If you wish to watch more of Tony Slydini’s magic tricks and to learn the secrets behind these magic tricks, you can find them in this almost 2-hour long Slydini Lecture by Jim Cellini – DVD .

In this DVD (Slydini Lecture), Jim Cellini (Slydini’s disciple) performed the following magic tricks designed by Slydini.

1. Slydini Silks Routine.
2. Cut and Restored Rope.
3. Vanishing Silk.
4. Chinese Linking Rings.
5. Paperbox and Balls Routine.
6. Coins Through Table.
7. Silk Fountain (performed by Jim Cellini’s wife).

You may want to get this 312-page book. “Slydini Book, Annotated Magic of” written by Lewis Gansons. There you may find the explanations of most of Slydini’s magic tricks or perhaps all of them.

Following these performances, Jim Cellini proceeded to explain each magic trick with the exception of the Chinese Linking Rings and the Silk Fountain. Anyway, the secret behind the Chinese Linking Rings is the same to any other magic performance using Chinese Linking Rings. In fact at one point, he carelessly exposed one of the ring’s opening at the early stage of the performance. The Silk Fountain performed by Jim Cellini’s wife was not skillful enough. For those who are fairly experienced with knowing how to do magic tricks will be able to figure out how this magic trick is done. If not, just watch closely several times and you will be able to figure them out by yourself. She is not experienced enough and her lack of proficiency in her sleight of hands actually gave away the secret of the magic trick. May be that was why the secret to this magic trick was not explained in this DVD. 

For the “Coins Through Table” magic trick, Jim Cellini explained in detail the ‘7 coins routine”, “6 coins routine”, “4 coins routine”, “2 coins routine” and “1 coin routine”. He covered the subtlety of the hand movements Slydini made and how he personally modified them for himself, as well as how to create the sound of the coins penetrating through the table and falling into the hand under the table. He went on to discuss an unpublished “Unique Coin Routine” which is the one where Slydini fooled Dai Vernon. I have left out the explanation in my earlier posting for this magic trick. Please refer to “How to do magic tricks #9 -  Slydini’s The Helicopter Card”.

The invaluable part of this DVD lies on the discussion that went beyond how each magic trick was performed. Jim Cellini covered quite a lot of important information on how Slydini taught him on his body, hands and legs movement on stage, how to sit in such a way so that the lapping technique can be done efficiently and effectively. These lessons are hard to illustrate in books and are seldom taught in any media. 

Jim Cellini explained many magic tricks performed by Slydini in which Jim Cellini did not perform in this DVD such as the cigarette magic tricks. He also told how these magic tricks came into existence.

Some unexpected bonuses are stories about Tony Slydini and Dai Vernon’s relationship, Slydini’s way of looking at magic and how he designed his magic tricks. Jim Cellini told how Slydini designed a card magic as Slydini performed it to Harry Lorayne by using his unique way of performing magic. It was quite hilarious.

The only pity is that you do not get to watch any footage of Slydini in this DVD. However, the materials in this DVD are first class. If you want to watch more of Slydini’s footage, you will get a lot of them in this two-disc DVD set, “As I Recall (2 DVD Set) – Tony Slydini”. You will also get to see Slydini’s students perform and explain some of Slydini’s tricks which include those other magic tricks by Slydini that are not performed in the “Slydini Lecture by Jim Cellini – DVD”. 

Here are some video clips from this 2-disc DVD set.

Perhaps you may ask, “Why can’t I find all of Slydini’s magic tricks performed and explained all in one DVD?” First of all, I did not produce them. And that is how the way the market operates. Have you ever found a CD of your favourite artiste’s with all his or her songs recorded in it? Never!  

If you really want to know all about Slydini’s magic trick, you may want to get this 312-page book. “The Annotated Magic of Slydini” written by Lewis Gansons. There you may find the explanations of most of Slydini’s magic tricks or perhaps all of them. I do believe that you can find the secret to Slydini’s “Helicopter Card” in here.

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.

In the first video below, you will see Slydini performed his “Paper Balls in the Hat” magic trick. Slydini crushed and rolled up 3 to 4 pieces of paper into a ball each time and make them appear and disappear in his hand. He then put the ball held in his left hand invisibly into the hat with his right hand. As Slydini opened his left hand, the paper ball had disappeared. This routine is repeated 3 to 4 times and never once do you see him putting the ball into the hat. At the end of the performance, the hat which was shown to be empty at the beginning of the performance is then filled with paper balls.

