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It’s All in Your Head!

It’s All in Your Head!
By Jeff Stone

Those who know me, know that I’m a huge Sankey Fan. So it will come as no surprise that I begin this article with a quote from the Canadian wonder (not to be confused with Tommy Wonder). On Jay’s DVD Jay Sankey Live, there are several clips from various lectures. At one of his lectures he made the following comment (I’m “quoting” from memory, but it’s almost word-for-word what he said):

“I used to believe that the magic happened in my hands. Then I began to believe that it happened in my hands and in the audience’s head, but now I’ve come to realize that the magic happens in my hands, their heads, and most importantly: My Head.” He hit the proverbial nail on the head with that one.

Roots:
Let’s remember our roots. So what’s the root this issue? Simple: Belief! Belief in yourself. When the coin is supposed to be in your left hand, but it’s really in your right hand, where do you believe it is? You’d better believe that it’s in your left hand. If you don’t believe it’s there, your audience won’t believe it’s there.

The principle is simple enough to grasp, but too often, magicians forget to use it. We’ll talk about some things to do to improve in the Branches section below. But for the next few paragraphs, I want you to consider the value of belief. In the December 2007 Roots and Branches article, we talked about getting your audience to suspend their disbelief. In other words, get them to “play along” even though they know it’s just a trick or just entertainment, you inspire them to move out of “puzzle solving mode” and into “feel the moment of astonishment mode.”

Of course, that’s a lofty goal for us all, and will always be a quest rather than a destination. In order to accomplish this, there are plenty of techniques, but one of the best and boldest is simply belief. If you suspend your own disbelief, your aura (excuse the new age-ness) will communicate to your audience that you really believe that the coin is in the empty hand… or whatever you’re trying to convince them of.

Remember, nothing is more contagious than enthusiasm, and nothing is more persuasive than determined self-confidence. Good sales people (and you are a sales person – you are selling yourself) quickly learn the value of the four E’s.:

Energy
Excitement
Enthusiasm
Emotion

That doesn’t mean you go around acting like a spaz or a freak. It’s all about conveying passion and belief through your attitude. Trust me; the audience feels it, and they begin to like YOU, and they stop caring about the tricks, and they begin to enjoy the interaction and presentation of the effects.

Think back over your life. You will realize that when someone told you a story, you were more interested in it if they were really excited about it and they really believed it. Think about that.

Ok. I’m done trying to convince you that I’m right. Hopefully you believe that I believe that belief is the key! If you don’t believe what you’re saying and doing, why would your audience?

Branches:
Let’s build our branches. Remember, the purpose of this column is to help you recall a principle -often a forgotten principle- and learn how to apply it in the real world. The root this month is belief. The practical application is, as always, the branch.

Keep in mind that for the most part, my perspective is that of a close up magician. I do corporate stand up mentalism as well, but I’m still relatively new to that arena and don’t feel too qualified to give tips in that field for the most part. With that in mind, write down a couple of tricks that you do frequently, or even better, just a couple of moves. Here’s my list:

Coin retention vanish
Double lift
False Cut/Shuffle
Riffle Force

That’s a good start. Do you have your list? Why not? Stop and go make it!

Alright, I’m glad you’re back. Now I want you to think through each move one at a time. We’ll just use one or two from my list as an example. Let’s take the false cut or false shuffle. Ask yourself this question for each trick: What is the purpose of this move?

Well in this case, the purpose is to convince the audience that the deck is thoroughly shuffled when in reality it is not. I’m sure you all have your favorite technique. Use that, but think about this:

Do you look at the deck while shuffling?
Do you look at the card(s) you are controlling?
Do you really feel like you are mixing the cards, or do you feel like you’re doing a false cut?

Apply similar questions to each of the moves, and you can begin to assess your belief. If you are looking at the cards, you are communicating that you are “watching for something.” If you’re looking at the deck that’s bad enough, but what’s worse is if you are following the controlled card with your eyes. Then it really looks like you’re “watching for something.”

Think about it; if you were legitimately shuffling the cards, you wouldn’t really need to look because you really wouldn’t care where the cards were because you were shuffling. So show that to your audience. Look at them while you shuffle. Be as casual as possible. Talk to the audience; make eye contact, etc… do all of this while shuffling, and you will communicate that you have no idea where the cards are. If you believe that, then they will!

Go through that exercise with each of your moves, and you will quickly see where you need to shift your focus. You can also have a magician buddy help you out; bringing him/her along to a gig to give you feedback after the show.

