Professional Opportunist James Brown! #197

WEBVTT
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They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys,
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ladies and gentlemen welcome to another episode of
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the magic guys 197 we are
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so close to 200 this is crazy to my left
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we've got doug con good evening
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oh yeah the double piece
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double deuce down below we got nick k where are you there he is man bitches
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oh yeah and i'm josh nabito welcome to the show that was not what i went to
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go for i went this one there we go i'm dealing with a new roadcaster pro 2 sound
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mixer so that's why i hit the wrong cue but you know that's fine.
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Look exciting episode today look at doug's festive fest
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festivity background what you
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got the wife brought it home from the in-laws
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her father used to do magic and they have it's
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actually his partner's in the back this one does i
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think he's the street he's street magic nutcracker you
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know he's got a little let's bring it up he's like
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hey i do street magic you want to see a trick he doesn't
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talk much besides it's like david blaine wow doug
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it's so funny off air your volume was great now you're a
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little a touch quiet because i think you've gotten you've gone
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a bit shy for this episode the nutcrackers were in my way probably yeah
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is it still you sound great still not ideal
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oh well yeah i think it's good now nick how are you
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doing man up a little bit but look out fellas i'm
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doing here we are doing great continue fellows
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podcast for god's sake okay now it's definitely hot
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all right nick i know today particularly is someone's birthday i heard i heard
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that nick's gone around the sun one more extra year so put those happy birthday
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wishes in the chat happy birthday mr ken thank you friends oh yeah oh yeah.
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How's it a good day it feels great it feels really
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good man i didn't think i'd live this long so this is kind of nice i
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thought that when i was 23 that's exactly what
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happens but you know as life goes on you thankfully
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i think i found magic and i think magic saves us all
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in one way which kind of leads us into our guest who
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is responsible for many a great things in my
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life should we get into it fellas i think
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a lot to go for let's go yeah we got a lot we want
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to talk about it because here's the thing here's the
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thing friends they they say you should never meet your heroes but today
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i'm doing exactly that and that's
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because 17 years ago i watched the magician on youtube
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whose performance ignited my passion
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for magic it was that moment that actually changed my life and set me on the
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path to where i am today and now i'm sitting here kind of scared and also super
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excited to meet my hero because they say never meet your heroes but it's about
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to happened friends so please join me in welcoming the amazing james brown.
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Music.
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Oh yeah james welcome how are you my friend Ah, very well indeed.
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It is a pleasure to be joining you fine fellows here on your podcast.
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So thank you very much for the invite and happy birthday, Nick.
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And all I can say, all I can say is you're absolutely right.
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Best never meet your heroes.
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This will be a terrible letdown in all possible ways.
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By the end of this, you'll be thinking, what a twat.
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And you'll be right you'll be you'll be you'll be absolutely right
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you'll be bang on with that assessment so uh
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so thank you very much so although
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you're my hero and you and you and you're self-proclaimed twat
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what did you tell our audience who you actually really are
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i'm james brown i'm a magician a
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pickpocket and a hypnotist and i've been doing this job for
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a long time i do know i'm not entirely certain
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way I think it's sort of coming up to coming up to
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30 years if I'm if I'm right in saying that since I
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started looking into this subject at all 28
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years something like that and I work primarily in
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in close-up magic as a day job but
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I also do quite a bit of work in sort of film and
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tv consultancy and then I have a
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completely separate sort of hat on in the world of hypnosis
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sort of helping to to teach hypnotherapists largely how to how to better make
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use of hypnosis and and and sort of doing a lot to sort of try to educate people
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about what it is and what it very much isn't so that's kind of that's kind of where i am.
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It sounds like a good corporate gig, like booking the corporate events.
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A hypnotism show might have some more draw to it than magic show.
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Yeah, yeah. Actually, do you know what? One of the things that I've been persistently
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working at for the last decade is trying to formulate a hypnosis show that isn't
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the standard line of chairs make people do daft things.
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Yeah, you're doing something more educational for the audience, correct?
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Yeah, yeah. I want to do something more educational, but also very much in the
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hypnosis world, from entertainment hypnosis,
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I'm very much trying to find ways of doing it to make it more magical in a way,
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because I find hypnosis in a comedy hypnosis way is largely reliant upon your
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audience just laughing.
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I mean hypnotists say that the audience is laughing with the people on stage
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but we all know that's not entirely true and you know i i think you know i i think hypnosis is a is a.
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Phenomenal subject but it's it's it's relegated to this kind of end of you know
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end of the peer style you know amusement and i think it should be more here
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in the uk and i know he's worldwide now Deren Brown is probably the only person
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that's taken hypnosis to higher level in that way.
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But I'm still trying to work out that little holy grail. I'm trying to work
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out a hook for a show that just makes it something more than just,
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you know, hey, you've just spent.
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My problem is this. You've just seen me do the induction process for the last 40 minutes.
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And at that point nothing that
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happens beyond here is of any surprise
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to anybody so so again i
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find that an odd an odd thing i think i think i think we can make these things
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much more appealing and magical you know i want i want my audience when i'm
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doing a hypnosis style show i want them to be on the edge of their seats being
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astonished again and again and again by what they're seeing rather than just like, oh, yeah,
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you know, they've done another thing that's made this person look a bit stupid,
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and we've all had a good laugh at them.
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So I think there's more that can be done. You see, it's interesting because
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I'm sort of reflecting on you.
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It was a TED Talk that you did, If Memory Serves, where you were giving examples of how that works.
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And for me, I found that, like, deeply educational and also very entertaining
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on that level as well. So are you thinking about doing a larger-scale version of that?
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Yeah, sort of. So I put together an act a long time ago,
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which is kind of the thing that I've done ever since in various iterations,
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which was essentially I was trying to break the fourth wall because one of the
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misnomers of hypnosis was always that,
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you know, you have to bring them into this trance state and then you have to
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maintain that trance state.
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And i wanted to demonstrate with an act that all the things that that could be done with that.
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Sort of model of hypnosis could be done without it and
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the act that i did on the ted thing which was very much
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off the cuff at the time that was like one of the first times i'd done it to
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be honest and that entire thing was me making
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stuff up as i went along which i look back with a degree
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of like blooming heck i was i was weirdly fearless
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at the time but the whole point of the act was i wanted to show that a person
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could have their eyes wide open have no sense of something going on yet still
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have all the experience which to me made it more baffling for the audience you know if
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the person's up on stage looking like a a drugged
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up zombie then nobody's really surprised that
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they're doing x y and z but if the person's there being completely lucid
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and going like i'm not hypnotized I feel
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absolutely normal yet for some reason I
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can't move my feet or I can't remember my name or you
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know or whatever else was going on to me that
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was more more astonishing also the
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lack of time the fact that these things were happening within moments of them
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coming up on stage that there was no process for the audience to hook into no
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rationale and and again I find that that's kind of the key to magic in a way
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where like the best magic to me is often where.
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Nothing's nothing's being done you know
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if you're doing close-up magic i think the more the more
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you do things the more you manipulate the cards the more
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moves there are the more the more the
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audience goes well you know he must have done something then
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but you know if you do if you do a card
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trick where you know somebody somebody selects a
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card or peeks a card and you just immediately put the deck down
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and you don't touch it again and and it still appears
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underneath the person's watch now they're going to be
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like this this is magic there's no
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two ways about it and i kind of felt the same thing applied
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to hypnosis that i wanted to cut out all of
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that process that led to that outcome if i may i'm curious i've seen magicians
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that portray hypnosis using magic methods would you go that way in a stage performance
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for your show or would you stay true to just uh no i tend i tend to.
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I tend to stay true I might use magic
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for for for the magic button for example
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so as a quick example for this and I'm
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saying this because I saw on I looked at one of the earlier podcasts and
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you mentioned double cross way back in sort of episode 70 and
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you all sort of said you know all those of you on the podcast
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said you know you bought it but didn't really do it because everybody else
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was doing it i i i do a
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version of double cross which is utilizing a
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a very well-known phenomena within within science
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and medicine which is the simple idea that when you
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think about when you put your attention to a
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part of your body you then notice that
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part of your body i talk about this in pickpocketing as well that
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until i mention your until i mention this none of you are aware of your own
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underwear but the moment i've mentioned your underwear you're all very much
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acutely aware of the sensation of your underpants against your body or not or yeah or not.
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Nicely done nicely done doug uh yay
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so you know
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if you think about your left ear like if you really put
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your attention to your left ear you can you can sense you can have a sensation
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which is indistinguishable from touch so in that context with with double cross
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i will make use of something that is within the sort of slightly more hypnotic
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range for the entire setup which is essentially i i i say to somebody hold your hand out
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and I say to somebody else point your finger down and I
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just draw the hands closer to each other and that's the
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moment I do the mark and then I never touch
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that that person with the mark again and I get this
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the first person's finger and I touch the back of their hands and
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I say to them you know you can feel that yeah focus on
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that sensation when we lift the finger away I want you to
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notice that you can start kind of still feel that for a few moments
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and then it disappears and and that's true and they
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say now watch what happens when you bring your attention back
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to that spot you can feel it again can't you
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and people go yeah because what
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they're actually feeling is the direction of their attention yeah
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on their own skin but once you've set that up you can slide up and down the
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arm with the other person's hand and now they can feel this movement along their
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skin but because you've got that set up it's very easy at that point to say
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here's where it gets really crazy.
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When you touch your own hand they're gonna
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feel it on theirs so now one person touches their
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hand and they have a pk effect so they touch their hand and the other person's
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going i can feel it there and then i say touch somewhere else on your arm where
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can you feel it and they point to the same place and and now you set up that
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pk thing you say i tell you what let's let's try something else And I hand them
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a normal Sharpie and I say, and I just literally hold my hand up.
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And I know that the mark's going to be about there on the other person's hand.
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And I say, very, very slowly, just draw a little cross.
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Tell me if you feel this. And as they do that on their own hand,
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the other person is going, oh, my God, I can feel that. That's incredible.
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And then I've got this lovely hook line, which is right now,
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everybody else thinks this is just your imagination. But you and I know differently, don't we?
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And I let that hang for a second. And then I just gesture with my own hand.
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I just turn my own hand over, which signals them to look. And then they turn
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the hand over and suddenly both people have got a permanent mark.
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Oh, my God. Because this is actually ridiculous.
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And everyone listening right now has just gone and bought another double cross after hearing that.
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Because that is like some James Brown gold right there.
