Trouble With Walking CMR

[Seraphus]

To start, I've read Banacheck's Book on CMR, as well as William Larsen's writing on the subject, which, all in all, is phenominally helpful. My experience with CMR is that I perform a lot better with an assortment of objects laid out in front of a spectator and have them focus on one of them. I usually get it almost 9 times out of 10.
My trouble is translating that skill to a wider area to search. I just can't seem to get the same clear signals when I hold a subject's hand or wrist. Is there a different feeling I ought to look for when performing like that, or could it be a lack of practice? Any tips would be greatly appreciated. This is hands down my favorite go to skill to demonstrate, and I would very much like to get the most out of it. Thanks to anyone who may help.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

It's mostly a matter of practice.

However - most performers I see use this particular skill (myself included) have the volunteer hold the performer's wrist, not the other way around.

 

[Seraphus]

Really? From the illustrations I saw, I assumed I held the subjects hand/wrist. Would you suppose that might affect my reading? Or, like any medium, handkerchief or otherwise, it wouldnt make a difference? Sorry if the question seems redundant, but I don't want to overlook any minutiae.
On top of that, may I ask, on average, how long can it take for you to find a thought of large object(like furniture)? Or would it vary depending on the sender?
I still can't even get the right direction, so perhaps I'm moving too fast?

 

[Seraphus]

It's mostly a matter of practice.

However - most performers I see use this particular skill (myself included) have the volunteer hold the performer's wrist, not the other way around.

Also, thanks for such a prompt response!!

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

You can do it via something like a rope or handkerchief, yes. You can also do it without any contact at all.

The time it takes to locate an object will vary due to a lot of factors. Performer skill, clear signals from the sender, etc. Sometimes the performer will have an off day and just not quite read it as easily.

The more you do it, the easier and faster it gets. It also gets more and more fine tuned. At one point I could do drawing duplications via CMR.

 

[Seraphus]

I see. Sounds like it really does just boil down to practice, then.
And honestly, wow. Drawing duplication seems pretty far out there, based on my limited experience. How long have you been practicing CMR, if I may be so bold to ask?
As for non contact, the closest thing I have ever used was a few techniques from Cog by Ben Seward a few years back, as I mainly limit my perfomances to a series of objects that can be thought of or an impromptu which hand, or get me out of a pickle between 3 or so choices.
I don't feel comfortable yet with any other form of mind reading at the moment, but wanted to know if you may recommend I work on both, contact and non-contact at once; or would focusing on one method at a time be more productive?
Sorry for the bombardment of questions, by the way. It has been very difficult to find someone I can directly communicate with for help, and I find myself a slow learner through experience, so I hope my gratitude for your opinion doesn't come off as patronizing. It truly is a pleasure to hear what you have to say

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

I don't recall anything in Cog that I'd consider related to CMR. Non-Contact CMR is done basically the same as normal CMR, you're just not actually touching the person. Cog uses a different method to obtain the information. Therefore, practicing CMR is also practicing non-contact CMR.

I learned from Jerome Finley's Full Contact Mind Reading, and on top of that I did a lot of martial arts when I was younger. In Aikido specifically we had an exercise that involved two people kneeling with their wrists touching. One person's goal was to keep their wrists touching the other person's, and the other person's goal was to guide that person into a position where it would be easy to tip them over. Then you switch roles. There's a very similar exercise in (I believe) Kung Fu called Sticky Hands. This one is done standing, and the idea is to follow someone's movements well enough to keep your wrists/hands touching theirs while they move around. It teaches sensitivity to anticipated movements, which is basically the same thing as CMR.

So while I was basically immediately good at CMR when I learned it, that is because I already had spent a long time developing the foundation skill before hand.

 

[Seraphus]

I figured Cog would be a bit of a stretch to associate with NCMR, but felt I should mention it, giving acknowledgement to the brief section in Banachek's book regarding non-contact numbers(doesn't work as well for me as Cog, but I enjoy playing with different methods to see if I prefer them).
Also, I had no clue Jerome Finley had any material on muscle reading. I might need to check it out, since I think it might be a bit cheaper than learning a whole style of martial arts in comaprison.
On a side note, if I may ask a personal opinion of yours, aside from muscle reading, are there any other genuine skills I could look into for mentalism that you may find worth noting?

