In the video posted in this article, Tony Slydini demonstrated live to the audience how “Misdirection” could fool an audience. He did this by throwing the paper balls over the volunteer’s head again and again without him noticing it. All the rest of the audience could see clearly what happened except the volunteer himself.

You may want to watch it several times and ask yourself why did the volunteer failed to detect what Slydini was doing. Could you have succeeded in doing what Slydini did? Very often when I was taught a magic trick, I would have a lot of objections as to what if the audiences notice what I am doing? ‘What if the audiences do this or that? As I was watching this video, I asked myself, “Why the volunteer did not lift his head as Slydini flipped his hand upwards to throw the paper ball over his head?” These are the answers I came up with for myself after watching the video repeatedly.

1. Slydini had mastered the distance between the volunteer and himself where the angle of the volunteer’s vision had been greatly restricted.

2. Slydini had confidently got the volunteer fixated on his left palm where he had him believed the paper ball was to be.

3. Slydini successfully fooled him again and again causing the volunteer to doubt himself.

4. Finally, Slydini has mastered the art of misdirection; he knew what he was doing and what he was capable of. Thus, every movement of his body coordinated very well with what he wanted to accomplish. In the case if anyone else would try to imitate Slydini, they may not succeed because their lack of practice or lack of confidence may betray them.

Observe that Slydini had purposely put a lot of paper napkins on the volunteer’s lap restricting his body movement. The volunteer was unable to stand up or move his legs. Otherwise, all the paper napkins would fall from his lap. Slydini then said to the volunteer, “Come closer. No, no, not your chair, yourself. Don’t stand up. Just come closer.” What Slydini had done was to make the volunteer leaned forward and had him looking down with his head bent. Slydini further conditioned him by holding his hands in front of the volunteer at his chest level. Observe that the volunteer was bending his head and body very low. For him to lift up his head to watch Slydini throwing the paper ball over his head would require a big body movement involving not just his head but his back as well. Lifting his head alone would not enable him to see the paper ball thrown over his head.

Next, Slydini had engaged him deeply with his hand movement and conversation drawing his attention to his left hand. Slydini’s head and body were all bent leaning towards his left hand suggesting to everyone in communion with him to focus on his left hand. As he threw the paper ball away, he did it in one swift motion. Only his finger did the job but not his arm.

If I had taken over Slydini’s position, I might have lifted my right arm slowly because I would be afraid that by flinging the paper ball away with one quick fling, the volunteer would have suspected what I was doing. What I would have done next would be to throw the ball away when I was sure that the volunteer did not look up towards my right hand. This would precisely have given me away because the volunteer would have looked up when he did not see my right hand come down to put the paper ball into my left hand fast enough the way Slydini did it. Slydini was able to fling the ball away swiftly because he had the momentum as he lifted up his right arm quickly. In my case if I were to lift up my right arm slowly (hesitantly) and stop, I would lose the momentum. And if I were to throw the ball away, my arm would most probably move also causing the volunteer to grow suspicious.

Notice again that Slydini repeated his routine again and again with slight variation each time. I have pointed this out in the earlier videos. Also notice that the first time he made the paper ball disappeared, he made the volunteer checked his breast pocket. So subsequently when Slydini put the third paper ball into his breast pocket, the volunteer did not suspect anything.

I hope that this series of Slydini videos illustrate how misdirection works. Continue to ask yourself everyday how am I to carry out misdirection to the people around me as to what I want to do. When you plan your performance for a magic trick, ask yourself what misdirection have I incorporated to improve the effect of my performance. Gradually you will find yourself becoming a master of misdirection yourself.

Tags: ion, lapping, magic, magic trick, misdirect, misdirecting, misdirection, paper balls, Paper Balls Over The Head, perform magic tricks, performance, Slydini, Tony, Tony Slydini, trick

In this video, you will watch how Tony Slydini performed 2 of his tricks, namely, the “6 Coins Routine” and “The Helicopter Card”. For each trick, he performed it twice, each time with a slight variation.

It is a basic rule in performing magic that you do not repeat your performance of a magic trick to the same audience twice for the obvious reason that the audience will try to notice how you perform the magic trick particularly at your other actions which they did not notice previously. Tony Slydini broke this rule of magic and he is famous for challenging the audience. Nevertheless, he did repeat his performances with slight variations from his previous performances. These variations gave a fresh touch to the same magic tricks and at the same time, they gave the audience the feeling that he was doing something different from the previous performances. Tony Slydini was such a master at his sleight of hands and misdirection that he dared to break these rules. His sleight of hands were so neat that even if you knew how to do the magic tricks that he had performed, you still could not catch him doing it.

So what is the secret to the “6 Coins Routine”? If the legendary Dai Vernon (the man fooled by Tony Slydini) could not figure it out, how could I? However, I can tell you the secret to the “Helicopter Card”.

Notice again that Tony Slydini repeated a number of actions to the audience to wear down the audience’s alertness. The first few times Tony Slydini carried out these actions, he would either explicitly show the audience or subtly let the audience notice that he had not done anything tricky. Subsequently the last time Slydini repeated the same action was when he performed his sleight of hands. In the “Helicopter Card” magic trick, Slydini first drew the audience to a card he put sticking out of the rest of the cards he was holding in his hand. The card that was sticking out was not the audience’s chosen card. It was there to catch the audience’s attention so as to distract, frustrate and to confuse him. Slydini then went on to frustrate the audience by making him pick up card after card on the table to search for his chosen card. This action also served the purpose of giving a miraculous effect at the end when the chosen card appeared on the table as the audience believed that his chosen card was held together with the rest of the cards on Tony Slydini’s other hand. As Slydini did this, his hand would touch each card as he asked, “Is it this card?” The last time when Slydini pointed to a card on the table, he actually dropped the card held in his hand just slightly behind (from Tony Slydini’s perspective) the card he pointed to and this action is covered by his hand as he pointed to a card on the table. Slydini then finally directed the audience’s attention into the air and imagined a card had landed right where he had placed the audience’s chosen card earlier.

His sleight of hands was so extremely neat that you won’t be able to notice it. Just take note that the chosen card appeared just slightly behind (from Tony Slydini’s perspective) the last card Tony Slydini pointed to the audience.

I would like to make a statement about Tony Slydini’s use of human psychology when he performed certain actions repeatedly. We repeatedly see something to be either present (true) or absent (false) frequently in our past experiences. As we make the same observations repeatedly, we become very confident that we know all about certain truth without examining and giving a thought about it. We all come to our own conclusion which is eventually wrong, such as “the world is flat”. And Tony Slydini has used this presumptious mindset very well against us.

Tags: 6routine, coins, Dai Vernon, helicopter card, how to do s, ion, magic, magic tricks, misdirect, misdirecting, misdirection, of hands, perform magic, performance, sleight, sleights, Slydini, Tony, Tony Slydini, trick