The more you study magic, would you say it's easier for you to decide whether your moves are natural? Harder?

For me, it's definitely harder. What may seem natural to me could definitely be completely awkward to others. It's definitely easier when it comes to some routines but others I have to study a really long time to decide what doesn't look natural about it. The best way for me to overcome this naturalness is to record me performing a routine, watch it, correct my mistakes, and redo the process numerous times.
So, easier? or harder?

Comments?

My personal guide is a very simple one. When I am learning how to do a move, I learn what it is supposed to look like. In other words, if I am doing a false placement, I practice doing a real placement using the same movements. Once I can do that, then I emulate them with the move.

There is a kind of misdirection that is provided by doing a "real" move a one or more times during a routine to establish what the move is supposed to do, and to give it credence. Then when you do the sleight, it looks like something you would naturally do.

For example, I set up a Bobo switch way ahead of time, by doing a genuine placement of a coin into my hand using the same move, but without the switch. I don't mean that I repeatedly toss a coin from one hand to the other as described in the Bobo book. I just pick up a coin, toss it into the other hand and place it into the spectator's hand.

Now this could be a very awkward sequence. But I set it up by making it logical. I am standing. The spectator is to my left. The coins are on the table to my right. I pick up the coin with my right hand, toss it into my left hand, and the left hand places the coin into the spectator's hand. Once they see this sequence and accept it as genuine, then the move will be natural.

But recording yourself is also a good option. Remember that the resolution of a video camera is not the same as your eye. It will have limitations. A spouse, close friend or significant other can often tell you things you need to know.

Is this about the overt actions or the secret sleights?

The actions are supposed to belong to a script.

The sleights are supposed to be invisible in context.

BINGO

Aw, man! Thinking logically again! That spoils everything!

Seriously, that's spot on.

I should possibly add that the actions that belong to the script must fit you. They have to be YOUR actions, not David Copperfield's or David Blaine's, or anyone else's but yours.

I think it's easier for me. But, I do what Bill recomends. Maybe you're just getting more into effects involving sleights, forcing you to use less natural movements than before. Video practice is great. Try recording every movement of the routines with out secret moves.

Jonathan,
"The actions are supposed to belong to a script." -- What did you mean by this?

Josh what is being said is that along with words, actions are also scripted. Every movement in a stage play is scripted or blocked.

Jonathan let me just ask if your going to answer things so concicely in the first few posts and correctly I may add, how can this get all convoluted by silly pseudo theory?

It's easier for me, because I'm more relaxed with age and experience. Also, I'm better at cutting through the fog of finger calisthenics and I get to the point without tripping over my ego.

Danny are you saying my post contains "silly pseudo theory"?

Josh, heck NO.!
Please don't think that.

What I meant was if Jonathan was going to point out the answer right away it wouldn't give the pseudo thinkers time to come up with wild off the wall theories.

Your theories as far as I can tell have always been founded in two places. Actual experience, and sarcasam. (I much prefer the posts with the latter by the way)

So in no way do they qualify as pseudo theory. Sorry for the confussion.

Darn. I was looking for another fight with you.

Darn it, I am sorry. Maybe I can get that last post deleted.

Yes Josh, that was what I meant!!!

Josh, your cards are smoking. Or perhaps they have discovered fire?

No Jonathan it's not the cards. I vanished a cigarette, and the thing wont stop smoldering. Ow!

"Invisible in context" says it all. It's the "in context" part that I really like. Just saying that sleights "should be invisible" opens that can of fish bait mistakenly forgotten for a week in the trunk of a car.

It's the same thing as trying to discern the meaning of an obfuscated word by reading all the words and ideas around it. Can you figure out what that word means just by reading what surrounds it? I bet you can.

Do the same thing here with an action. Look around it, before and after it, above and below it. Just looking at a move, sleight, action, or what-have-you, and asking if it is "natural" is that same can of fish bait mentioned earlier.

Like Bill Palmer said:



The move itself is odd yet the move works for him because he created the context for the move before the work was done. Without this created context, the move may well have insulted the guest's intelligence.

I've heard this kind of naturalness described as "supra-natural", but I think that "meta-natural" is more apt.

This gets into persona more than person. When one performs even casually, it's not quite as ones social self. There is fiction around the props, more fiction around how you relate to the props and even more fiction around how you interact with the props. All that character and back story work CAN bring forth patterns of behavior which only happen in magic context.

What I'm getting at is when the back story and kinesthetic relationship between the props and performer are in place the actions described in the books which seem bizarre and far ungainly may well find a place in the behavior of the character in context. For example, consider Slydini's trick where sheets of tissue wind up in a cardboard box. Sure the music helps. So does the internal scripting of scooping up the space inside the box and pouring it onto the crumpled paper. When the paper is saturated, it dissolves into something like a film of water which quickly evaporates from ones hands. No need to tell the audience this stuff, the gestures can do all that.

Which brings me to the question behind all this. What story does the script tell the audience? What does it say about the props, the performer and how the performer wants to entertain?

This is precisely true. What I was getting at, though, was that often performers attempt to adopt a persona that is totally unsuitable for them or for the context they are working in. If you have ever seen Paul Diamond's impression of a kid doing a coin vanish using David Copperfield's Dancing Cane moves, you will get my drift.

Regarding invisible sleights -- when I first met Harry Riser, I was about 17 years old. I had never heard of Ed Marlo or any of the other guys in Chicago. Harry was a close friend of Ed Marlo. We got to talking about the pass.

He told me that there was a rivalry between Ed Marlo and another Chicago card man (he never said who it was, but I think it was Al Leach) over who was the best. Actually, I believe the rivalry was more between the fans than between the magicians. Anyway, one of the supporters of the other magician told Harry, "My friend is the best. Did you see that last trick? He did the pass six times."

Harry said, "Did you see Marlo's last trick? He did the pass five times, but nobody saw it."