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Jerome's book is not cheap, usually. However, due to life circumstances he puts his works on sale fairly regularly, so if you're patient you can pick it up cheap.

On the other hand - while FCMR is extremely comprehensive, there's nothing in it you can't learn from Phsychophysiological Thought Reading by Banachek, coupled with some creativity and practice. Well, there was one thing, but that was not CMR-related and was just part of a larger routine.

Real Skills Every Mentalist Should Practice:
Memory
Observation/Readings (these are inherently linked)
CMR
Suggestion/Hypnosis
Story Telling
Acting

 

[Seraphus]

Jerome's book is not cheap, usually. However, due to life circumstances he puts his works on sale fairly regularly, so if you're patient you can pick it up cheap.

On the other hand - while FCMR is extremely comprehensive, there's nothing in it you can't learn from Phsychophysiological Thought Reading by Banachek, coupled with some creativity and practice. Well, there was one thing, but that was not CMR-related and was just part of a larger routine.

Real Skills Every Mentalist Should Practice:
Memory
Observation/Readings (these are inherently linked)
CMR
Suggestion/Hypnosis
Story Telling
Acting

Hey there! I am terribly sorry to have waited so long to respond and thank you for being such an awesome help to me!
Shortly after I published my previous response to you, and enede up getting in touch with Mr. Finley, and he was beyond generous with how flexible he was with taking my payments. Honestly, it has been such a pleasant read, and, utilizing some other principles I learned, made CMR such a breeze that, I honestly can't believe I struggled so much with it at all.
I also have to agree with you in terms of fundamental technique being the same in Psychophysiological Thought Reading. I simply believe the level of detail was simply not enough for me to entirely understand how to perform.
Increasing suggestibility was honestly key for me, and saved me so much time, both in terms of learning, but also performance. Less time is spent on instruction, and more on the actual effect taking place.

I'm slowly trudging into hypnosis as a side effect of this, and find it to be so much fun, that it was one of the next skills I have on my list to master.
However, as my persona lies primarily in the realm of mind reading, I try to save hypnosis as a follow up to my main demonstration.

That being said, I don't know if this falls under the category of observation, but I am getting started on pencil reading at the moment, and do find it a tad difficult to completely master. I was wondering as well, if you happen to know anything that may offer greater results, or if perhaps I just need to go through Corinda's book again and see if I missed anything.
As for story telling and acting, I'm no oscar winner by any means, but I believe that comes with time and revising my work, no? I'll take a look and find some material to study ( there's always something new for me to find, I'm sure )

Anyways, to conclude this behemoth of a response, thank you. Without your recommendation, advice, and honesty, I doubt I would have ever progressed as much as I have in as little time as a few months. For that, I'll always be grateful

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Pencil reading would fall under observation, yes. It's not a skill I've worked with much so other than practice, I don't have any specific advice. I personally don't have much use for it, as I almost never have things written down.

For acting and story telling, these are skills I mostly picked up by accident and then later consciously honed. Several of the skills I happened to develop as a kid just happened to transfer. The main one being that I learned how to read people at a very young age - mainly by observing body language. Turns out, when you know how people behave and look while experiencing certain emotions, it's not so hard to learn to emulate that. You can purposely develop that skill with various sites online that teach FACS - Facial Action Coding System. That's Paul Ekman's work. Side note- the show Lie To Me was based on his work, and thus has quite a bit of genuine information in it, if you're into crime procedurals.

For stories - I just told stories and paid attention to what people liked or didn't seem to respond to. Swapping lines around, changing the timing of delivery, voicing, etc. It takes times to get truly good and there's no way to avoid having to go out and just do it.

Which is a major thing in mentalism. These skills cannot be learned alone. One can rehearse scripting and practice delivery, but without an audience to interact with it's impossible to build or even maintain the skills.