sorry, I only do limericks!

I want to thank everybody who gave me such wonderful feedback on my Ninja Ring routine.

Being present amidst such towering talent was very humbling. I am in awe of all of the lecturers and all the other magic that other people showed me. You are all way beyond anything I could ever aspire to.

Which made it all the more disconcertingly amazing to me that so many people said so such positive things about my Ninja Ring routine, and my ring-on-cord routine. Several of you said "That is the most beautiful ring routine I have ever seen!", which left me in shock. The moves are fairly standard, I just try to make them meaningful.

I want to publicly acknowledge a debt and gratitude to the following people who have helped me refine those two routines:

Ninja Rings:
=======
Shoot Ogawa (of course!)
Masahiro Yanagida
Manuel Muerte
Eugene Burger
Jeff McBride

Ring on Cord:
=========
Jay Scott Berry (Of course!)
Jeff McBride
Eugene Burger
Tobias Beckwith

And the Inner Circle of the Magic Garage.

-Kim

Kim,

It was great meeting you and a real treat watching you perform. I think every magician should think about their performance as well as you have obviously done. As they say; "The effect is what matters and presentation is everything"

Hope to see you again at the next GGG - we'll have to do the early morning breakfast again.

Kim

Your linking rings were truly amazing, the performance beautiful. I can not tell you what a pleasure it was to watch as you took me to a place of real magic.

Thanks

Kim, you were the highlight of the convention for me
Your magic is absolutely beautiful, thank you!


Mike

Kim,

I've seen Shoot do the Ninja Rings live and I must say you are a credit to both the effect itself and our fraternity as well!

Good onya mate,

Mike

Wow, I'm touched and humbled by your responses.

When I'm putting together a presentation for a routine, I try to ask myself "why am I doing this?". For example, after I first attended a Jay Scott Berry workshop I learned his method for releasing a ring from a cord, I was sitting at the kitchen table for Saturday breakfast doing the move, and asked my wife "this is so cool! But why on earth would I thread a ring onto a cord just in order to immediately pull it off again? Makes no sense!". So she suggested that they could be metaphors for life and problems, and getting released from problems in our life. That was my "Aha!" moment, and I took it from there. (with guidance and help from the masters I listed above).

So I try to treat the magic moves and effects rather like the illustrations in a book. They are not the point, not an end in themselves, but rather an almost-incidental illustration of what the script is talking about. I do try to not commit the habit of some bizarre presentations where there is a long-winded buildup to an eventual short effect. (reminds us of Viagra?) Instead I try to put my routines together in a way that the moves would stand by themselves if done silently, and at the same time the script would stand by itself even if the magic did not accompany it.

I think the subtext of ALL of our magic -- all the stuff that you all do much better than me! -- is "sometimes things do not turn out the way you expect!". That is a message of immense hope. All of us humans have times of great pain, times when we cannot see any good outcome from some set of events -- and magic reminds us that sometimes surprises happen, sometimes something we could never have anticipated comes out of left field and produces a totally unexpected outcome. Whether we present in a preachy way (the way I do) or in a lighthearted "look at what I can do! Ha ha, fooled you!" way, the subtext is always there regardless.

What a gift we have to give to our audiences! On a superficial level we might entertain them with our skill, but we are also showing them that there is always hope, no matter how dark things might seem!

I draw a lot from Cognitive Therapy for Depression for script ideas.