Hi everybody,


I've never done a false transfer, but I have lots of good resources for learning to do such transfers with coins. Can anyone recommend a good source for learning to false transfer a ball? I don't know how different the two are, but I'm guessing that there is some difference because Al Schneider, in his book The Theory and Practice of False Transfers, deals with coins and balls separately. I want to learn some ball-and-vase (not cups-and-balls) routines, with hard balls not sponge balls. (Well, maybe sponge balls eventually, but one thing at a time!)


I learn best from people who explain moves in great detail, and Schneider's book certainly fills the bill, but it's almost *too* much -- intimidating for a beginner at this type of move. So I thought some of you folks could recommend a good source to start with that isn't *quite* so detailed. For the routines I have in mind, the balls will be half an inch or one inch in diameter.


Thanks for whatever help you can offer.


Regards,


Bob

The Schneider Basic Vanish works with any small object.

Many C&B books deal with false transfers other than the wand move, but I can think of none specifically focusing on these moves.
Check out Indian Cups and Balls too.

Look for small object manipulation to include dice, olives, sugar cubes and nuts. Any of these can apply to small balls.

Balls do allow for some sleights not possible with coins. Write me if you don't find what you want. We can do this one-on-one.

I like your suggestion to look for C&B books, Funsway, I hadn't thought of that. I have a pamphlet, and Michael Ammar's intro DVD. Also dice, olives, and nuts are in abundance in my house (not least among the nuts being my wife and me).


What are Indian Cups and Balls?


I'll probably PM you even if I find what I want, because I'm intrigued by your suggestion that some sleights are possible for balls but not coins. But let me look at what I have first.


Thanks,


Bob

Two highly accessible resources are both of Bill Tarr's lavishly illustrated books — Now You See It, Now You Don't; and The Second Now You See It, Now You Don't. Highly recommended.

For whatever it's worth: Eugene Berger mentioned in a lecture that he used the same retention-type vanish every time he needed to make anything disappear; ball, coin or whatever.

Julie

I would suggest that chosen technique is less important than having a reason for putting the ball in the other hand (or take).

The end result is a transportation to the vase not a vanish. You do not want observers to think "vanish" at all.

You put the ball in your pocket, or in the other hand or in bowl. It always returns to the vase.

So, the question is, "When I am doing the other hand phase, what is the best handling consistent with the general routine?"

The answer is to become proficient in variety of "here not there" techniques so that the best can be selected for the setting, audience and desired results.

The answer is that any method can work if the audience buys the transfer theme. None will work if you do a fancy vanish.

I think the original instructions with my Vase suggested a French Drop. Why not?

If you ever get a successful vanish you will have traveled a path.
You cannot see that path now.
However, once traveled you will see the path I have outlined will have the same steps your path will have taken.

Al Schneider

Thanks, everybody. I'll reply in detail tomorrow, but I just wanted to say that one of the ball and vase routines I want to learn is Michael Skinner's -- that's why I need a false transfer. I was racking my brains to remember whose it was. Then I relaxed and forgot about the issue, and it came to me.

Mike Skinner wrote about "The Bewildering Ball Vase" in Genii, the Conjuror’s Magazine, December, 1969 Volume 34. In 2008, Spellbinder published his e-Book on "Routines for the Hansen Egg Cup" in The Wizards’ Journal #16-05, still available at The Magic Nook: https://www.magicnook.com/WIZj16/WIZ16-05HansesEggCup.htm In his e-Book he includes photos of how the same moves apply to the old plastic Ball and Vase, which you may find useful. It's a lot easier to perform with a small ball than with a full size egg, but the principles are the same.

Thanks for all these riches, folks. A few comments:


Jim, I bought that ebook from you guys a few years ago. I loved reading it but it felt too advanced at the time. I'm going to look again. "Bewildering ball vase": that's the one! I have it in Skinner's notes, Intimate Magic. Unfortunately the accompanying photos are unintelligibly dark, but fortunately I also have a DVD that includes him performing the trick. (Apparently someone did some line drawings to make up for the bad photographic quality in the description of just that one effect, but I haven't been able to find them.)



Al, a question for you: Is it possible to study just the "ball" part of your Theory and Practice of False Transfers without first having gone through the "coins" part?
I like the elegant wording of your post-- cryptic at first, and then, on second reading, made perfect sense. As a mathematician, I appreciated its hint of recursion. And I've never doubted that if I were to go through your book carefully and do the exercises diligently, I'd have a really nice false transfer. I also have one of your DVD's and am impressed with the thought you've put into this move. It's beautiful, but, as I said, too much detail to take in the first time, for me at least -- kind of like trying to learn mathematical analysis before taking calculus. Finally, I'm honored to be the recipient of your 1001st post (especially from Wisconsin, a state that I love). Much of my love of the ball and vase comes out of the vase looking like something out of the 1001 Nights.



