Lane999, your Canadian aren't you? Sorry if I took you aback. How is life in the monastery by the way? Don't worry, when you can take the pebble from the hand it'll be time for you to leave. But not yet I fear.
Ian, I'd Pm you my reply but I see you don't receive them?

Bobser.

Hi Ian,

Nice and very thoughtful post as usual. Regarding "Skills of the vagabond". I also do own a copy of it (got it years ago). It's a colourful books wich gives insight of different techniques of martial arts or to simulate these as Ian mentioned and also covers black magic, drugs, poison, etc. There are also some descriptions of great magic shows in there. Part of it was interesting to read.

At amazon there are supposed to be some used books available. Check it out.

Greetings
Thomas

I googled 'Skills of the Vagabonds' and the first site that came up was

http://www.wle.com/products/b280.html


Looks like an interesting book.

Psycho Joe

Just a follow up to my post above...

Skills of the Vagabonds II

http://www.kungfu-online.dk/shop/default.asp?ProductID=1550

The description of this one caught my eye. Part of the description as follows:

You will also be fascinated by the healing power of Chi-Kung, the "air palm" that snuffs out candles, Chi-Kung turning wine to water, the human electric conductor, body levitation Chi-Kung and teleportation.


Psycho Joe

Some vagabond skills including the no-contact punch are shown on mindbody and kickass programmes. The no-contact punch is known in martial arts circles as Ling Kong Jing, a speciality of Hsing I, of which Derren is not an expert I imagine!
I think it all makes for good material especially in its getting away from the usual Geller-centric style displays.

Nick.

Hello again Bobser,
sorry you don't think my communication skills are not my best attributes, but again my point is this, when someone takes a blow from the back they do not bend forward, so although it may have been nice for the telly, that part was not congruant with what was being portrayed, hence ham acting on the part of the martial artist if he even was a martial artist?, who knows? I don't, after all it was done for the telly & is part of the illusion.

As for Pro's probably knowing somethings that I don't at this time, not sure I agree with that one matey, when I started in this game best part of 30 years ago, I was told the diffrence between the hobbyist and the Pro was that the Hobbyist seeks new tricks to show the same people, and the pro seeks to perfect his working act by performing it time & time again to many diffrent people, therefore it was the hobbyist who knew much more that the Pro not the other way around......not much changes mate, I have friends who are still doing the same act 20 years later and still being booked for top doller.

Of course the obvious exception to this would be those who are involved with the TV, poeple like Copperfield, Brown, etc who need that to do the work they do....

hopeing my communcation is a bit better............

Dave

Ain't this the truth? LOL
TJ
:)

I understood Bruce Lee's 1-inch punch to be the '1-inch knockdown' i.e. he could hold his fist only a inch from your face and still hit you hard enough to knock you out. Wheras, Derren Brown's punch isn't supposed to touch the other person in a physical way.

The Bruce Lee forum! There is a 1 or 3 inch punch that will send you flying..also
a 1 or 3 inch punch where you stay where you are but your internal organs collapse!! There is a good docu. dvd called Bruce Lee,the warrior where you see him to his inch punch in about 1968 at Long beach.

I feel myself ebbing away here.
Dave, you're driving me insane!
But you also make me smile, so..... I'm going to PM you.

Bobser

Bruce Lee was an accomplished dancer and a Hong Kong Cha Cha champion.

Salsa-Dancer that is rubbish. For we all know that Richard Colley would have eaten Brucie alive!!!

Bobser
(we like the way he moves)

Sorry to revive this old thread. But I had a mate of my show me the kickass tv doc and saw the presenter use his chi energy to stand behind someone and bring them down whitout touching them. This seemed remarkably similar to Derrens trick used in his series and on The Messiah special. So I am lef to conclude that either some of these martial arts tricks (and I don't mean the 1 inch punch) are actually magic effcects or derren brown is a tai chi master. is there any publiched reference to the pk punch? Any martial artists out there think its possible to knock someone over without touching them using martial arts technique?

Personal opinion alert!

Some martial arts teachers are using the exact same methods as Derren Brown to give demonstrations that have little practical value in a self-defense/sporting context.

I daresay that Derren is a bit more aware of what's really going on than many of the guys teaching it.

That said, there are still brilliant PK ideas to be mined from Pushing Hands-type Tai Chi.

There is a guy called Chris Crudeli ( not sure if the sirname is spealy correctly ) who is a martial arts and esoteric force expert. He has a program called mind body and kick ass moves. I have seen him pull and push ( from behind ) a subject without touching him, very similar to what Derren did. I know one of the guys he did it to and he was no stooge. So it is possible.

Not all mentalism effects require a stooge, that doesn't mean they are "real" - that is the chap whose show my freind showed me. What I am wondering is, is there a method that perhaps some perfomers in the martial arts world perhpas aren't even aware theyre using? perhas they've convinced themselves thy are using chi or whatever when in reality there is much simpler explanation.

Yes: suggestion.

Look up dim mak and qigong on youtube...

Count Dante was probably the best at Dim Mak. With that, there are no secret forces but one can control another mind and actions.

In this specific DB effect, the explanation is even simpler (and it also starts with the letter "s" ).