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For a present because you could even do that with you
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don't even need the double cross ending really if
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you didn't want to but obviously that's just blowing their
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minds out the door yeah i mean that extra ending the
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the nice thing about this is you you
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give it's a little bit like a coin bend you can
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just bend a coin give it to somebody and then you can say some stuff and
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they open the hand the coins bent okay great but if you
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add a little bit of suggestion in the right places and you
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build on that suggestion now now you
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actually give the person the moment that it's happening in
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real time in their experience in the hand so
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now nobody's you know the person who's who's who's felt
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the coin get hotter who's felt the coin bend who's
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felt the coin cool down again or get heavy or whatever else is never going to
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think oh you probably just gave me a bank coin or or or somehow you bent the
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coin before you gave it to me they're never going to think that In the same
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way that when I do this version of double cross, even, and the best part is,
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like a couple of days ago, I did a gig, I think about four days ago,
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was it Friday, whenever it was, I did a gig.
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And the person afterwards came up to me and went, a magician did a trick like that.
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A week ago to me but they just stamped on my hand without me knowing because
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of course for them they felt the moment that it took place so so how could it
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have happened before then they
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felt it happen yep so so for me a lot of a lot of what i'm trying to achieve
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is that so to go back to doug's original question i i i want i want the hypnotic
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thing to to be real i might add
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a magic button to the end if I want to, but I don't,
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you know, I, again, I have a pet hate, a real, I've got a lot of pet hates,
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actually in the world of magic, to be honest, but one pet, let's go, man.
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This is the time to let all of that out. Just let the anger go. Let it go.
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We can be your therapist tonight.
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The one thing that I've seen so often in it, it, it, can I swear at all on this podcast?
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Absolutely. Let it go.
00:16:36.729 --> 00:16:40.909
It's a little swear word it's it boils my
00:16:40.909 --> 00:16:44.869
piss this boils my piss it really does there's
00:16:44.869 --> 00:16:47.849
yeah oh my god it's when i see
00:16:47.849 --> 00:16:50.749
magician at a corporate show stand up
00:16:50.749 --> 00:16:54.289
and do a demonstration of sort of
00:16:54.289 --> 00:16:57.569
some kind of influence that you know teaching influence particularly
00:16:57.569 --> 00:17:01.129
i'm not talking about a show i'm talking about a training event and
00:17:01.129 --> 00:17:04.289
they stand up and they they teach the audience a
00:17:04.289 --> 00:17:07.309
sales audience about the power of body language and influence
00:17:07.309 --> 00:17:10.889
and then they just proceed to do blimey neck
00:17:10.889 --> 00:17:13.789
i can never remember the name of it but the trick where you get four people
00:17:13.789 --> 00:17:16.629
or whatever to draw a picture and the boards are marked
00:17:16.629 --> 00:17:23.069
and you know that's that's the method but they sell it as demonstration of their
00:17:23.069 --> 00:17:28.049
skills in influence and that annoys me because there are real skills of influence
00:17:28.049 --> 00:17:34.789
that you can demonstrate you don't you don't need to lie and and perform it that way so.
00:17:35.527 --> 00:17:39.767
You know, I think if you're going to if you're going to do something that is
00:17:39.767 --> 00:17:44.787
hypnotic, that is suggestion based, then then do it.
00:17:44.947 --> 00:17:50.327
Don't don't do a pseudo routine as if it's the same thing when you when you don't need to.
00:17:50.447 --> 00:17:55.607
And if you can't do the hypnosis thing, like, OK, I mean, you know,
00:17:55.807 --> 00:18:01.707
OK, like pseudo hypnosis routines are fine, but you you can't do those if you're
00:18:01.707 --> 00:18:04.467
selling yourself as being an authority on the subject.
00:18:04.467 --> 00:18:07.467
Be a magician doing a routine which has
00:18:07.467 --> 00:18:10.887
a you know a hypnosis kind of lean
00:18:10.887 --> 00:18:13.747
to it but but don't stand up in front of
00:18:13.747 --> 00:18:16.507
educated people as if you you
00:18:16.507 --> 00:18:19.167
know what you're talking about and then do something as if you're a.
00:18:19.167 --> 00:18:22.787
Body language expert yeah yeah we
00:18:22.787 --> 00:18:25.647
do have we have some of them here too you know
00:18:25.647 --> 00:18:28.447
everyone's trying to make a living i guess but
00:18:28.447 --> 00:18:31.267
yeah i can you know there's so much other.
00:18:31.267 --> 00:18:35.007
Ways around it i guess one of them is actually learn body language
00:18:35.007 --> 00:18:40.687
and become an expert and then hypnosis if
00:18:40.687 --> 00:18:43.487
you uh talk about the history of
00:18:43.487 --> 00:18:46.387
it at all and if so if you could talk about it now is
00:18:46.387 --> 00:18:50.327
that like i'm wondering how long has hypnosis been around yeah
00:18:50.327 --> 00:18:54.367
and and further to that question when hypnosis
00:18:54.367 --> 00:18:57.427
you sort of mentioned the inductions i just wanted to know leading into
00:18:57.427 --> 00:19:00.647
this like how legitimate is one of those rapid inductions
00:19:00.647 --> 00:19:03.567
where they just shake your hand like a handshake induction where it's like snap
00:19:03.567 --> 00:19:06.247
and you're under immediately like how legitimate is that
00:19:06.247 --> 00:19:09.247
okay history of hypnosis
00:19:09.247 --> 00:19:12.167
very quickly it goes back it goes back for as
00:19:12.167 --> 00:19:15.267
long as human beings have been alive frankly the the
00:19:15.267 --> 00:19:18.567
the name is coined a roundabout
00:19:18.567 --> 00:19:21.207
it's not quite true but it's around about the time of a
00:19:21.207 --> 00:19:24.187
guy called james braid an english physician who kind
00:19:24.187 --> 00:19:27.387
of really adopted the the word hypnosis from the
00:19:27.387 --> 00:19:30.727
greek hypnos to mean sleep but that
00:19:30.727 --> 00:19:35.687
kind of right from that moment it was already it created a misnomer because
00:19:35.687 --> 00:19:40.907
there is no link whatsoever between this thing that we now call hypnosis and
00:19:40.907 --> 00:19:50.087
sleep just none whatsoever but the human ability to influence has been used for ever and a day.
00:19:50.347 --> 00:19:56.247
With regards to inductions, they all work. The problem is that.
00:19:57.637 --> 00:20:02.257
They don't really work for the reasons why an awful lot of hypnotists think
00:20:02.257 --> 00:20:07.997
they work, because in and of itself, none of the words do anything.
00:20:08.477 --> 00:20:13.177
Just just because it's a bit like the thing about correlation is not causation.
00:20:13.177 --> 00:20:18.377
So just because this correlation between I say these words in a certain way
00:20:18.377 --> 00:20:24.117
with this this ritual and it appears to have this outcome and I can repeat it
00:20:24.117 --> 00:20:28.297
and repeat it doesn't in and of itself mean that those words and those rituals.
00:20:28.297 --> 00:20:31.117
Are the actual causality of the outcome.
00:20:31.117 --> 00:20:34.357
And we actually know that they're not and we can demonstrate
00:20:34.357 --> 00:20:37.197
this very easily and one of the one
00:20:37.197 --> 00:20:39.877
of the easiest ways that you can demonstrate it is just get a number of
00:20:39.877 --> 00:20:42.917
people and do say the same thing to all of them and see
00:20:42.917 --> 00:20:45.737
that they all respond differently because if it was the words
00:20:45.737 --> 00:20:48.437
in and of themselves the response would be
00:20:48.437 --> 00:20:51.737
the same wouldn't it but it's not so they're
00:20:51.737 --> 00:20:55.177
not it's in its in
00:20:55.177 --> 00:20:58.017
its in its simplicity i would say
00:20:58.017 --> 00:21:01.097
that what we're talking about is the human
00:21:01.097 --> 00:21:05.657
brain's ability to to mistake thoughts
00:21:05.657 --> 00:21:08.817
for external experience and
00:21:08.817 --> 00:21:11.617
we do this all the time we're constantly confusing our
00:21:11.617 --> 00:21:14.297
own thinking for reality and we do it in
00:21:14.297 --> 00:21:17.597
our relationships you've all done it if you're in a relationship you'll
00:21:17.597 --> 00:21:21.117
know this constantly your partner will say
00:21:21.117 --> 00:21:24.597
something or there'll be your facial expression and your
00:21:24.597 --> 00:21:27.977
brain will look for what does that mean and you'll
00:21:27.977 --> 00:21:30.977
immediately have this this thought i'm in trouble you
00:21:30.977 --> 00:21:34.377
know they're cross with me and your body will send a signal that's
00:21:34.377 --> 00:21:37.337
that creates this tension and because you.
00:21:37.337 --> 00:21:40.917
Have a thought which could be words and images and
00:21:40.917 --> 00:21:44.217
you have this sensation within you you put
00:21:44.217 --> 00:21:47.357
the two and two together and go it must
00:21:47.357 --> 00:21:50.377
be true and then and now your cognitive bias
00:21:50.377 --> 00:21:53.357
will just continue to ratify that that
00:21:53.357 --> 00:21:56.577
belief and then a week later you find out that none
00:21:56.577 --> 00:21:59.897
of it was true but it doesn't change the fact that the next time they pull that
00:21:59.897 --> 00:22:04.677
face you'll descend into that hell again same with you know things like phobias
00:22:04.677 --> 00:22:11.997
and so it's a mixture of that idea of confusing your thoughts with reality and
00:22:11.997 --> 00:22:15.677
And then this notion that we have of projected agency,
00:22:15.697 --> 00:22:17.897
which is, again, something that humans do all the time.
00:22:18.077 --> 00:22:25.837
We give agency to two things when, in fact, almost every time we're the agent as a quick thing on that.
00:22:26.850 --> 00:22:31.410
Every time you do a magic trick, you as a magician probably have the delusional
00:22:31.410 --> 00:22:38.590
thought that it is the magic trick itself that is the agency in the effect that
00:22:38.590 --> 00:22:40.910
it has. But it's not. They're the agent.
00:22:41.350 --> 00:22:45.910
It's the person watching you that is the agent to the experience, not you.
00:22:46.130 --> 00:22:51.790
You may have given them the ingredients for sure, and how you do that will matter.