Ken, I see your point -- I can easily imagine that *any* false transfer would work if it's done competently, provided that the choreography was worked out carefully. I do have a few good sources for the French Drop -- in Ian Kendall's Basic Training, and a series of youtube videos by Aaron Fisher.



Julie, it's nice to hear from you after having seen evidence of your existence through many "Likes." I like the economy of using just one vanish (and I love to watch retention vanishes). Do you by any chance remember which lecture it was (if it was on a DVD and not live), and, if so, whether Burger taught the vanish he used?


Necromancer, can you bring my long-dead father back to life? I still miss him. --- Okay, maybe that was tasteless, but he was *my* father, so I thought it would be okay to ask. What I really wanted to say: I've heard many people rave about Tarr's book, and I do have a copy. But the overlapping drawings, which I guess are supposed to represent the the flow of a move over time, confuse me. Perhaps you can suggest a way to decode them?


Thanks once again to all. I really appreciate your generosity.


Bob

Bob
Allow me to give some history of my material.

When I lived in Minneapolis I rented a meeting room in a hotel every Monday. I taught magic there. The first class was on coin vanishes. Over six years I developed a method of teaching. People off the street would take the class and within two weeks did a vanish that matched mine. Sometimes better. The book The Theory and Practice of False Transfers is an attempt to duplicate the way the class was run. Included in the book are description of things many students would do wrong. As an after thought in the book I added information about ball vanishes.

I cannot tell you if going right to the ball vanish would work. Understand that in class I sat in front of the student and coached each step. In general, the student did not know what was coming next. To them, there was only one thing to be concerned with. I did not let them go on until a step was mastered. In defense of the material, I believe if the steps are done to boring and to completion, the student will learn a very good vanish in the shortest possible time. I have demonstrated this many times.

I cannot remember what I said about the ball vanish in the book. I have two ways to do it. Then there is a third way I have never written up. You can see it in the following video.

http://www.worldmagiccenter.com/MAGIC1/ROV/aaab0V.htm

It is called hardball at the end of the video.

Be glad to answer some other questions if they are not to complicated.

Al

Opps, I have another thought I wish to share.

The vanish and the way I teach it is not about a move. The move is simply moving the thumb. Most of the material is about training your mind and body to create the appearance of the coin in the mind of the audience. This is critical and most magicians will not get this. People of the street had no clue about standard magic tech and easily bought what I had to say.

Thanks for all this information and the video link, Al. As a teacher myself I was impressed by the care you had put into thinking about what students needed to do to learn a convincing vanish. So I'm not surprised that the book is based on six years of teaching. My take on what you're doing -- and I may have this wrong -- is that you're training students (whether readers or in person) to thoroughly act the part of someone who has moved the coin from one hand to the other. I'll give your book a try when sufficient time opens up to do it justice, and I appreciate your willingness to answer questions that can reasonably answered in a short space of time. I'll let you know how it goes for me.

Here's a related question that's always puzzled me. Why do people false-take the ball or coin into their *fist*? It works -- I've been fooled many times by videos of good magicians -- but isn't it unnatural? When we transfer a small object from one hand to the other in real life, don't we usually take the object into the fist, do we? Doesn't the receiving hand take the object with the tips of the thumb and first two fingers? (To check, I just moved a pen from one hand to the other, and what I just described is exactly what I found myself doing.)


The obvious follow-up is: Has anyone created a false transfer that mimics taking an object with the thumb- and finger-tips?


Thanks as always, folks.


Bob

Bob, try this: pick up a ball in your right hand. Realize that you want to pick up a pen that is a ways to your right, but you don’t want to have both the pen and the ball in the same hand. Put the ball in your left hand and pick up the pen.

No! Stop reading! Actually do what I described before you read any more. Try to do it in the most natural and casual way you can.

Did you pick up the ball in your fingers of your left hand or did you just dump the ball into your left palm and close your hand?

It is a difference between how we put a ball and how we take a ball.

As to your question about a fingertip transfer, if you have Mark Wilson’s Complete Course, see page 189. It is a false take of a coin. I think it could easily work for a small ball.

Patrick

Yup - and works best with a ball. Part of SWAY techniques called SwingPass. It is a false transfer rather than a fake one.

I developed this back in 90's for a routine using pebbles and later part of several C&B and Chop type with balls.
The ball at the two fingers of one hand is visibly taken by the fingertips of the taking hand.
The taking hand moves away and the hold hand shown empty because it is.
The taking hand apparently places the ball in a cup or pocket, whatever.
Never used for an immediate reveal of a vanish.

A 'DeepDrop Vanish' can be done as a fake take, and a SlotPass also under some conditions.

