Masking Sleight of Hand

Stanlee followed the toad across the street, sniffing it the entire trip.

As soon as the toad hopped off of the asphalt onto the muddy grass, Stanlee looked around, puzzled.

He began sniffing in all directions, head turning right and left.

To my dog, the toad had “vanished.”

I watched the entire scene, chuckling.

Stanlee and I were taking our daily walk at the park half a mile from our house.

It’s beautiful and has tons of things for my curious dog to sniff and investigate.

After watching Stanlee lose track of the toad, I suddenly flashed back to an exercise I did with my class in Florida.

Years and years ago, I went to Florida to take a hypnosis certification allowing me to become an instructor. Now I could teach hypnosis and get paid for it.

The instructor, Dr. Will Horton, loved magic. He had been pushing me to put together a training for hypnotists.

We held the magic training for the same class as the hypnosis certification. It was a blast.

For two days, I taught a group of hypnotists and renowned psychologists magic.

Early on in my planning stages, I realized I wanted to do more than just a trick/explanation type of affair.

One of the exercises I put together might interest you.

You’ll need to videotape yourself doing this exercise. Or, better, you can have a few people watch you and take notes.

Don’t worry, I’ll eventually reveal why I started this issue with a story about a toad soon.

Here’s the exercise…tell a story, joke, or anecdote. No magic, just stand in front of the camera or your group and tell a story.

You’re not performing. Get that out of your mind. Just tell a story.

Later, your friends will give you feedback. Or you’ll watch the video. Or both.

What you’re looking for is how you move when you talk. What kind of hand gestures do you do? How do you move your body?

Take careful notes of this.

These types of movements that you do naturally are perfect places for off-the-cuff sleights or ways to misdirect your audience.

Here’s why this is important: Sleight of hand is unnatural.

I watch the best in the world on video over and over.

Most of the time I can catch them when they are ‘doing Something.’ I may not know the sleight or what happened, but I know Something (capitalization intended) occurred.

It’s especially noticeable if you are not one of the best in the world.

I know I’m not. And I’m guessing most of you reading this are not either.

That’s okay. I’m a stellar entertainer, which is far more important.

And I’ll bet most of you reading are too.

But this exercise can help you camouflage your sleight of hand with natural movements.

I think this exercise is especially useful for beginners before they learn bad habits.

Let me give you an example. Remember the instructor I mentioned, Dr. Horton?

He’s a great hypnotist and a great speaker. He’s also an actor and has appeared in tons of stage productions. It’s one of his passions.

Many actors’ movements are broad and very theatrical, presumably to play to the back of the house.

Great for stage plays. Not so great for sleight of hand.

Back to my training. I was teaching the class the French Drop.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, the movie is a simple sleight of hand vanish of any small object: coin, die, whatever.

You hold the coin in one hand with the thumb and first or second fingers.

Your other hand goes to take the coin. While the hand reaches for the coin, it’s obscured from view for a moment.

During that moment, the hand holding the coin opens slightly, letting it fall into the palm. Your other hand pretends to grasp the coin, curling your fingers together to hold it.

At the same time, the hand secretly holding the coin turns downward so the back of the hand is now facing your viewers. The coin is held in a loose finger palm.

When I learned this move from a Bill Tarr book, the instructions then said to “allow the hand holding the coin to subtly point to your other curled up hand.”

Makes sense. You want to direct your audience’s attention away from the dirty hand in preparation for the vanish.

Lovely sleight. I’ve done it tens of thousands of times since I learned it as a teenager.

While teaching it to the class I noticed what Will was doing.

Will, with his years of honed stage flair taking over, didn’t just subtly point at his curled-up hand holding the imaginary coin.

He’d pull the hand back, step back a little, and dramatically POINT at the other hand.

I tried to “deprogram” him but finally gave up.

You want to make as many of your sleights as naturally as possible.

Most of us know that.

And I contend that this little exercise that I created can help you add those perfected sleights into your natural movements, camouflaging them even more.

Just like a toad hidden in muddy grass.

Have a great week everyone!

--Cris

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