00:22:51.790 --> 00:22:55.190
But ultimately the the agency for
00:22:55.190 --> 00:22:58.170
why they felt and reacted in the way that they did
00:22:58.170 --> 00:23:01.310
came from them because magic happens
00:23:01.310 --> 00:23:04.490
in the mind of of the person witnessing it
00:23:04.490 --> 00:23:08.870
which again you can demonstrate because you can show the same trick to 100 people
00:23:08.870 --> 00:23:13.630
and some of those people will just be absolutely mind blown and some of them
00:23:13.630 --> 00:23:19.110
will just be like why because in and of itself the thing that you're doing is
00:23:19.110 --> 00:23:21.370
not the agent for the experience that the person has.
00:23:21.850 --> 00:23:24.530
Yeah yeah that's a hard that's a
00:23:24.530 --> 00:23:28.610
hard pill to swallow as well that's deep yeah nick
00:23:28.610 --> 00:23:31.270
had a question so go on nick we just
00:23:31.270 --> 00:23:34.790
have a couple of questions from the chat scott link was asking firstly
00:23:34.790 --> 00:23:39.070
can it be accomplished non-verbally i'm not sure if he's referring to inductions
00:23:39.070 --> 00:23:45.430
but i certainly think you can do it can be yeah yeah yeah i mean so again we're
00:23:45.430 --> 00:23:49.010
talking about so there has to be a frame of reference there's a great thing
00:23:49.010 --> 00:23:54.350
called the aims window illusion it's one of my favorite illusions, A-M-E-S.
00:23:54.490 --> 00:23:56.350
It's well worth going and having a look at.
00:23:56.550 --> 00:24:01.170
And it's this, I think it's called a trapezoid shape, which rotates around.
00:24:01.250 --> 00:24:06.130
And when you put like a pencil through it, it looks like the pencil's moving through this window.
00:24:06.910 --> 00:24:08.930
And the reason it works is because
00:24:08.930 --> 00:24:13.250
in our civilization, we know what this idea of a window looks like,
00:24:13.390 --> 00:24:16.190
you know, the rectangular shape with the lines
00:24:16.190 --> 00:24:19.310
through it and the panes of glass so because
00:24:19.310 --> 00:24:22.470
we we know what a window looks like on on multiple
00:24:22.470 --> 00:24:25.290
drawings like the first house you drew as a child with the you
00:24:25.290 --> 00:24:29.030
know the squares and the lines in the windows we have
00:24:29.030 --> 00:24:33.470
that frame of reference for what a window is so that's so that's the the base
00:24:33.470 --> 00:24:37.490
information that is allowing our brain to be fooled by the illusion but when
00:24:37.490 --> 00:24:43.250
when they've shown that illusion to tribes that don't have that frame of reference
00:24:43.250 --> 00:24:45.670
for a window they don't see the illusion,
00:24:46.529 --> 00:24:50.369
Yeah. So, yeah, there it is. The aims window. It's a stunning illusion.
00:24:50.409 --> 00:24:53.069
It just it freaks your brain out completely.
00:24:53.409 --> 00:24:58.169
It goes one way and then it passes through. But the reason why it works is because
00:24:58.169 --> 00:25:01.949
you and I know what a window looks like. If you show it to somebody that has
00:25:01.949 --> 00:25:05.649
no frame of reference for the window, they do not fall for the illusion.
00:25:06.709 --> 00:25:10.129
So again non-verbal inductions
00:25:10.129 --> 00:25:13.189
work because the person has
00:25:13.189 --> 00:25:16.149
a frame of reference for this thing that
00:25:16.149 --> 00:25:19.369
you're doing that's why they work if
00:25:19.369 --> 00:25:22.149
you were to speak to somebody who had no frame of
00:25:22.149 --> 00:25:24.989
reference for this in any way no cultural reference to
00:25:24.989 --> 00:25:27.869
it it would not work if you walked up
00:25:27.869 --> 00:25:30.469
to people on you know on a
00:25:30.469 --> 00:25:34.469
street in a place that had never had you know that just doesn't have a westernized
00:25:34.469 --> 00:25:38.609
frame of reference for hypnosis you know yanked their arm and went sleep they
00:25:38.609 --> 00:25:42.729
would just be like what are you doing which by the way most an awful lot of
00:25:42.729 --> 00:25:48.349
people will do anyway but if somebody has a belief in a frame of reference then you know.
00:25:50.229 --> 00:25:53.509
I've done it at conventions i've done
00:25:53.509 --> 00:25:56.629
it at the uk hypnosis convention quite famously actually
00:25:56.629 --> 00:25:59.709
i got a bit of a name for this a few years ago i
00:25:59.709 --> 00:26:04.489
was i'd done a talk on on all of this stuff and a few people still hadn't quite
00:26:04.489 --> 00:26:08.669
got it and i went look i'll demonstrate something for you and we're in the corridor
00:26:08.669 --> 00:26:14.189
now and i wrote on a piece of paper just the word sleep in big in in sort of
00:26:14.189 --> 00:26:19.309
big font fold it in half and then wrote on the outside read this with intent and expectation,
00:26:19.989 --> 00:26:23.949
and as somebody walked by i went oh this is for you and they they read the outside
00:26:23.949 --> 00:26:27.609
opened up and then collapsed to the ground and everybody everybody was like
00:26:27.609 --> 00:26:30.849
oh my god this is incredible And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You've misunderstood.
00:26:31.109 --> 00:26:33.769
It worked because we're at a hypnosis conference.
00:26:34.349 --> 00:26:39.369
It didn't work because those words are magical or that I have superhuman powers.
00:26:39.409 --> 00:26:45.889
It worked because we're here and this weekend has made it work.
00:26:46.189 --> 00:26:50.049
That's why it's worked. Yeah. yeah so again
00:26:50.049 --> 00:26:53.169
you can you can do these things but they
00:26:53.169 --> 00:26:59.749
always work the best at a con at a convention and by the way magic has a habit
00:26:59.749 --> 00:27:03.389
of falling into that category too how many times have you been at a magic convention
00:27:03.389 --> 00:27:08.369
seen the best thing ever and then you've bought it and then you've taken it
00:27:08.369 --> 00:27:10.549
out to the lay audience and lay people have gone.
00:27:12.776 --> 00:27:18.376
Yeah yeah yeah yeah and the other way around as well where yeah we don't think
00:27:18.376 --> 00:27:23.296
it's any good and then laymen are like what the hell this happened yep you know
00:27:23.296 --> 00:27:28.056
absolutely yeah so i mean i i said years ago i think magicians are the worst
00:27:28.056 --> 00:27:30.616
arbiters for what is and is not good magic,
00:27:31.616 --> 00:27:36.476
we're we're terrible at making that decision and maybe
00:27:36.476 --> 00:27:39.516
there's a little bit of the the dunning kruger effect going
00:27:39.516 --> 00:27:42.476
on there i think maybe the longer you're in magic for the the
00:27:42.476 --> 00:27:45.636
the better you discern these things because you've
00:27:45.636 --> 00:27:48.956
had more opportunity to to really learn and progress
00:27:48.956 --> 00:27:51.616
that's it right there if you get
00:27:51.616 --> 00:27:54.376
a chance to perform it enough you realize it's not about you and
00:27:54.376 --> 00:27:57.096
your flashy tricks your crazy gimmicks it's about
00:27:57.096 --> 00:28:00.336
what the people experience in their brain and making it appeal
00:28:00.336 --> 00:28:03.036
to them emotional emotional yeah i've got a
00:28:03.036 --> 00:28:06.196
couple of friends here in the uk who are stand-up comics and we've
00:28:06.196 --> 00:28:10.296
all had this conversation with with regards to how
00:28:10.296 --> 00:28:13.036
how long have you been flogging your own dead
00:28:13.036 --> 00:28:15.976
horse so you know a comedian will write a gag
00:28:15.976 --> 00:28:18.776
and think i really like this gag and they'll
00:28:18.776 --> 00:28:21.756
present it to an audience and it just doesn't work and they'll
00:28:21.756 --> 00:28:25.036
go maybe it was the audience tonight i'll i'll
00:28:25.036 --> 00:28:28.236
i'll do the gag again tomorrow and then they'll maybe rewrite write
00:28:28.236 --> 00:28:31.736
it they'll tweak it a little bit more how many audiences
00:28:31.736 --> 00:28:34.516
don't not responding does it take for you.
00:28:34.516 --> 00:28:37.976
To finally realize not a good gag and and
00:28:37.976 --> 00:28:41.096
i think magicians can do the same we can we can we
00:28:41.096 --> 00:28:44.116
can perform something because we've fallen
00:28:44.116 --> 00:28:46.776
in love with it yeah uh yeah you know
00:28:46.776 --> 00:28:49.816
but maybe because of a sense of ownership but it's not necessarily a
00:28:49.816 --> 00:28:52.876
great piece of magic it could be even worse for magic because
00:28:52.876 --> 00:28:56.016
you do your ta-da moment and the audience applauds politely
00:28:56.016 --> 00:28:59.756
anyway and so you think it's good yeah yeah
00:28:59.756 --> 00:29:03.736
true true i mean i i i personally
00:29:03.736 --> 00:29:07.276
think that i think it's i i'm fascinated that the
00:29:07.276 --> 00:29:10.056
holy grail of card magic is any card at any
00:29:10.056 --> 00:29:13.136
number but i'll be honest i've yet to see even
00:29:13.136 --> 00:29:16.056
like if you there's a the burglas effect there's
00:29:16.056 --> 00:29:21.296
a video on youtube of a film they made of the burglas effect and it has lots
00:29:21.296 --> 00:29:27.436
of clips of david burglas performing it to lay audiences and i mean don't get
00:29:27.436 --> 00:29:32.936
me wrong burglas was was just a phenomenal man at every level he was a lovely
00:29:32.936 --> 00:29:35.436
human being and he was he was one of the,
00:29:35.988 --> 00:29:39.028
You know, he was a pioneer of magic without a doubt.
00:29:40.628 --> 00:29:47.148
But Arkhan appeals to magicians way more than it appeals to lay people, way more.
00:29:47.408 --> 00:29:51.668
And I've learned lots of variations on any card at any number.
00:29:51.668 --> 00:29:54.568
And i realized a long time ago that a
00:29:54.568 --> 00:29:58.408
a half decent second deal is
00:29:58.408 --> 00:30:01.048
just as deceiving to a lay
00:30:01.048 --> 00:30:04.348
audience as any convoluted clever
00:30:04.348 --> 00:30:07.208
psychological variation of it and we
00:30:07.208 --> 00:30:10.088
all know if you've been in this game long enough you know that you.