The whole point of this branch is to get you out of your comfort-zone and get you to really think about what you are doing in front of your audience. Then you will be aware enough to begin questioning your belief and improving it. Remember, you are what you think you are. You communicate what you’re thinking via body language and so forth. Make sure that you are communicating that you believe in yourself and your magic.

Allow me to conclude by repeating myself: nothing is more persuasive than determined self-confidence. Remember this, and you’ll have a key to creating miracles. Now go study the classics, and go discover your true magical self.

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9 Responses to "It’s All in Your Head!"

salmononius2 says:

July 2009 at 3:12 pm

Once again, you hit the nail on the head with this one (both metaphorically and literally, since you use the same phrase in the second paragraph). This is all simple, obvious ideas that every magician should know, but probably doesn’t realize it until they see it in front of them. I’m definitely going to be paying more to attention to not paying attention from now on.

I would just like to quote a small line sort of buried into the article, yet is important enough to warrant an article all for itself: ‘You can also have a magician buddy help you out; bringing him/her along to a gig to give you feedback after the show.’

It’s very important to get a second opinion about how something looks in the ‘real world’, because while in front of a mirror something might work really well, from an actual persons point of view, it might stink.
1. Jeff Stone says:
  
  July 2009 at 5:55 pm
  
  @Sal – Right on. Just make sure you bring a friend who’s not going to tell you what s/he thinks you want to hear. We need honest feedback. Most importantly, when you get the feedback, do not argue, defend, Justify or say “yeah but . . . ” Just Listen.
OldZombie says:

July 2009 at 11:34 pm

I think it is worth mentioning that sometimes instead of making your moves look like non-moves you can do it the other way around. What I mean is is impossible for me to make a Zarrow look like my normal riffle shuffle, but I can do it the other way around and make my normal riffle look like my Zarrow so the audience sees no difference.
Jeff Stone says:

July 2009 at 2:06 am

@OZ – Great Point! I never thought of it from that angle. Sneaky my man . . . sneaky.
salmononius2 says:

July 2009 at 6:59 am

@OZ – How does that work? Most people have a general idea about what a normal riffle shuffle looks like, so they’re going to think that all your shuffles are ‘special shuffles’ if they all look weird and zarrowlike. Also, how many times will you do your regular shuffle before the zarrow? Will it be enough to convince them when they see a zarrow that it’s a normal shuffle?
OldZombie says:

July 2009 at 2:29 pm

Without getting too much into the nuts and bolts of it all, I learned the Zarrow from a Bill Malone tape (yes tape, I am old) so when I separate the deck I cross my forefingers on top of the deck for the slip cut. I will do the same with an actual riffle shuffle. They don’t have to look exactly the same, no one will be comparing the a – b, but they shouldn’t look glaringly different either. It should just looks like that’s the way you do it. Another good example is the double lift, for me the natural way I would turn a card over would be to push it off with my thumb and flip it with my other hand. I can’t do the push off with the double (I do a strike double) so I modified the single to look more like the double by eliminating the push off. I don’t have a set number of times I will shuffle, the key is to be casual about it, and not ‘over provey’. I use the Osterlind Breakthrough Card System, which in my opinion is pure genius, a couple Zarrows a couple legit cuts by them, spread the cards face up, as far as they are concerned, those cards are mixed.
salmononius2 says:

July 2009 at 3:55 pm

What is this ‘tape’ thing you speak of 😀

The double lift example you used is different, since you turn over cards a lot, eventually the spectators might notice a discrepancy. But with the riffle shuffle, it isn’t used enough to be able to develop a pattern in the spectators mind.

But either way, I think you misunderstood what I was saying in the first place (or maybe I misunderstood your reply 😀 ) so I’ll try to explain what I asked before: The average spectator probably knows what a riffle shuffle looks like, so if they all look different from a normal riffle shuffle, wouldn’t that cast suspicion on all of them if all the shuffles look different?

Then again, I’m writing all this based on how I understood you first post. It could simply be that the difference between your shuffle and a regular shuffle is so small that it wouldn’t make a difference anyways.
OldZombie says:

July 2009 at 6:10 pm

Perhaps you are over thinking this. Your genuine riffle shuffle and mine may not look anything alike. You might you a bridge, I don’t. You may do it in your hands rather than on the table, I never do. The point being that I think it is more important for the shuffle to look consistent than to fit the audiences expectation of what it should look like. I never draw attention to the shuffle, quite the contrary, a little patter and eye contact casually focuses attention away from the shuffle. They hear the riffle, they see the basic hand movements, its just a shuffle, there is no reason to be burning my hands at that point.
salmononius2 says:

July 2009 at 10:57 am

You’re right. I don’t have any clue what your riffle shuffle looks like, I just misunderstood what you said in your first comment.

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