Hi everyone,
I'm pretty new to these forums, but I've been lurking them for quite some time now. So hi everyone (again) !
I would like to talk about a great classic that I often perform, and I know most of you do too :
The Biddle trick
One thing has always bothered me in this trick, and that is that weiiird count. I mean, I've already been spotted doing this, and the "image" of the card being counted seemed to last in the memory of the audience.
With time, I learned to do it really smoothly, and make it look like I'm just counting them casually, but once in a while, I got this spectator who busted me, who could retrace the trick back to that very precise point and looked me in the eyes saying : "I know how you did that".
Then one day, while performing the trick for a friend, I messed up the count. I didn't get my break under the card, and the move just couldn't be done in rythm anymore. Then it hit me : The spectator saw his card on the top of the small pile in my left hand, and he saw my hesitation. But he interpreted that as a sign of me reading his micro-expressions or whatever. I casually got my break back and quickly finished the move, while looking at him in the eyes, saying : "That was your card, wasn't it ?"
As he said yes, bewildered my capacity of guessing his card, I told him "Check it out, we're going to try something with your 4 of Spades". Then I continued the trick and it completely blew his mind. I never had such a powerful reaction to this trick.
After that, I realized that the main factor that made this reaction possible was because I broke the rythm of the Biddle count. I did 1-2-3.. Stop. Look at his eyes. Then 1-2. The count wasn't a count anymore, and I had a reason for displaying the cards this way.
I developped the idea a little further, and now, I slowly show the cards, naming them one by one, stopping when I have their card in my left hand, with no breaks whatsoever. It's such a clean and powerful image that they don't even consider you might do something else afterwards. To them, the trick is finished. You didn't just find their card, you found out it was theirs. It gives you an off-beat moment to complete the count (without naming the following cards).
Thinking of it, I really think it changes the trick. It makes it a bit more organic to me, and it better suit my performing style.
That said, I won't judge my method as being better than the original (that would be far too pretentious), but I found that by breaking a rule (make your count steady and perfectly rythmic), I got something different, still very powerfull and that suited exactly my performing style. A tiny change that made a lot of difference in my performance of this trick.
All of that leads me to this very question : Did anyone here find out similar changes ? Breaking a rule, only to find out that it gives a move or an effect more power and meaning to you ?
I'm pretty new to these forums, but I've been lurking them for quite some time now. So hi everyone (again) !
I would like to talk about a great classic that I often perform, and I know most of you do too :
The Biddle trick
One thing has always bothered me in this trick, and that is that weiiird count. I mean, I've already been spotted doing this, and the "image" of the card being counted seemed to last in the memory of the audience.
With time, I learned to do it really smoothly, and make it look like I'm just counting them casually, but once in a while, I got this spectator who busted me, who could retrace the trick back to that very precise point and looked me in the eyes saying : "I know how you did that".
Then one day, while performing the trick for a friend, I messed up the count. I didn't get my break under the card, and the move just couldn't be done in rythm anymore. Then it hit me : The spectator saw his card on the top of the small pile in my left hand, and he saw my hesitation. But he interpreted that as a sign of me reading his micro-expressions or whatever. I casually got my break back and quickly finished the move, while looking at him in the eyes, saying : "That was your card, wasn't it ?"
As he said yes, bewildered my capacity of guessing his card, I told him "Check it out, we're going to try something with your 4 of Spades". Then I continued the trick and it completely blew his mind. I never had such a powerful reaction to this trick.
After that, I realized that the main factor that made this reaction possible was because I broke the rythm of the Biddle count. I did 1-2-3.. Stop. Look at his eyes. Then 1-2. The count wasn't a count anymore, and I had a reason for displaying the cards this way.
I developped the idea a little further, and now, I slowly show the cards, naming them one by one, stopping when I have their card in my left hand, with no breaks whatsoever. It's such a clean and powerful image that they don't even consider you might do something else afterwards. To them, the trick is finished. You didn't just find their card, you found out it was theirs. It gives you an off-beat moment to complete the count (without naming the following cards).
Thinking of it, I really think it changes the trick. It makes it a bit more organic to me, and it better suit my performing style.
That said, I won't judge my method as being better than the original (that would be far too pretentious), but I found that by breaking a rule (make your count steady and perfectly rythmic), I got something different, still very powerfull and that suited exactly my performing style. A tiny change that made a lot of difference in my performance of this trick.
All of that leads me to this very question : Did anyone here find out similar changes ? Breaking a rule, only to find out that it gives a move or an effect more power and meaning to you ?