00:30:10.088 --> 00:30:13.368
Can get somebody to misremember a trick after
00:30:13.368 --> 00:30:16.788
the fact if you if you layer it correctly and
00:30:16.788 --> 00:30:19.768
then and then as you talk about it after you
00:30:19.768 --> 00:30:22.748
finish the effect you can create you can create false
00:30:22.748 --> 00:30:25.468
memory syndrome quite simply and i
00:30:25.468 --> 00:30:28.568
think that you know again it's just i just
00:30:28.568 --> 00:30:31.348
find it fascinating that that from our point of
00:30:31.348 --> 00:30:34.168
view we've we've gone this is the pinnacle of card
00:30:34.168 --> 00:30:36.988
magic but lay people may may have
00:30:36.988 --> 00:30:40.168
a very different view to us may well
00:30:40.168 --> 00:30:43.208
think you know talking about lay audiences and and how
00:30:43.208 --> 00:30:45.848
people react if we can jump back for a
00:30:45.848 --> 00:30:49.188
second to when you won the magic circle close-up
00:30:49.188 --> 00:30:52.548
magician of the year award that video
00:30:52.548 --> 00:30:55.248
we're jumping back a long time aren't we that's you
00:30:55.248 --> 00:30:58.108
know that's a while ago but still to this day people are
00:30:58.108 --> 00:31:01.608
just discovering that for the first time probably you know
00:31:01.608 --> 00:31:05.108
that was such a mic drop moment when you've done this routine with
00:31:05.108 --> 00:31:07.828
a coin and their
00:31:07.828 --> 00:31:10.808
coins on their shoulder and then and then it's under their watch and then you do
00:31:10.808 --> 00:31:13.568
the you know the famous but then what if your watch
00:31:13.568 --> 00:31:16.408
just gone and now that's on your shoulder like such a
00:31:16.408 --> 00:31:19.368
crazy circle when that video came
00:31:19.368 --> 00:31:25.528
out or once you perform that what was like the aftermath of that happening like
00:31:25.528 --> 00:31:31.868
everyone start flying to do that exact sequence like yes is the answer i did
00:31:31.868 --> 00:31:38.428
yeah yeah i think that i mean look it it popularized because again i.
00:31:39.220 --> 00:31:47.020
I looked at that. So the, the, the real history of that routine was I saw Greg
00:31:47.020 --> 00:31:52.140
Wilson do, and I can't think what he called it, but he did, he did the chip, right?
00:31:52.260 --> 00:31:55.560
Yeah, the chip. yeah he did chip on shoulder and he
00:31:55.560 --> 00:31:58.560
had uh but he had a coin version as well which used two
00:31:58.560 --> 00:32:02.320
coins and he was always one ahead with the coins so he
00:32:02.320 --> 00:32:05.060
did the coin on the back of the hand and he'd have the arms up either
00:32:05.060 --> 00:32:08.060
side of them and he'd he'd load one
00:32:08.060 --> 00:32:11.000
coin turn into the body vanish another
00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:13.940
coin and it would reappear and he was loading a coin
00:32:13.940 --> 00:32:16.980
and then vanishing the other one and to
00:32:16.980 --> 00:32:19.920
be honest i looked at it i thought it's a lovely routine but i
00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:22.760
also realized that the chance of being caught with
00:32:22.760 --> 00:32:26.120
the second coin is massive and inevitable it's
00:32:26.120 --> 00:32:29.460
inevitable that you'll be caught with the second coin if you're
00:32:29.460 --> 00:32:32.180
caught with one coin i you know you put the coin in your eye and
00:32:32.180 --> 00:32:35.160
somebody sees you put it in the eye it doesn't matter there's any one coin
00:32:35.160 --> 00:32:38.320
all they've done is they've caught the misdirection in the moment and
00:32:38.320 --> 00:32:41.120
you can you can just keep going and you'll probably catch them on the next beat
00:32:41.120 --> 00:32:44.600
anyway so i i
00:32:44.600 --> 00:32:49.480
put together this this one coin routine and
00:32:49.480 --> 00:32:52.560
yeah i just did it the magic circle
00:32:52.560 --> 00:32:56.020
close-up comp was interesting because my journey
00:32:56.020 --> 00:32:58.920
into magic was not the same as a lot of people's I
00:32:58.920 --> 00:33:02.100
did not come up in and I didn't have parents that
00:33:02.100 --> 00:33:05.220
were magicians or uncle that was a magician I didn't go
00:33:05.220 --> 00:33:08.060
to magic clubs as a child in fact I
00:33:08.060 --> 00:33:10.940
knew as close to nothing about magic until I
00:33:10.940 --> 00:33:13.760
was about 18 in fact I was 18
00:33:13.760 --> 00:33:17.380
I was at university and I had
00:33:17.380 --> 00:33:20.200
no interest student magic growing up in fact frankly i.
00:33:20.200 --> 00:33:23.640
Didn't really like the magic i saw on tv the exception.
00:33:23.640 --> 00:33:26.380
Was there was a paul daniels magic show on.
00:33:26.380 --> 00:33:29.840
Tv when i was a kid and for about
00:33:29.840 --> 00:33:32.680
10 minutes in the show they would
00:33:32.680 --> 00:33:35.600
cut to a little card table at the side of the
00:33:35.600 --> 00:33:38.580
studio and there would be a guest magician who would
00:33:38.580 --> 00:33:41.620
come and do a bit of close-up magic and that that appealed
00:33:41.620 --> 00:33:45.540
to me there was something about that that was special the
00:33:45.540 --> 00:33:48.760
the big illusions just didn't resonate i think
00:33:48.760 --> 00:33:51.700
even as a child i looked at it and went you know
00:33:51.700 --> 00:33:54.560
i kind of realized it'll it'll be the box
00:33:54.560 --> 00:34:00.320
won't it it'll be the box um which funnily enough is one of the things you're
00:34:00.320 --> 00:34:05.940
you're so well known for ah it's the box it's just it's definitely the box yeah
00:34:05.940 --> 00:34:11.880
thank you brumcha so i went into that competition and.
00:34:13.051 --> 00:34:16.091
Treating it like a gig
00:34:16.091 --> 00:34:18.871
like just just I just treated it
00:34:18.871 --> 00:34:21.851
like a gig I so I turned up at the magic circle for
00:34:21.851 --> 00:34:25.071
that competition I'd been cajoled by people
00:34:25.071 --> 00:34:30.651
to enter it and I'd be like okay I'd only joined the magic circle like a six
00:34:30.651 --> 00:34:35.311
months earlier and I think I'd been twice to the actual headquarters and back
00:34:35.311 --> 00:34:39.391
then there was no online option so it was just a club as far as I was concerned
00:34:39.391 --> 00:34:43.891
it was just a more famous club but I didn't live in London so I trekked all
00:34:43.891 --> 00:34:44.791
the way up to London with this.
00:34:45.011 --> 00:34:50.451
And I turned up there, and I was quite stunned to see a room full of magicians
00:34:50.451 --> 00:34:54.291
all wearing various sort of top hat and tails.
00:34:54.511 --> 00:34:59.171
Well, not top hat, but kind of wearing like magicians' outfits.
00:34:59.951 --> 00:35:05.811
And they all had acts that they'd invented for the competition,
00:35:06.411 --> 00:35:10.431
and they were all in their little corners just going through the act.
00:35:11.031 --> 00:35:16.711
And i i'm there with like jeans and a t-shirt or jeans and a shirt a short sleeve
00:35:16.711 --> 00:35:21.711
shirt which i which i was then told are you going to get changed and i'm like.
00:35:22.731 --> 00:35:26.091
No this is this this is what
00:35:26.091 --> 00:35:29.591
i wear when i'm performing it's just
00:35:29.591 --> 00:35:34.151
what i wear and it turned out that that in and of itself was a big problem like
00:35:34.151 --> 00:35:39.011
i don't this is probably wildly hypocritical But I was told that the competition
00:35:39.011 --> 00:35:44.091
act and the response it had got was certainly part of the journey for why the
00:35:44.091 --> 00:35:46.551
Magic Circle dropped the clothing policy.
00:35:46.711 --> 00:35:50.391
Because up until that point, they had a very strict clothing policy.
00:35:51.251 --> 00:35:55.151
Again, that may be wildly hypocritical, but never mind. So, yeah,
00:35:55.211 --> 00:35:57.671
I'm there. Everybody else is practicing.
00:35:58.571 --> 00:36:01.651
I'm drinking a cup of coffee and reading a book.
00:36:01.811 --> 00:36:05.031
And people are saying, you know, do you know what you're going to do?
00:36:05.031 --> 00:36:08.891
And I'm like, well, I, you know, not really. Yes.
00:36:10.531 --> 00:36:14.131
In exactly the same way that I know what I'm going to do when I go up to a,
00:36:14.644 --> 00:36:22.004
a table in a restaurant i i've got i've got the things that i do and we'll see we'll we'll,
00:36:22.604 --> 00:36:25.484
we'll see what happens and all the all
00:36:25.484 --> 00:36:28.984
the lines all the all the little moments it's just
00:36:28.984 --> 00:36:31.864
what what popped into my head at the time and i'll
00:36:31.864 --> 00:36:34.684
be honest i was not expecting to win at all
00:36:34.684 --> 00:36:37.604
i i was i was utterly shocked that
00:36:37.604 --> 00:36:40.844
i won that competition i think it had a big effect with with
00:36:40.844 --> 00:36:44.084
regards to the in-world magic
00:36:44.084 --> 00:36:47.144
but i don't think it really made much of a difference to
00:36:47.144 --> 00:36:50.164
to my to my career in that sense
00:36:50.164 --> 00:36:53.584
but possibly because i i'm
00:36:53.584 --> 00:36:56.524
i'll be entirely honest i'm really crap
00:36:56.524 --> 00:37:00.204
at business part of the reason for that is i just money is
00:37:00.204 --> 00:37:03.544
money is not a metric that's ever interested me
00:37:03.544 --> 00:37:06.564
it's it's not how i how i how i
00:37:06.564 --> 00:37:09.624
rate life you know and and i
00:37:09.624 --> 00:37:15.424
realize that's that's weird for people these days but i don't i don't rate success
00:37:15.424 --> 00:37:20.564
on on how many zeros are in my bank account i that's just it's just not the
00:37:20.564 --> 00:37:26.064
thing that appeals to me in in in the world that we live in so it's yeah i probably
00:37:26.064 --> 00:37:28.064
could have made a lot more out of it i'm sure,
00:37:29.004 --> 00:37:31.384
That is what every millionist is, by the way.
