When doing coin tricks where lapping is required, I have to put a handkerchief on my legs. My legs have a huge gap and coins will ALWAYS fall through. Anyone else have a different solution for this?
Mr. Skinny Legs

That _is_ the solution.

That, or if one is present, pulling a tablecloth up onto your lap.

Lesson learned: Only perform lapping routines in restaurants that have cloth napkins or long tablecloths.

You could also try holding an aspirin between your knees, but I think that's for another problem.

A strict diet of Pizza, ribs, burgers and Beer might solve the skinny leg problem
but mostly, a large cloth table napkin of "fancy dining" ilk should help you out.

You can pull a piece of your left (right) trouser over onto your right (left) trouser, making a cloth "pocket" in between your two legs. I don't know where I learned this (Bobo?). I don't know if I'm explaining it right either.

Slydini taught that, however that was back in the day when magicians wore dress pants that were cut quite a bit larger than virtually all pants today.

Are you saying that you can do this with your pants, Ray?! (I don’t have any jeans that would even come close!)

Jim

Jim,

I don't wear jeans, and yes, with the pants I wear, I can do this. I'm also quite skinny, but I think people still wear pants that are not skin tight and have enough slack in them that this can be done.

Ray

Ray, I respectfully disagree that people generally wear the type of pants that allow this solution. Most magicians today - if they lap at all - either use a cloth napkin or just keep their legs pressed tightly together. For the most part, only suit pants - cut full - would allow that method.

Of course a nice servante on the table's edge, or attached to the back end of a close-up mat, works very well.

Jim

Well, Jim, I also respectfully disagree. Many people wear pants that have enough slack in them to be able to pull a bit over on to the other leg, keeping their legs pressed together, of course. It doesn't have to be a lot. Just enough to cover the space between two legs pressed together.

Servantes are a whole other matter.

Yea People Are AGE !!!

Cross your legs - problem solved.

Crossing the legs reduces the area for things to land on and reduces the flatness of that area, making it more likely things will roll to the floor.

Are suddenly everyone walking around with skin-tight pants and I haven't noticed it? The amount needed to pull a small amount of cloth on to the other leg to cover the gap between the legs and prevent things from falling through is not very much. It's an old technique that may have been easier at one time because of the styles of clothes prevalent in the past--looser-fitting clothes--but not impossible with today's styles, unless one is wearing skin-tight jeans or the like.

I wear jeans often and none are tight, let alone "skin-tight". BTW you brought up that term, not me. Yet no trousers I own will allow material from one leg to "over on to the other leg". Let's face it - they would have to be pretty baggy!

Personally I use cloth napkins that I alter by sewing a pocket along the length of both sides (L & R), and the front and back edges have rolled pieces of another napkin, creating a kind of "wall" of fabric. Also a piece sewn in the center to keep coins from sliding/rolling into each other and making noise. When done I fold it over itself twice and carry it away without fear of any coins dropping out.

Jim

I disagree with you all. I still rock my pair of MC Hammer Pants. STOP.......Hammer Time

Well, you know what Confucius says: "He who wears skin-tight pants sings in the upper registers."

Thanks for the replies. Apparently, what I'm doing is fine. Crossing the legs is also OK if I'm just lapping one coin, but doing a "coins through the table" routine requires a lot of lapping and trips with the right hand under the table - so I'll continue to use the napkin on the lap.

I move my knees slightly to the right or left. This causes the knees to not touch next to each other now and the gap between my legs disappears (I also push slightly together, but not as much as if they pointed forward). Does this not work for anybody else?

Yea I think That is Close to what Slydini Would Do! He would set a little to one Side!

The problem with using a napkin is getting it surreptitiously on and then off your lap.

Now What Slydini Said to Do was Do 2 or 3 Things That did Not Use Laping. Then Have A Hank or Napkin In your Inside Coat Pocket! Then take It out To wipe Your forehead Then Put it Back, And steal it Back Out As You take your hand Back of the Coat. And drop it your Lap As the hand Comes Back out! Then as after you finish Grab It Back out of Your Lap and As you reach Back into Your Coat For it, To wipe You hands On at the end!

Yes, that works, if you are wearing a jacket and are doing more than one trick.

I guess, from my point of view, the only trick I do using the above-mentioned technique is coins through table, which I never do in a formal show, only as an impromptu, stand-alone effect. I'm usually not wearing a jacket and borrow four quarters to do the effect.

The business I was referring to above is found on p. 194 of the hardcover edition of Bobo, upper left-hand column. He refers to it as an "improvised servante," right-hand column.