Best MisDirection Tools, Tips, and Tricks?

[Ned Devine]

I mostly deal with intoxicated individuals so your milage may vary... I personally think that using their name is a huge part of it, not just to attract their attention but it also makes them feel memorable. For one people like to hear their name and will look to where they heard it. Second, people like to be remembered, by using their name you are telling them you remember them. So don't forget their name and literally go "hey Frank" they will look up haha

 

[Simsallabim]

That all fits together somehow. Look over there, what is that thing? Frank....

 

[Simsallabim]

While controlling a card (pass or undercut), I usually ask them

1- "hopefully you didn't choose the jokers?" they usually look at me when I said that

2- or I will even just guess a card "did you pick the 8 of diamond?"



any other suggestions for misdirections while controlling the selection?

Yep, for the pass try it right in front of one person first without by-lines. If it works, no need to talk. For undercut, not sure what that's for bro.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

The pass was never meant to be done while your hands are being burned. I'm reminded of a story James Brown (The Professional Opportunist, not the singer) tells about how he was at a convention and a bunch of kids were standing around showing each other the pass. He complimented one of them, and they handed him a deck and said, "You do it!" in a kind of challenging way. He responds with, "What? Here? In front of all you people? ..... Ok well, I've already done it, so ..." "What! I wasn't watching! I didn't see it!"

I think far too many people focus on trying to make the moves invisible from the point of view of what can be seen. It doesn't matter if the audience can't see cards physically moving from one place to the next. If your hands are on the deck and then something happens, they're going to know that they just couldn't see whatever little sneaky thing was just done. That's when you get folks who feel like it's a challenge.

The Undercut is a basic card control. Usually called the double-undercut but you don't have to do two. If you know the pass but don't know the undercut, your education thus far is missing some significant foundation material.

 

[Deadlyapples]

I am new to magic but one that I find that works is when you are needing the misdirection start pretending you are going to sneeze, not only do they look up but they back off a bit. I have a friend who is a bit odd and always wants to burn my hands as if they are trying to fool him and make him feel stupid! You know what I mean right. He looks at my hands, gets close to them and comments on everything. So I did this and in the moment he looked up I did what was necessary

 

[RealityOne]

I am new to magic but one that I find that works is when you are needing the misdirection start pretending you are going to sneeze, not only do they look up but they back off a bit. I have a friend who is a bit odd and always wants to burn my hands as if they are trying to fool him and make him feel stupid! You know what I mean right. He looks at my hands, gets close to them and comments on everything. So I did this and in the moment he looked up I did what was necessary

First, focus on entertaining, not fooling them. Second, misdirection is more than shouting "Hey, look at that squirrel!" Misdirection is the wrong term. As Tommy Wonder said, we should think about direction of the audience's attention. That sort of direction should be built into the structure of the routine, not some random distraction.

The other concept to think about is "cover." The ability to do a sleight while it appears you are doing something perfectly rational like squaring the deck or shuffling.

Finally, often people burn magicians hands because of what the magician projects. If we look at our hands, pause our speaking or are tense when we are doing a sleight, the audience will notice. Those are the moments we should be midirecting the audience by directing their attention (as well as our attention - their attention follows ours) away from our hands.

 

[Deadlyapples]

First, focus on entertaining, not fooling them. Second, misdirection is more than shouting "Hey, look at that squirrel!" Misdirection is the wrong term. As Tommy Wonder said, we should think about direction of the audience's attention. That sort of direction should be built into the structure of the routine, not some random distraction.

The other concept to think about is "cover." The ability to do a sleight while it appears you are doing something perfectly rational like squaring the deck or shuffling.

Finally, often people burn magicians hands because of what the magician projects. If we look at our hands, pause our speaking or are tense when we are doing a sleight, the audience will notice. Those are the moments we should be midirecting the audience by directing their attention (as well as our attention - their attention follows ours) away from our hands.

I get this but I was just saying that the only person that has even burnt my hands is my friend who is a tad odd sometimes. He and my brother don't like it when people do / learn new things and seem to take any opportunity to try and make me fail at it. So they burn my hands. I have performed a few tricks at work to colleagues and they all were really impressed but show my brother or my mate and they are like "ah well you just did your magic stuff so yeah what ever". I suppose the wrong people to be showing my performances to. oddly enough I seem to have no problem talking naturally to people when performing my tricks and have never had anyone other than my brother and my friend burning my hands, probably because they know that is where some of the "magic" happens so they want to try and catch me and see me fail or rather they want to win, even thought magic isn't about winning or losing... I almost never look at my hands / cards unless I want the focus to be on them, I usually try to maintain eye contact but my friends ignores the eye contact and banter and just puts his face about 3 inches from the cards trying to catch me out. Its rather annoying.

 

[Timewise64]

A lot of good comments on 'card handling'...when I think of misdirection, I think of sponge balls. I worked and worked at handling the sponge ball so fast that you could not see it happen, it never got perfect. Then I watched a new DVD I got and the magician showed how by using your hands you can easily miss direct the eyes of the audience. The first time I tried it, it worked perfectly and my audience, my wife and two grandkids....thought it was amazing! Misdirection is a wonderful thing once you learn to make it look natural......the hand is quicker than the eye, especially when they are not looking.....

 

[Maaz Hasan]

One of the best things you can do is give the audience something else to look at. For example, I do an in the hands trick where I ditch a copped card as I retrieve the tuck case from my pocket, right before I put the deck in the case and then give it to the spectator. If anyone catches the cop or the ditch, trick goes kablooey. What I do is I gesture outwards and to the right with the deck as my body naturally turns and reaches into my left jacket or back pocket. That way, even if someone was grilling my hands, I have just redirected their attention elsewhere. Furthermore, I try and say something along the lines of. "So could you (blah blah patter blah), let me just get the box... there we go, lets put the deck in there, ok. Could you (blah blah continued)".

Essentially you don't want to misdirect the audience, just redirect their attention elsewhere for a split second.

 

[Simsallabim]

The pass was never meant to be done while your hands are being burned. I'm reminded of a story James Brown (The Professional Opportunist, not the singer) tells about how he was at a convention and a bunch of kids were standing around showing each other the pass. He complimented one of them, and they handed him a deck and said, "You do it!" in a kind of challenging way. He responds with, "What? Here? In front of all you people? ..... Ok well, I've already done it, so ..." "What! I wasn't watching! I didn't see it!"

I think far too many people focus on trying to make the moves invisible from the point of view of what can be seen. It doesn't matter if the audience can't see cards physically moving from one place to the next. If your hands are on the deck and then something happens, they're going to know that they just couldn't see whatever little sneaky thing was just done. That's when you get folks who feel like it's a challenge.

The Undercut is a basic card control. Usually called the double-undercut but you don't have to do two. If you know the pass but don't know the undercut, your education thus far is missing some significant foundation material.

Nice thoughts.

 

[Josh Mickelson]

Hey, just a quick pointer - if people are going to burn you like that, you don't have to perform for them. Magic is a gift, you don't always have to give it away freely whenever. You can choose who you perform for