00:37:33.664 --> 00:37:36.984
So your early projects were so strong.
00:37:37.284 --> 00:37:43.204
Are you actively still like maybe producing things for the Magi or thinking
00:37:43.204 --> 00:37:46.324
about it or no? No, not really.
00:37:47.604 --> 00:37:50.504
Now and again. So to be honest with you, in the last 10 years,
00:37:50.684 --> 00:37:57.164
the only things I've really done is when Grant Clark, who runs Illusionist, is just a mate of mine.
00:37:58.477 --> 00:38:03.437
Separate from magic and his business he's just somebody i consider a friend
00:38:03.437 --> 00:38:07.077
and now and again he'll phone me up and he'll say any chance we can get you
00:38:07.077 --> 00:38:11.517
to come in and do something for us and and again it's just a job you know i
00:38:11.517 --> 00:38:15.337
just turn up they pay me i do a thing i leave that's it.
00:38:16.177 --> 00:38:19.117
I yeah i don't i don't really
00:38:19.117 --> 00:38:23.037
think that i have anything specific that
00:38:23.037 --> 00:38:26.237
i want to offer and i don't do i like
00:38:26.237 --> 00:38:28.997
lecturing i do like lecturing but there's
00:38:28.997 --> 00:38:31.877
not a lot of money to be made out of that unless you have a
00:38:31.877 --> 00:38:34.797
suitcase full of you know stuff to
00:38:34.797 --> 00:38:37.737
sell and i don't let's be real james you.
00:38:37.737 --> 00:38:40.417
Do have some stuff in fact someone here was asking can we
00:38:40.417 --> 00:38:44.317
please ask him where you can purchase the hide and seek let's get
00:38:44.317 --> 00:38:47.137
a little story time from nick's collection we didn't plan this
00:38:47.137 --> 00:38:50.477
but nick just so happens to have a few james brown
00:38:50.477 --> 00:38:54.197
items what do we got there i don't see hide
00:38:54.197 --> 00:38:57.417
and seek is one of the one of my favorite things that
00:38:57.417 --> 00:39:00.237
I ever developed and it and I mean I don't
00:39:00.237 --> 00:39:03.277
wear jackets anymore to be honest it's just not a style that
00:39:03.277 --> 00:39:06.797
suits me these days but when I wore a jacket hide
00:39:06.797 --> 00:39:09.797
and seek the the teleport effect in particular
00:39:09.797 --> 00:39:13.397
was without a doubt the favorite effect
00:39:13.397 --> 00:39:16.357
that I had unfortunately while its mobile phones
00:39:16.357 --> 00:39:19.157
have moved on in such a way it's not really as pertinent as
00:39:19.157 --> 00:39:22.497
it was at the time but I fooled I
00:39:22.497 --> 00:39:25.557
mean I remember being at Blackpool when we when we launched
00:39:25.557 --> 00:39:28.617
it I'd broken my my my
00:39:28.617 --> 00:39:31.337
hand like three days before in fact
00:39:31.337 --> 00:39:34.497
it was I I had it in bandages and
00:39:34.497 --> 00:39:39.617
strapped you know like supposedly strapped up I went back home after Blackpool
00:39:39.617 --> 00:39:43.097
and I actually had to have it set and put in a cast because I hadn't been to
00:39:43.097 --> 00:39:47.857
the doctors yet and it was I'd really smashed my handed so my right hand was
00:39:47.857 --> 00:39:51.377
out of action almost entirely and it was phenomenally painful.
00:39:52.031 --> 00:40:02.411
But I remember showing Jan Frisch the effect and he he was absolutely convinced
00:40:02.411 --> 00:40:07.471
that there must be some some incredibly complicated gimmick at work.
00:40:07.691 --> 00:40:11.591
And when I finally told him how it was done, I won't I won't use the word that
00:40:11.591 --> 00:40:13.071
he said, but I looked in the chat.
00:40:13.251 --> 00:40:17.651
Apparently, the word twat in America is more offensive than it is in England.
00:40:18.611 --> 00:40:20.351
Yeah, sorry. Grow up.
00:40:23.111 --> 00:40:25.931
Just grow up but he basically said the the
00:40:25.931 --> 00:40:29.811
c version of that which just made me laugh hysterically but
00:40:29.811 --> 00:40:32.991
yeah i love that effect it was a great one i i if
00:40:32.991 --> 00:40:36.391
i'm much more interested these
00:40:36.391 --> 00:40:39.611
days in finessing things
00:40:39.611 --> 00:40:42.811
i i love i love just adding like i
00:40:42.811 --> 00:40:45.891
mentioned with the the um the double cross i love taking
00:40:45.891 --> 00:40:48.771
something and just going right how can
00:40:48.771 --> 00:40:51.571
we elevate this i think the older we get we realize the
00:40:51.571 --> 00:40:54.711
routines we do need so much more work you
00:40:54.711 --> 00:40:57.851
know yeah yeah just just down to timing and
00:40:57.851 --> 00:41:00.911
things you know i i i've been tempted
00:41:00.911 --> 00:41:05.431
i did the thing with elusius a while ago again they asked me i didn't it wasn't
00:41:05.431 --> 00:41:10.051
my idea they came to me and said could we could we do a cut you know could we
00:41:10.051 --> 00:41:13.791
re-release your card under box and i went well actually i've got some updates
00:41:13.791 --> 00:41:20.211
to it which might be interesting so we did i'm i'm tempted at some point just to kind of.
00:41:21.451 --> 00:41:23.451
Spend a bit more time on that because,
00:41:24.439 --> 00:41:30.259
I love the ending, the entire deck into the box. Oh, sorry. Somebody just said
00:41:30.259 --> 00:41:32.179
you didn't answer where hide and seek. Oh, yeah.
00:41:32.759 --> 00:41:39.179
So here's the truth. I don't have control over any of that stuff, and I never did.
00:41:39.719 --> 00:41:43.959
Unfortunately, the magic companies tend to own them and have the rights to them.
00:41:44.399 --> 00:41:51.359
So RSVP Magic here in the UK, which is Russ Stevens' company, has the rights to that.
00:41:51.359 --> 00:41:59.279
So i would guess if you go to rsvpmagic.com.co.uk i'm not sure which it is you
00:41:59.279 --> 00:42:03.799
probably find it's available as a download on there i'm gonna guess so so that
00:42:03.799 --> 00:42:07.739
would be an answer i don't see a penny for that it's another reason why i've
00:42:07.739 --> 00:42:10.899
i part of the reason why i've stopped doing stuff because.
00:42:11.799 --> 00:42:14.459
You know i got slightly fed up of the fact that do you
00:42:14.459 --> 00:42:18.559
want to know how much i earn out of still fancier potter jam yeah please
00:42:18.559 --> 00:42:22.039
500 pounds plus 25
00:42:22.039 --> 00:42:29.339
copies that's it wow yeah wow and it is it's one of the best-selling close-up
00:42:29.339 --> 00:42:32.799
dvds apparently i mean i don't know whether that's true but i've been told that
00:42:32.799 --> 00:42:37.139
it's one of the best you know it was not now sadly the companies have to do
00:42:37.139 --> 00:42:38.439
it that way to compensate for
00:42:38.439 --> 00:42:41.559
the amazing amount of mediocre products they'll put out that don't sell,
00:42:42.119 --> 00:42:44.319
Absolutely. I fully understand that.
00:42:44.459 --> 00:42:49.379
But, you know, it's slightly galling when you look back and go,
00:42:49.959 --> 00:42:52.019
they're still making money and I didn't.
00:42:52.139 --> 00:42:56.839
It's a great time to re-release that and the card to box and whatever else you
00:42:56.839 --> 00:42:58.499
want to put out. All your early work.
00:42:59.287 --> 00:43:03.347
What about the Power Academy, James? What about the Power Academy and the Rumble Suburbs?
00:43:04.087 --> 00:43:10.767
Yeah, well, so again, all right, look, the reality is pre-pandemic,
00:43:10.827 --> 00:43:13.727
and I don't want to dwell on this for long, if you don't mind,
00:43:14.227 --> 00:43:19.667
I was married for 17 years, and it wasn't good for me at all.
00:43:19.807 --> 00:43:24.327
In fact, it was really quite damaging for me in lots of ways.
00:43:26.067 --> 00:43:29.547
And I lived a double life, essentially. i
00:43:29.547 --> 00:43:33.087
i most most performers put
00:43:33.087 --> 00:43:35.947
a mask on to go on stage i was
00:43:35.947 --> 00:43:38.767
living the other way around the only place i was able to
00:43:38.767 --> 00:43:42.127
be me in any way was when
00:43:42.127 --> 00:43:45.027
i was performing and it was the rest
00:43:45.027 --> 00:43:48.907
of my life where i was masking a
00:43:48.907 --> 00:43:52.627
huge amount of pain and
00:43:52.627 --> 00:43:55.787
trauma i when the
00:43:55.787 --> 00:43:58.967
pandemic came around and i got out of that relationship
00:43:58.967 --> 00:44:02.007
and i that that was a really difficult time the pandemic for
00:44:02.007 --> 00:44:05.207
me kind of readjusting life like restarting
00:44:05.207 --> 00:44:08.047
life just completely restarting life i stepped
00:44:08.047 --> 00:44:11.427
away from power academy because i i just
00:44:11.427 --> 00:44:14.507
couldn't cope with that on top of everything else
00:44:14.507 --> 00:44:17.227
and my business partner danny still one of
00:44:17.227 --> 00:44:20.167
my greatest friends just completely
00:44:20.167 --> 00:44:24.047
understood and he says the door's always going to be open but I just haven't
00:44:24.047 --> 00:44:29.547
you know he he shifted direction as well and became much more kind of business
00:44:29.547 --> 00:44:34.027
focused and I wasn't comfortable with that because it just didn't sit right
00:44:34.027 --> 00:44:39.047
ethically for me to go I can help you become a successful businessman when I wasn't really a.
00:44:41.436 --> 00:44:44.616
I don't like that dishonesty in the world that we live in at all.
00:44:44.756 --> 00:44:47.356
And I was desperately seeking authenticity at the time.
00:44:48.996 --> 00:44:52.876
So I stepped away from Power Academy. I haven't stepped back.
