theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Reaching out!

KAL-EL

KAL-EL

Oct 25, 2007
133
0
I have a great routine that I do for friends and family and usually everything goes as planned. however, when i perform for some of my students or colleges they sometimes reach over and grab at the deck of cards after a trick or two and i always find myself having to say something in the lines like "you should never touch a magicians cards" and to me this sounds very lame.

any suggestions?:mad::mad::mad:
 
Learn some Crowd Control. You should be in control of your performances... not them. It should be easy to keep them away from your cards. Tell them that they can keep the cards, because it's obvious that they don't want you to perform for them, and walk away. 9 times out of 10 they will apologize and call you back, and not mess with you. The other time... you're just out a deck of cards. lol
 
I hear you, but i guess i wasn't clear enough.

let's say i do shapeshifter, after i'm done they go "no way" and then grab at the cards to see if they can guess how it was done.
 
KAL-EL said:
let's say i do shapeshifter, after i'm done they go "no way" and then grab at the cards to see if they can guess how it was done.
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I rekcon you should have a couple outs on hand, based on where you're at in your routine. Ask yourself what you are left with after a trick or a mover and what you need to keep going (if you're in the middle of your routine).

In your Shapeshifter example, I see two options. Assuming you have your deck in hand and have just made the move.... return the you know what to the top of the deck and then hand the face up card out to the spectator and then quickly, but casually, perform a swing cut. If they want the deck you can hand it to them or you can say whatever you want get say no. If they are close to you and are seem grabby, do this: when you are ready to hand the face up card out for examination, angle your body so that you have to reach over your deck holding hand, thus covering the deck. While protected, do a charlier cut (SP?). Again, you're now clean and ready to deal with the spectator.

Like I said, what do you want to do. Be able to hand them the deck? Do you need to retain a packet or a stack or something? Do you want to stop the routine altogether? Do you want to be able to say no and continue? Come up with a couple outs based on your routine and what your desired outcome is.
 
You could always pocket the deck (with your card in question forced to the top or bottom) as a part of a transition to the next leg of the trick. Prime example:

As explained by Wayne, when performing distortion, as soon as you do the reveal that your card changed into theirs and they go to look at their card that they've been holding, pocket the deck and only remove the double. Then if they say "No way, lemme see the deck," take the deck back out of your pocket sans the top or bottom (depending on where you put it) card. I've been working on doing this with every card trick that involves doubles or gaffs only because it's one of the more natural looking ditches without having to go into palming or spontanious combustion... When you're done with your cards, you put them in your pocket. It's a logical progression and as stated before, and your pocket serves as a natural cover.

hope this helped
Dave
 
After the trick...let your hands hover around your crotch...it sounds stupid but people naturally dont grab things from around there(unless you are good friends) just do it naturally....i think steve made a thread about this a while back....
 
bboulton said:
After the trick...let your hands hover around your crotch...it sounds stupid but people naturally dont grab things from around there(unless you are good friends)
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Actually I have people diving to get a piece of that action pretty much 24/7.

But on a serious note the deck to pocket works, and well.

But if you have absolutely no time to pocket or pull away or do anything, just drop it. Drop the deck and then reprimand them as you pick it up, putting what ever gaffs hopelessly lost in the middle. This is not a good idea to do when the ground isn't dry, but that's pretty obvious.
 
bboulton said:
After the trick...let your hands hover around your crotch...it sounds stupid but people naturally dont grab things from around there(unless you are good friends) just do it naturally....i think steve made a thread about this a while back....
Click to expand...

Haha...thanks bro. Yes, I did make a thread about it here. Darwin Ortiz calls it the "crotch holdout" and I must say, it works very well. If you're working at a table, just put the deck right near your crotch. With the exception of young children who don't know better, 99% will never reach for it.

Good Luck!
Steve
 
Some help

You should really be in control of the situation I have been performing for awhile now and when I am done doing my stuff there is rarely a time that people want to check if my deck is regular, as I try to present my self as a very skilled card expert. It really comes down to how you present your stuff. If this is happening often out side of your family/friends than you need to serious look at what you are doing, as they need to trust and like you in limited sense. If someone reached for my deck of cards I would not just let them have it who are they to interrupt my performance, the deck is mine. How many people would reach out and take an instrument form a musician. Plus each of my decks are finely tuned the way I like them and I don’t want them ruined by people dirty oily hands. If they have any questions I tell them that it is a normal deck, and openly show the fronts and backs. And I will except challenges with other decks. You are not their toy if they mess with you and you dont like it walk away, let them speculate they have no idea really how it worked and if they have slight idea who carries. Also simply moving on to the next trick works as they most likely would like to see more as would the rest of the people watching. If you want some really well thought out theories on how to deal with hecklers check out Card college book two the best one of the series.
 
I tried the deck to pocket routine and that seemed to work fairly well, thankz!!!!

As for the deck to crotch, i'm afraid that will encourage more grabbing that not :D,

I really don't like the dropping the deck to floor thing not only because it gets your cards dirty, but because i'm afraid this will make you look like an amature and not a professional.

Thank you all for your advice, i greatly appreciate it very much
 
I think the big thing you have to try and develop is that wall between you and your spectator. I often hear people saying they want to break down those barriers between audience and magician, and while that is honourable, I believe it is also important to establish who the performer is and who requires the respect within a group.

Personally, I do this a lot, as I look physically quite shrewd. For me, this includes raising my voice to drown out others (which is easy, as my voice is always the loudest) positioning my spectators and grabbing the groups attention my way. This establishes that I'm there for a reason and creates the feeling that tghey are watching something tight rather than something completely casual and loose.

Ty
 
Ty, I completely understand what you are saying.

Usually when my class has a movie day or free time, I'll have 2 or 3 kids ask for a magic trick. I don't want to let them down so i say okay. But I ask them all to remain quite and listen. All goes well most of the time, but then there's that one student who has to reach over to the deck to see if they can figure it out. It rarely happens but when it does it bites. Then I have to explain why I don't want them to touch my card and I feel this ruins the magical feeling of what just happened for everyone else.

From what I get from you all is that this has happened to most of you and each has their own way of dealing with this, I just need to find mine.

For now the deck to pocket seemed to work so I'll probably end up sticking with this one and incorporate others as I go along.

Thankz everyone!!!!:cool:
 
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