the right hand, the top change occurs. It will be as though the right hand did not move at all.
Hi man! I had the same problems when I started learning the top change. As Daortiz says "practicing the top change at the mirror will only tell you if you do it well, not when to do it", I think the most important thing in the top change is the timing and the attitude you have performing it. At first I got caught a couple of times, but those mistakes helped me to understand when to do it and what do to/say while doing it. I recommend you to check also David Williamson's work on it, he's a master with the top change.
By the way, I find useful also to change the way I do it in the routines I perform, to avoid the spectator to feel that "something is happening" when -for example- I move the box or whatever move I do for misdirection that, if repeated too much in too short time, becomes suspicious. So look also for other non-traditional ways to do it, like the Retention of vision by Marlo.
This is really good advice! I learned to practice the move while watching TV, and that helped make the move more silent. The audience shouldn't see the move of course, but you have to be sure they don't hear it happening as well.
As @DominusDolorum said, check out Card College.
For a top change, part of the invisibility is the technique in that the entire sleight (the small movement) is done by the left hand where the movement to and from the deck is done by the right hand (the large movement). The speed at which the sleight is done also matters. The movement of the hands together should be slow but the sleight done quickly. As was said, the sleight should be done as an in-transit motion (your right hand stops by the deck on its way to somewhere else) with a justification (there is a resason for moving your right hand). Also, it helps if the deck is sleightly tilted toward you in a partial wrist kill.
For a top change, part of the invisibility is the technique in that the entire sleight (the small movement) is done by the left hand where the movement to and from the deck is done by the right hand (the large movement). The speed at which the sleight is done also matters. The movement of the hands together should be slow but the sleight done quickly. As was said, the sleight should be done as an in-transit motion (your right hand stops by the deck on its way to somewhere else) with a justification (there is a resason for moving your right hand). Also, it helps if the deck is sleightly tilted toward you in a partial wrist kill.
Never heard of it but ill look it up.
EDIT: could you link some information about it? I cant find anything on the Bo-Top anywhere