00:44:53.416 --> 00:44:58.936
I think that I got a feeling that sequence of pickpocketing and reality bending
00:44:58.936 --> 00:45:02.116
kind of got mothballed slightly. I don't even think they appear on the site.
00:45:02.296 --> 00:45:08.436
I think you can still get them, but you have to kind of directly contact Danny and ask for access.
00:45:08.436 --> 00:45:12.936
At some point because he said look it's intellectually all yours anyway at some
00:45:12.936 --> 00:45:18.036
point he'll i'll probably get all the all the downloads and i'll work out a
00:45:18.036 --> 00:45:19.516
way of doing something with it.
00:45:20.076 --> 00:45:22.996
Secrets of pickpocketing i would put out as is
00:45:22.996 --> 00:45:25.736
again because i i still i'm still
00:45:25.736 --> 00:45:29.016
very proud of that project reality bending i
00:45:29.016 --> 00:45:32.016
i i wasn't i was never i was never happy
00:45:32.016 --> 00:45:35.636
with that content wise i was happy but just how
00:45:35.636 --> 00:45:38.616
how we filmed it the quality just it just didn't
00:45:38.616 --> 00:45:42.076
it didn't resonate for me at all so it's it's
00:45:42.076 --> 00:45:44.756
it's it's on it's on the back burner to put
00:45:44.756 --> 00:45:47.776
it that way it's it's not dead in the water but i
00:45:47.776 --> 00:45:50.736
just haven't had the the the headspace to
00:45:50.736 --> 00:45:53.456
uh to do anything with it so sorry that
00:45:53.456 --> 00:45:56.536
got weirdly deep there i do no no no and
00:45:56.536 --> 00:45:59.376
thank you for being so vulnerable you know lets people know who james brown
00:45:59.376 --> 00:46:02.296
is because we all love learning from you
00:46:02.296 --> 00:46:05.656
but obviously you know you have to enjoy what you're doing and everyone's
00:46:05.656 --> 00:46:08.356
in different parts of their life and but in saying all of
00:46:08.356 --> 00:46:11.636
that like you know if there's ever a way that the magic
00:46:11.636 --> 00:46:16.416
community can support your work whether you release stuff independently or whatever
00:46:16.416 --> 00:46:20.296
you know you just click your fingers and you just know that everyone's there
00:46:20.296 --> 00:46:24.956
ready to to learn directly from you you probably don't even need an out an outside
00:46:24.956 --> 00:46:30.036
source now to do that kind of stuff yeah i mean yeah i mean i i've,
00:46:31.796 --> 00:46:33.396
Because of where I was,
00:46:34.576 --> 00:46:40.776
I think people assumed that I had all this confidence and stuff because of the
00:46:40.776 --> 00:46:42.396
way I projected on stage.
00:46:42.876 --> 00:46:46.776
But actually I had, and I still to this day, I massively struggle with...
00:46:48.062 --> 00:46:51.302
Sort of self-belief i guess i'm i'm you
00:46:51.302 --> 00:46:54.302
know you call it i mean call it what you want whether it's humility
00:46:54.302 --> 00:46:57.542
or not i don't think it is necessarily i think it's just a symptom
00:46:57.542 --> 00:47:00.442
of trauma really from
00:47:00.442 --> 00:47:03.622
in lots of ways i grew up in a in a very kind of right-wing
00:47:03.622 --> 00:47:06.762
conservative church environment which didn't
00:47:06.762 --> 00:47:12.662
do me good in lots of ways as well and then the relationship didn't do me good
00:47:12.662 --> 00:47:19.482
and i i'm you know as I said to you guys I'm baffled baffled by the idea when
00:47:19.482 --> 00:47:23.082
you were like you know oh my god you're my hero and I and I and I can just feel
00:47:23.082 --> 00:47:25.602
every particle of my being going,
00:47:26.422 --> 00:47:34.382
no no no no no you imitate Nick perfectly by the way I don't yes yeah yeah I
00:47:34.382 --> 00:47:42.282
love doing what I do And I'm happy to receive praise for what I do as long as
00:47:42.282 --> 00:47:45.782
it's not misdirected to me as a person.
00:47:46.162 --> 00:47:49.962
I think that's what it is. I'm absolutely happy at the end of a show for somebody
00:47:49.962 --> 00:47:54.822
to say to me, oh, my goodness me, that was amazing. Thank you so much.
00:47:55.242 --> 00:47:56.942
You've really made us all feel great.
00:47:57.562 --> 00:48:01.842
No problem with that at all. but when it's directed at me when somebody goes
00:48:01.842 --> 00:48:05.242
right you're incredible and at that point i go.
00:48:06.102 --> 00:48:10.282
Really i don't know i just yeah with that slightly you're like well you should
00:48:10.282 --> 00:48:14.162
see me in an hour when i'm at home you know in my boxes and i'm laying on the
00:48:14.162 --> 00:48:18.762
couch and yeah yeah and if you subscribe to my only fans you can.
00:48:21.402 --> 00:48:26.562
That's how we can support you now we're getting to it the real pot of jam coming to you.
00:48:28.342 --> 00:48:31.302
I like sharing as well yeah so i
00:48:31.302 --> 00:48:34.222
just say it's like again my my my partner
00:48:34.222 --> 00:48:36.982
hannah is forever telling me off she says you
00:48:36.982 --> 00:48:42.942
give away stuff for nothing all the time and i get in you know she's she says
00:48:42.942 --> 00:48:47.522
for goodness sake you know you should be monetizing this but i i i don't know
00:48:47.522 --> 00:48:54.422
i can't help it you know only fans you do like picks with the boxers and the card to box work yeah,
00:48:55.022 --> 00:48:58.802
It's like you just merge the two. It's the best of both worlds. Yeah.
00:48:59.122 --> 00:49:03.642
And I mean, we won't mention your projects you're doing, but you mentioned backstage
00:49:03.642 --> 00:49:05.402
that you're doing a lot of consulting.
00:49:05.742 --> 00:49:10.442
And so it's like, I guess from the sharing and putting out these videos and
00:49:10.442 --> 00:49:16.142
maybe teaching stuff that you don't have the property to, people have noticed it.
00:49:16.222 --> 00:49:22.542
And you're now getting to do some pretty big-named projects that everyone would be like...
00:49:23.225 --> 00:49:26.225
Would be their dream thing to work on you know anyone in
00:49:26.225 --> 00:49:28.825
the world so you know it's obviously leading you in the
00:49:28.825 --> 00:49:32.965
right direction when you so you're doing some pretty high profiled
00:49:32.965 --> 00:49:36.045
stuff i mean when how often are you are you
00:49:36.045 --> 00:49:39.025
gigging you mentioned you still in love doing gigs is that
00:49:39.025 --> 00:49:42.385
something you try to roster in every week
00:49:42.385 --> 00:49:45.285
oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm i'm doing my best to
00:49:45.285 --> 00:49:48.265
to to get you know i like you know i love
00:49:48.265 --> 00:49:51.105
gigging so you know any any time i can get
00:49:51.105 --> 00:49:54.005
a gig in i i get a gigging i go i
00:49:54.005 --> 00:49:56.685
go and do the job i love doing you know it's yeah
00:49:56.685 --> 00:49:59.585
it's good fun you know and if you
00:49:59.585 --> 00:50:02.725
i mean i don't know because obviously some of this is going to go out audio but
00:50:02.725 --> 00:50:05.505
you know if you want i can share with
00:50:05.505 --> 00:50:08.285
you just a little a tiny little something which
00:50:08.285 --> 00:50:11.645
is just using the end of the
00:50:11.645 --> 00:50:14.385
the card in box routine it's just
00:50:14.385 --> 00:50:17.145
a way to get to that a lot quicker and it's just a
00:50:17.145 --> 00:50:20.765
super fun thing that i've called uh room
00:50:20.765 --> 00:50:25.865
of requirement taken out of harry potter just as a hook and it's very very simple
00:50:25.865 --> 00:50:31.045
and it uses a lovely little ruse uh with a cull so you essentially you've got
00:50:31.045 --> 00:50:33.765
your deck i don't have the box with me but it's you'll understand the ending
00:50:33.765 --> 00:50:37.805
you say to somebody name any card the framing for this by the way is i quite
00:50:37.805 --> 00:50:38.945
often do this in cocktail.
00:50:39.505 --> 00:50:42.605
Environments in stand-up cocktail environments and i'll
00:50:42.605 --> 00:50:45.805
say to somebody i'll i'll take the the the
00:50:45.805 --> 00:50:48.945
deck out of the box and i'll look around there's no table and i'll
00:50:48.945 --> 00:50:51.825
say oh sorry and i'll balance the empty box on top
00:50:51.825 --> 00:50:54.565
of somebody's glass somebody's drink and i'll just say sorry
00:50:54.565 --> 00:50:57.465
can can i just use you as a little table for a moment and
00:50:57.465 --> 00:51:00.845
they're like yeah sure so now i say to somebody name any
00:51:00.845 --> 00:51:03.945
cards and whatever card they name i i
00:51:03.945 --> 00:51:06.905
just have the deck to me and i'm just looking for the card and say
00:51:06.905 --> 00:51:11.105
if it's the five of clubs the moment i see the five of clubs i cull under the
00:51:11.105 --> 00:51:15.765
spread and then i angle the spreads to them so we are looking for the five together
00:51:15.765 --> 00:51:19.625
and then i go through the remainder of the deck pointing out any other fives
00:51:19.625 --> 00:51:23.565
five of spades there and i go right to the end it's not there i then come back
00:51:23.565 --> 00:51:26.705
to the beginning go through again are this the hearts and the diamonds.
