Hello everyone.
Several of y'all may have seen a post form me little while ago looking for advice on developing one's character (thank you again for those who responded, it was great help). Since then I have been self-reflecting about the kind of performer I want to be, looking at answering the question applying a modified version of Gallop's StrengthsFinder program. For those unfamiliar, in StrengthsFinder there are identified themes, and each of us represents those themes in a different ranking order. This order of themes determines the level of strength they exhort in our daily lives. As an example, one such theme is focused on "Wining Over Others" and folks strong in this theme will draw energy from the constant networking and development of relationships, whereas for those who are weakest in the theme they can still network but they will expend energy and it won't be as empowering experience for them.
Taking this idea of different themes (in my case looking at presentation styles, experiences created and effects performed) I have sought to identify a few themes which come more naturally to me. As I have been doing that I remembered a period in my life where I was in between thinking about magic (I have always been what I would call an amateur performer leaning collector) and was just experimenting with something which I can only describe as maybe part suggestion (but not hypnotism). Suggestion may not be the best term either: if any of you are familiar with the how the concept behind "A Small Bend" is experienced (where the intended audience witnesses a spoon bend but the casual observer does not - at least that is what the demonstration video I saw looked like to me - I think I had stumbled upon that. An example of what I mean may help here.
Years ago I was working in a movie theater concession stand, and one of the gals I worked with and I had developed a pretty good rapport over the Summer. She knew I had been into magic somewhat before, and one day she asked if I could show her something involving magic. Well, I wasn't carrying anything at the time, but the thought occurred to me to just try something out there; if it didn't work there was no foul, and if it did work then it would be awesome (if only for me). I asked her to focus on the popcorn popper machines we had in the concession stand. They had recently been loaded with popcorn seeds and would soon be producing popped kernels. I asked her to focus to visualize those kernels falling from the poppers, and as they began to come out I asked her to visualize them slowing down as they fell. I do not know if she was going along with it; I can only believe her when she claimed that she saw the kernels slow down to a crawling pace and stop during that time.
My questions are:
(1) What was I doing that created that particular experience? AND Can you help me put some possible names to it, so I can find more information about it?
(2) Do you have any leads that I could start tracking down to learn more. The above experience has stuck with me and impacted me in profound ways during this time of learning what kind of performer I want to be.
I appreciate you all for helping me out with this!
Several of y'all may have seen a post form me little while ago looking for advice on developing one's character (thank you again for those who responded, it was great help). Since then I have been self-reflecting about the kind of performer I want to be, looking at answering the question applying a modified version of Gallop's StrengthsFinder program. For those unfamiliar, in StrengthsFinder there are identified themes, and each of us represents those themes in a different ranking order. This order of themes determines the level of strength they exhort in our daily lives. As an example, one such theme is focused on "Wining Over Others" and folks strong in this theme will draw energy from the constant networking and development of relationships, whereas for those who are weakest in the theme they can still network but they will expend energy and it won't be as empowering experience for them.
Taking this idea of different themes (in my case looking at presentation styles, experiences created and effects performed) I have sought to identify a few themes which come more naturally to me. As I have been doing that I remembered a period in my life where I was in between thinking about magic (I have always been what I would call an amateur performer leaning collector) and was just experimenting with something which I can only describe as maybe part suggestion (but not hypnotism). Suggestion may not be the best term either: if any of you are familiar with the how the concept behind "A Small Bend" is experienced (where the intended audience witnesses a spoon bend but the casual observer does not - at least that is what the demonstration video I saw looked like to me - I think I had stumbled upon that. An example of what I mean may help here.
Years ago I was working in a movie theater concession stand, and one of the gals I worked with and I had developed a pretty good rapport over the Summer. She knew I had been into magic somewhat before, and one day she asked if I could show her something involving magic. Well, I wasn't carrying anything at the time, but the thought occurred to me to just try something out there; if it didn't work there was no foul, and if it did work then it would be awesome (if only for me). I asked her to focus on the popcorn popper machines we had in the concession stand. They had recently been loaded with popcorn seeds and would soon be producing popped kernels. I asked her to focus to visualize those kernels falling from the poppers, and as they began to come out I asked her to visualize them slowing down as they fell. I do not know if she was going along with it; I can only believe her when she claimed that she saw the kernels slow down to a crawling pace and stop during that time.
My questions are:
(1) What was I doing that created that particular experience? AND Can you help me put some possible names to it, so I can find more information about it?
(2) Do you have any leads that I could start tracking down to learn more. The above experience has stuck with me and impacted me in profound ways during this time of learning what kind of performer I want to be.
I appreciate you all for helping me out with this!