The secret to the The Paper Balls in the Hat magic trick:

This is done by a combination of lapping, sleight of hands and misdirection.

Lapping is a skill where you use your lap (that is covered by the table) to serve as a platform where you use to drop items onto from your hands or from the table if you want to make the items vanish. You can also pick these items up again into your hands when you make them reappear. Slydini used this technique very often and Dai Vernon (a.k.a. Professor) commented that the powerful technique of lapping had not been utilized enough nor developed further beyond what Slydini had done with lapping.

Note that Slydini repeats his action over and over again. There are times when you taught that he was up to some trick but nothing actually happened. When he first opened his left hand, you expect to see the paper ball disappear but instead the paper ball is still there. The next time he repeated his action, the paper ball actually disappeared. Slydini used repeated actions to confuse the audience. When the audience see the same actions repeated many times without anything actually happening, they will lose their alertness when they see the same actions again and that is when he actually do something sneaky. I must really salute Slydini for his dexterity because even though I have already know his secret moves, I still can’t catch him doing his move at that exact moment when I’m watching out for it a hundred and one percent. Not only is his action so fast, but more admirably the action is so natural.

Watch the video again.

At 0:22, Slydini put his left hand down below the table for the first time. The first time he put his left hand down, there was absolutely no trick.

At 0:29, Slydini showed the ball was still in his left hand.

At 0:31, Slydini transferred the ball from the left hand to the right hand while the right hand was covering the left hand. He then dropped the ball from the right hand onto his lap.

From 0:47 to 0:51, Slydini put his left hand down below the table for the second time. This time he picked up the first ball dropped on his lap and transferred it to his right hand. This ball was held in the right hand and subsequently dropped into the hat while he repeated his previous actions. Even though the second ball remained in the left hand, the first ball which was in the right hand had been dropped into the hat. You may think that nothing was dropped into the hat because the ball was still in the left hand. Moreover, this series of action happened in the beginning and your memory reinforced you to think that the right hand is empty and nothing is put into the hat. You thought that it was nothing but some theatrical gesturing.

At 1:38, you will find that there is no more paper on the table to be rolled into paper ball nor are there any more balls in his hands. Nevertheless he repeated his routine again because he still has one more ball on his lap. This magic trick can never be completed with the same number of balls rolled up appearing in the hat unless he carries out his routine for one last time.

The second video shows 2 magic tricks by Slydini. This is of a much later date than the previous video. Slydini addressed the gentleman as Professor which is possibly Dai Vernon in his younger days. The first 4 minutes is again the “Hat and Paper Balls” magic trick. Note that at 2:04, when Slydini was transferring the previous paper ball in his left hand to his right hand, the ball was not crushed properly and some edges of the paper were visible during the transfer. At 3:17, when Slydini was putting the transferred paper ball in his right hand into the red box, you can notice some trace of yellow paper at the top of the red box while he dropped it into the box. From where Dai Vernon was sitting, he could actually see what was happening. Nevertheless, he pretended to be ignorant and amazed by the trick which helped to reinforce the audience’s amazement. The second magic trick entitled, “The Impossible Dream”, Slydini restored a handful of tobacco and paper into a cigarette. There is actually a third magic trick but it is rather short.

Notice how Slydini involves his audience in his performance. In this way, the audience’s attention is directed to what he has to do away from what he is doing in a split moment. It is also an important way to hold the audience’s attention and interest, another important aspect of performing magic. Obviously, Slydini could have done all those things himself instead of asking the audience to do so but still he chose to get the audience involved. At 5:09, Slydini picked up a cigarette on his lap and held it in his right hand as he rested his right hand at the edge of the table. At 5:14, Slydini dropped all the tobacco and paper on his left hand onto his lap as he turned his left hand to face downward while he pushed the cigarette held in his right hand to emerge from his left hand, giving the illusion that the torn cigarette had been restored. At 5:18, you can see Slydini dusting off the tobacco on his lap.

For the third magic trick where Slydini stretches two halves of a cigarette into two complete cigarettes, just watch when did Slydini put his hands below the table. Once you understand the principle of lapping, you will understand how he did this magic trick. And notice how he directed the audience’s attention away with his hand and eyes while the other hand made his sneaky move. This is the essence of misdirection. Nevertheless Slydini did it so well that even you are aware of the technique, you cannot help but follow his lead and his crucial sleight of hands are simply too fast and natural.