00:51:28.420 --> 00:51:31.280
And there's the spade again and and by doing
00:51:31.280 --> 00:51:34.380
that without saying anything you've
00:51:34.380 --> 00:51:37.560
demonstrated that it's not there because they've
00:51:37.560 --> 00:51:40.500
seen they've seen all the way through the deck it's now
00:51:40.500 --> 00:51:43.900
just on top i now very naturally go oh
00:51:43.900 --> 00:51:46.820
hang on a minute and i pick the box up and i open the box
00:51:46.820 --> 00:51:49.700
and i kind of look inside and i tilt it so they see it's empty
00:51:49.700 --> 00:51:53.180
and as i close the box up i load
00:51:53.180 --> 00:51:56.240
the card in and put it back on the glass and i
00:51:56.240 --> 00:51:59.180
kind of then go oh i've got a feeling that right i've
00:51:59.180 --> 00:52:02.220
got a feeling somebody over there kept it from another routine
00:52:02.220 --> 00:52:05.060
never mind and then we move
00:52:05.060 --> 00:52:08.280
into the routine so at this point i then say actually
00:52:08.280 --> 00:52:10.880
do you ever heard do you watch harry potter yeah have you heard of the
00:52:10.880 --> 00:52:13.640
room of requirement and then i just give them a recap the room
00:52:13.640 --> 00:52:16.420
requirement is a room that appears when you need it and inside the
00:52:16.420 --> 00:52:19.680
room anything that you need is in the room so
00:52:19.680 --> 00:52:22.720
for example this box could be our room of requirement
00:52:22.720 --> 00:52:25.820
sorry what was the card that you require and they
00:52:25.820 --> 00:52:28.760
say the five of clubs and bear in mind everything up until
00:52:28.760 --> 00:52:31.780
now has demonstrated it's not in the pack and it's
00:52:31.780 --> 00:52:34.500
not in the box and i've not had to say any of
00:52:34.500 --> 00:52:37.280
that it's all in their head they know it's not.
00:52:37.280 --> 00:52:39.960
In the pack or the box and then as soon as
00:52:39.960 --> 00:52:42.880
i say we'll use this as our room requirement what card do you require five
00:52:42.880 --> 00:52:45.720
of clubs and then and then i kind of just you do
00:52:45.720 --> 00:52:48.560
your gesture you know i hover my hand over the pack or
00:52:48.560 --> 00:52:51.420
whatever right and again with suggestion you can
00:52:51.420 --> 00:52:54.720
say to the person in fact you might even know the
00:52:54.720 --> 00:52:57.880
moment it appears and it's astonishing how
00:52:57.880 --> 00:53:01.100
often that person holding the drink will just go oh i
00:53:01.100 --> 00:53:04.040
felt something yeah you didn't but
00:53:04.040 --> 00:53:06.840
you know aaron alexander a
00:53:06.840 --> 00:53:10.260
very good friend of mine talks about this idea of leaving leaving space
00:53:10.260 --> 00:53:13.060
for enchantment that sometimes the best thing
00:53:13.060 --> 00:53:16.340
we can do as a magician is to create to create
00:53:16.340 --> 00:53:19.700
the the the doorway of enchantment and allow
00:53:19.700 --> 00:53:22.420
somebody to walk through in their own time and this moment where you
00:53:22.420 --> 00:53:25.080
where i'm holding my hand and say you know tell me when
00:53:25.080 --> 00:53:28.080
you feel this i'm just waiting because now
00:53:28.080 --> 00:53:31.360
their expectation is going to find an answer and they'll
00:53:31.360 --> 00:53:34.500
go oh my goodness me i felt it and of course then all
00:53:34.500 --> 00:53:37.440
i'm doing is i'm opening the box up they're removing the card
00:53:37.440 --> 00:53:40.240
the moment they remove the card the deck is loaded and i
00:53:40.240 --> 00:53:43.100
put it straight back on top of the drink and now we finish
00:53:43.100 --> 00:53:45.880
up with just the tilt move and you know this
00:53:45.880 --> 00:53:50.080
time and again with the tilt move just a lovely bit you should save this for
00:53:50.080 --> 00:53:55.960
only fans yeah yeah the the tilt move is really interesting because like when
00:53:55.960 --> 00:53:59.900
you when you're here and you do the tilt move a lot of the time we just do this
00:53:59.900 --> 00:54:04.640
sort of reveal you know you've you've you've put it in the deck and then the deck vanishes.
00:54:05.300 --> 00:54:13.480
But if you transfer to this hand and separate as you draw the attention and you ask a question.
00:54:14.926 --> 00:54:21.646
Then you can create the vanish of the deck in a very open space so that it's
00:54:21.646 --> 00:54:27.346
not until you go, I tell you what, would it be even better if we could make the entire pack vanish?
00:54:27.586 --> 00:54:31.866
And it's only then that the audience becomes aware.
00:54:31.966 --> 00:54:36.306
And it's so far away from the body that it kills.
00:54:36.306 --> 00:54:39.266
You know there's a magician here
00:54:39.266 --> 00:54:42.526
in the uk a young magician charlie hewlish who's
00:54:42.526 --> 00:54:45.646
going to be absolutely a big name in
00:54:45.646 --> 00:54:50.626
in sort of another five or so years and he he pointed something out to me and
00:54:50.626 --> 00:54:57.166
i was so angry because i'd done it myself repeatedly and i hadn't joined the
00:54:57.166 --> 00:55:05.606
dots and it's half a top change so the amount of times when i've done a top change that that i've.
00:55:06.486 --> 00:55:11.506
Either not taken the card back and ended up with two in the early days of learning
00:55:11.506 --> 00:55:17.346
or I've not got a grip on the second card and I've taken everything away and
00:55:17.346 --> 00:55:23.086
you just think oh it didn't work it failed and then and Charlie said to me why
00:55:23.086 --> 00:55:25.826
didn't you just use it as a vanish and I went,
00:55:26.326 --> 00:55:30.966
oh my goodness me that is gold that is insane and I now use this as a vanish
00:55:30.966 --> 00:55:36.406
all the time If ever I have a card that's been selected, and I'll say, that was your card.
00:55:36.546 --> 00:55:39.386
I tell you what, would you be really amazed if we could make it vanish?
00:55:39.906 --> 00:55:45.706
Oh, my God. In the context of the performance, that is a killer because it's here.
00:55:45.866 --> 00:55:50.666
You steal it away as you gesture, and then you just bring your attention back on the vanish.
00:55:51.966 --> 00:55:57.146
Holy crap. That is so good.
00:55:57.506 --> 00:55:59.986
I use it for card under watch.
00:56:00.706 --> 00:56:03.646
So i i will say to somebody sign a card
00:56:03.646 --> 00:56:06.626
and this and i'll take it back and i'll say oh let
00:56:06.626 --> 00:56:09.466
me ask you a question if i could make the card vanish how would that
00:56:09.466 --> 00:56:12.506
feel and boom and and
00:56:12.506 --> 00:56:16.206
you're done it's gone it's on the top of the deck it's really easy then to mercury
00:56:16.206 --> 00:56:21.126
card fold do your load however you want to present it but that moment of vanishing
00:56:21.126 --> 00:56:26.206
it just by stealing it away with it with half a top change it's i've i've had
00:56:26.206 --> 00:56:30.466
unbelievable amounts of fun with that And as I said,
00:56:30.566 --> 00:56:37.526
the annoying part was I'd done it repeatedly in the last 25 years by accident,
00:56:37.526 --> 00:56:39.126
and I'd never joined the dots.
00:56:39.526 --> 00:56:44.186
Charlie Heulish, thank you so much for that absolute piece of gold. Thank you, Charlie.
00:56:44.626 --> 00:56:47.866
God, thank you, Charlie. That is ridiculous. This is very good.
00:56:48.486 --> 00:56:52.986
You like this a lot. Wow. You can just have so much fun.
00:56:53.146 --> 00:56:58.826
I mean, holy crap. And then the idea of it having vanished and then is under their watch.
00:56:59.126 --> 00:57:03.326
You know, things like that is, is, and then obviously under the box and,
00:57:03.406 --> 00:57:07.826
and, and the idea of doing the exchange to the other hand.
00:57:08.822 --> 00:57:14.602
With the tilt move, that's kind of like the deck going under the box moment,
00:57:14.782 --> 00:57:18.982
where you're so far, it's seemingly further away from it, and they just look
00:57:18.982 --> 00:57:21.802
and notice now, like it was out in the open the whole time.
00:57:22.022 --> 00:57:24.922
You've basically created that moment in the hands now.
00:57:25.382 --> 00:57:30.702
That moment is so often mishandled. Well, again, that's because understanding
00:57:30.702 --> 00:57:33.362
how the human mind works,
00:57:33.602 --> 00:57:41.262
that your vision is mostly, most of your vision is generated by your mind.
00:57:41.262 --> 00:57:44.262
It's not actually generated by your optical nerve at all.
00:57:44.782 --> 00:57:49.402
Almost, you know, most of what you see is your mind projecting the illusion
00:57:49.402 --> 00:57:53.662
to fill in literal holes in your vision, blind spots in your vision,
00:57:53.782 --> 00:57:56.842
or more putting into focus stuff that's not in focus.
00:57:56.842 --> 00:58:05.902
So you know again an awful lot of what i do makes use of that fact that the brain will.
00:58:07.382 --> 00:58:10.362
Hallucinate repeatedly you know it's that classic thing
00:58:10.362 --> 00:58:15.102
of if you if you've got no if you've already done a steal of a coin the best
00:58:15.102 --> 00:58:18.882
thing you can do after you've you know once you've you've done your fake transfer
00:58:18.882 --> 00:58:22.202
and you've ditched the coin or whatever the best thing you can do with that
00:58:22.202 --> 00:58:29.462
hand is to toss it to the other hand is to throw nothing across because in throwing nothing across.
00:58:30.002 --> 00:58:33.322
Your audience will almost certainly
00:58:33.322 --> 00:58:40.062
and almost always hallucinate the movement of the coin so so their brain is
00:58:40.062 --> 00:58:43.722
doing all of the heavy lifting when it comes to vanishing it you know it's the
00:58:43.722 --> 00:58:47.162
same as if you hold a coin i haven't got one but if you hold a coin you say
00:58:47.162 --> 00:58:50.522
say somebody hold your hand out show them the coin you go you can see it yes
00:58:50.522 --> 00:58:52.402
and they go yeah and then you when
00:58:52.522 --> 00:58:55.802
you tap it on their hand, you don't tap the coin, you reach your thing,
00:58:56.082 --> 00:59:00.062
your own finger forwards, and you tap your fingertip on their hand.
00:59:00.122 --> 00:59:03.882
So you can see it and you can feel it. Yeah, you see it and you feel it.
00:59:04.222 --> 00:59:08.242
So what you're doing is you're conditioning your own finger sensation to be the same as the coin.
00:59:08.522 --> 00:59:12.442
So now you can, you can ditch the coin, you know, pitch and ditch or whatever.
00:59:12.962 --> 00:59:16.522
And then you then you can come back and go, you can still feel the coin.
