I use it a lot. It doesn't matter if I'm dealing with sponge balls, coins, or whatever.

What am I talking about? Why I'm talking about conditioning the spectator's mind, of course.

By that I mean, if you have an object in your right hand, and want to CONVINCINGLY seem to put it in your left hand, then instead of falsely transferring it on the first shot, instead, toss it back and forth between the hands three or four times, THEN do the fake move. This is strong psychology, and it is what causes them to believe you actually have the object in the hand that remains empty. Thus, the subsequent vanish should be more stunning.

Do you guys use this little ploy regularly?

Do you believe in it's effectiveness or do you believe the move is over-proving and can be dispensed with?

I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

Let's take the example of coins. The most important thing in my opinion is to seem to have natural movments. In a regular situation, if I am talking about a coin, I do not play too much with it, so I would only toss it one or two times, more would be too much. I always want to be as clear as possible, and the best thing is to have motivated motions, to have a reason to give your coin to the other hand. Like David Williamson, He has to take his wand, which is under his left arm, so he has to free his right hand. He does not pay any attention to this, because that's not important, people have to rememer where the coin is, not what action hapenned to the coin, I mean, they have to remember: "the coin was in the left hand, it vanished", and not "the coin was tossed into the left hand and vanished".

I do tend to toss the coin or ball up and down a little before a vanish, which helps to sell the move. One other note, particularly for newer magicians is to avoid saying too much. Don't do the "OK, I toss the ball into my right hand, now I will put it into my left and squeeeze and it vanishes." You should just show the ball in your right (which you just tossed there,) and then say "I give the ball a little squeeze, tap the wand, and it vanishes." Of course, while you are saying this, you false transfer the ball in order to grab the wand, which you then use to tap your left hand.

When it comes to coins, say doing a retention pass...

Keeping the coin in constant motion is what really makes the vanish beautiful. If you want an example, check out Mickey Silver's retention.

He has mastered the art of keeping the coin going, so that the vanish is smooth as silk.


Chris

I have viewed Mickey's wonderful demo video, and it is indeed a thing of beauty.