00:59:16.662 --> 00:59:19.642
And they'll say yes, because they can so now when you vanish the
00:59:19.642 --> 00:59:23.162
coin their brain knows it was there it's
00:59:23.162 --> 00:59:26.282
it's not a if or but or maybe their own
00:59:26.282 --> 00:59:29.322
their own senses fully convince them
00:59:29.322 --> 00:59:32.382
that this experience is real so now if
00:59:32.382 --> 00:59:35.342
you if you've thrown you know you've you've thrown nothing across but
00:59:35.342 --> 00:59:38.042
they've hallucinated the movement and then you tap it
00:59:38.042 --> 00:59:41.082
on their hand and then you vanish it there's no
00:59:41.082 --> 00:59:44.902
way that they're gonna they're gonna backtrack to to the moment that it went
00:59:44.902 --> 00:59:48.622
they can't because their own brain is fooling the living daylights out of them
00:59:48.622 --> 00:59:53.022
and my final comment and i've used this before on this subject is our magic
00:59:53.022 --> 00:59:57.842
our job as magicians is not to fool people it's to give people all of the ingredients
00:59:57.842 --> 00:59:59.142
they need to fool themselves.
01:00:00.216 --> 01:00:04.536
What a mic drop. Mic drop. I've done so many air horns this episode.
01:00:04.816 --> 01:00:06.496
But for good, all for good reason.
01:00:06.796 --> 01:00:11.936
Do you understand why he's my hero? Do you get it? That's crazy.
01:00:13.156 --> 01:00:16.296
Do you understand, people? So great.
01:00:16.796 --> 01:00:20.776
I mean, I appreciate your humbleness, and I can totally appreciate what you
01:00:20.776 --> 01:00:24.676
mean when you say the person you are when you perform and so forth.
01:00:24.696 --> 01:00:29.316
There's a reason why I'm Nick K when I'm performing and I'm the other Nick when
01:00:29.316 --> 01:00:34.676
I'm not. And I've said this in the podcast many a times where we were talking
01:00:34.676 --> 01:00:36.336
about like, you had nine gigs this week.
01:00:36.636 --> 01:00:39.256
Are you over it? And it's like, it's the only time I'm happy.
01:00:39.976 --> 01:00:44.016
I may as well live in a coffin and let it rise up an hour before my gig and
01:00:44.016 --> 01:00:45.396
I have time to shower and get there.
01:00:45.916 --> 01:00:49.156
And then I'm happy. And then when I'm done, I may as well go home to my coffin
01:00:49.156 --> 01:00:53.616
because there was just nothing else to live for. There's nothing that fills my cup as much as this.
01:00:53.736 --> 01:00:57.376
So I can totally empathize when you say that. And we can say that in this forum
01:00:57.376 --> 01:00:58.436
because we are a community.
01:00:59.016 --> 01:01:03.096
Most of the guys that listen to us here reach out to us and say,
01:01:03.236 --> 01:01:04.836
hey, I just performed my first gig.
01:01:05.036 --> 01:01:10.796
And it's through listening to you guys for so many episodes that I have the courage to do that.
01:01:10.956 --> 01:01:14.616
And we jam on Discord and so forth. So when you look at your work and you say
01:01:14.616 --> 01:01:18.276
things like, what I do isn't important, or it's not that, you know,
01:01:18.316 --> 01:01:18.976
it doesn't particularly matter.
01:01:19.256 --> 01:01:25.456
I will say this, that if you hadn't done what you done and even shared what you shared here,
01:01:25.456 --> 01:01:28.196
like you wouldn't have influenced me to
01:01:28.196 --> 01:01:31.256
be the guy I am today and to share my magic that I do number one
01:01:31.256 --> 01:01:34.296
and number two there's probably you've probably
01:01:34.296 --> 01:01:38.296
given birth to another bunch of magicians in this podcast alone
01:01:38.296 --> 01:01:45.016
and that is just something that you don't have to feel anything for you don't
01:01:45.016 --> 01:01:50.476
have to feel responsible for or gratitude or maybe even apologize for but one
01:01:50.476 --> 01:01:56.936
thing that we can say to you is thank you. That's all we want to say. Thank you.
01:01:58.083 --> 01:02:02.123
100% a pleasure 100% just
01:02:02.123 --> 01:02:05.223
because somebody's written a question which i have literally just noticed
01:02:05.223 --> 01:02:10.923
david russell hi dave has put what is james's number one tip on practicing and
01:02:10.923 --> 01:02:17.383
my number one tip is is is do it just is that's it i think that one of the you
01:02:17.383 --> 01:02:20.203
know one of the things about magic is you do require an audience and there's
01:02:20.203 --> 01:02:23.143
only so far that bedroom practicing you know
01:02:23.203 --> 01:02:25.963
mirror practicing will will get you but if you
01:02:25.963 --> 01:02:29.283
if you if you do if when
01:02:29.283 --> 01:02:32.263
if you are going to practice a routine before you go
01:02:32.263 --> 01:02:35.303
out and start performing it my advice
01:02:35.303 --> 01:02:38.283
would be to to do for
01:02:38.283 --> 01:02:42.103
what i call 4d practicing in other words stand
01:02:42.103 --> 01:02:45.063
up practice three you
01:02:45.063 --> 01:02:47.823
know three dimensionally as if you know in
01:02:47.823 --> 01:02:50.823
with full movement as if there's a real audience and and
01:02:50.823 --> 01:02:53.723
and picture them picture where they are picture how they're.
01:02:53.723 --> 01:02:56.843
Responding and practice practice the whole
01:02:56.843 --> 01:03:00.183
thing rather than just the move because if
01:03:00.183 --> 01:03:03.223
you practice the move you'll get really good at this
01:03:03.223 --> 01:03:06.043
bit here but not this bit up here and it
01:03:06.043 --> 01:03:10.363
and i would i would always say you know loosely use
01:03:10.363 --> 01:03:13.063
the that use the 80 20 rule in when
01:03:13.063 --> 01:03:15.843
you're constructing an act and by what but
01:03:15.843 --> 01:03:19.843
by that what i mean is 20 of
01:03:19.843 --> 01:03:22.703
the time your audience should be looking at your hands
01:03:22.703 --> 01:03:25.583
and what you're doing 80 of the time should
01:03:25.583 --> 01:03:28.403
be engagement up here and the only reason that you're getting
01:03:28.403 --> 01:03:31.303
them to look down is to give them another piece
01:03:31.303 --> 01:03:34.083
of ingredient to to to help the
01:03:34.083 --> 01:03:38.443
puzzle be built but but yeah basically
01:03:38.443 --> 01:03:41.303
if they're staring at your hands or
01:03:41.303 --> 01:03:45.503
you know the deck of cards or whatever the entire time then you're
01:03:45.503 --> 01:03:48.823
that's probably because of the way you've been practicing more than
01:03:48.823 --> 01:03:52.863
anything else so you know practice practice
01:03:52.863 --> 01:03:55.903
four dimensionally as it were and and
01:03:55.903 --> 01:03:58.943
and make sure that you understand that the magic the magic
01:03:58.943 --> 01:04:01.943
is going to happen up here in in in the
01:04:01.943 --> 01:04:05.923
in the engagement between you and them and ultimately it's going to happen in
01:04:05.923 --> 01:04:11.103
their mind so yeah i only i only really want you looking at the cards because
01:04:11.103 --> 01:04:14.923
in that moment it's giving you all the coins or whatever it's giving you a little
01:04:14.923 --> 01:04:19.683
bit of ingredient the rest of the time i want i want you up here with me.
01:04:20.238 --> 01:04:23.038
Yeah. Because that's where the engagement takes place. Bloody hell.
01:04:23.278 --> 01:04:28.618
If you ever do, you know, a live Q&A finesse session with James Brown,
01:04:28.838 --> 01:04:32.658
I will sign up to that in a heartbeat because this is all so good.
01:04:33.058 --> 01:04:37.698
This stuff is amazing. Thank you again. You know, like someone said in the comment,
01:04:37.838 --> 01:04:40.038
this should be a three hour Rogan podcast. Absolutely.
01:04:40.338 --> 01:04:44.098
But James has stayed up specifically in the UK.
01:04:44.438 --> 01:04:48.678
It's probably 1am now for him. And, you know, we thank you so much for coming on.
01:04:49.218 --> 01:04:54.378
Before we sign off and give James the final word just a quick next week we have Mr.
01:04:54.538 --> 01:04:58.658
Masato joining us on the podcast and
01:04:58.658 --> 01:05:03.718
Doug was the first to get this we have just a festive mug out at the moment
01:05:03.718 --> 01:05:07.818
if you want to give them a little look at that that is available on our website
01:05:07.818 --> 01:05:13.238
right now the Magic Guys Christmas mug we have about seven of them going out
01:05:13.238 --> 01:05:15.658
to it's an excellent mug we like it a lot.
01:05:16.838 --> 01:05:22.218
We have we have about 10 or so going out to our friends that ended our comp
01:05:22.218 --> 01:05:23.198
in the discord last week.
01:05:23.318 --> 01:05:26.138
But anyway, they are available, but look, this is, this is amazing.
01:05:26.278 --> 01:05:30.638
I'm, this is one of the episodes I'm like looking forward to listening back to straight away.
01:05:30.778 --> 01:05:34.318
Cause there was some such gold moments about double cross and vanishes and,
01:05:34.378 --> 01:05:38.118
and thoughts and so good. So anyway, I'll stop talking.
01:05:38.378 --> 01:05:41.618
We're going to thank James. All of his links are in the description below.
01:05:41.838 --> 01:05:44.638
And we're going to leave James with the final word.
01:05:47.558 --> 01:05:56.858
My final word is that magic has the power to really help us engage as human
01:05:56.858 --> 01:06:03.238
beings and to bring much needed joy to the world that we live in.
01:06:03.558 --> 01:06:08.838
And I don't think there's ever been a time where more joy, more kindness,
01:06:08.838 --> 01:06:13.378
more human connection has been as important as it currently is.
01:06:13.378 --> 01:06:16.178
So if you are a magician get out
01:06:16.178 --> 01:06:19.718
of your bedrooms get from behind the camera and go
01:06:19.718 --> 01:06:23.098
and create joy create connection because
01:06:23.098 --> 01:06:26.138
what we do does matter not in
01:06:26.138 --> 01:06:29.358
the tricks not in the in the ownership of
01:06:29.358 --> 01:06:36.898
of magic solutions and ideas but in the fact that we can genuinely create moments
01:06:36.898 --> 01:06:45.798
that make people feel better about who they are that'll do thanks for listening
01:06:45.798 --> 01:06:48.698
it's time for us to disappear now,
01:06:50.058 --> 01:06:54.638
but we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.