Unfortunately, Bob, these are best done by performers well versed in a variety of standard techniques. i.e. as an alternative method to avoid repeat actions.
When you can do a French Drop to perfection, then these refinements are possible.

I have shared these methods with folks over the years but are little used because they don't work with coins,
and performers want sleights useable in different venues. They fall in love with the "flash" property and can't escape.

Happy to chat when you are ready. Very glad you recognize the naturalness of the take over the place, but also its limitations in popular sleights.

However, history has shown that most spectators are oblivious to these refinements.
Since one quality of any good sleight is "never happened," you objective is that they never remember the ball changed hands at all.
Thus, your concern with "fist over fingers" can telegraph attention and lack of confidence.

"Natural" means identical movements with or without a ball, and with or without the sleight.
Start grabbing candy from a dish or olives from a tray with your fist and all will be well

Patrick, I followed your instructions. Believe it or not, I more or less did stop reading and tried the experiment. (Well, okay, I skimmed very fast first.) Interestingly, the ball ended up in a position -- well, it's a bit hard to describe. The ball was 1 inch in diameter. After the transfer, my hand was in a *loose* fist, and I was holding the ball, not in my palm, but near the web of my hand, between the thumb and index finger, lightly cradled by the lower part of my thumb, the pad of my index finger, and the side of the upper part of my middle finger. I hope you can visualize what I'm trying to describe. If I hold my left hand so that the palm is facing right, I can look down and see my thumb and index finger forming a ring around the the ball.


Not sure what to make of that, but I do see your point about balls vs. coins.


Funsway, in performing Patrick's experiment I would have used an olive (preferably black, because I love black olives) if I'd been down in the kitchen. Sadly, all I could find near my computer was a ball. So I had to settle for that.


The more I listen to magicians, the more I realize that they can get away with all kinds of things if they act like the don't care. I'm beginning to think that that's the biggest impediment to my progress in magic -- I *do* care, and I'm not good at hiding it. (Mind you, I am making progress.)


But it sounds like French Drop is a good place to start, and once I have that reasonably in hand (so to speak), I'll ask you about the techniques you've invented. And I'll look at Mark Wilson's book, as Patrick suggested.

"I 'do' care," is a positive attribute - please never loose that.

Might I suggest that the ideal place is at the end of the day when you review what has transpired and your part in that.

Ask "What did I learn from today's magic effort (practice/creativity/performance) that will make of me a better performer tomorrow?"
"What did I learn that will make of me a better person tomorrow?"

For you, the word "teacher" might substitute for "person."

Bob
You are absolutely right.
Most people do not cup their hand when receiving an object.

To cup the receiving hand is a subconscious flag indicating to the observer you are doing something unusual.
In my opinion, this detracts from the magic a lot. Many will disagree with me.

I have done many sequences where a coin is received at the finger tips.

However, there are ways to enable the cupped hand to be OK.

One is to weave it into the patter theme. For example, say, "I found this key lying in the path when I was walking through a forest." "I was thinking of my deceased father and decided to keep it forever." Then, toss the key into a cupped hand and close your fingers around it.

Another ploy is to use the move in the beginning of the performance several times. Really transfer things to the cupped hand. This trains the audience to assume that is your natural way of moving. Most magicians cup their hand when doing there first vanish. This instantly alerts the audience something is wrong. Note, the audience won't consciously note it. My game in magic is going deep into the mind of the audience where beliefs are formed.

Then another ploy is to tell the audience that holding a ball in a closed hand enables magic to happen. That is, draw attention to the oddity of the move. Here however, there must be other assumptions on the table

This was used in:

https://youtu.be/xvE0gTouogg

Well, later.

Al

To Ken and Al:


Ken, Caring and having open eyes and a sense of wonder are indeed good qualities. But they can also be painful, as I would guess you know well. I wouldn't have it any other way, though, and I'm sure you feel the same.


I appreciate the suggestion about meditating, in the evening, on what one has learned during the day. Not sure that a regular time would work for me, but it's worth thinking about.



Al, I'm really glad you're using your insights to create wonder rather than for some nefarious purpose! (I'm referring to your words, "My game in magic is going deep into the mind of the audience where beliefs are formed.") I watched your video, and it's beautiful. I have no idea how you did it, except that, in the context we're discussing, I have a feeling that it might involve false transfers.



I always thought I didn't like the Cups and Balls. Now I realize that I can like it with the right routine. Do you teach this routine anywhere? -- assuming it's anywhere near my reach at this early stage in my magical development.


I'm really touched by your scenario about the key. During the three years I've studied magic, mostly cards, my ideas have raced way ahead of my technical abilities and psychological understanding -- stories that I'd like to tell using magic, for instance. The "key" idea, or something like it, could become a piece of magic that might really move people.


I began magic at the age of sixty. Looking back I can see that the interest was latent ever since I was a kid, but for whatever reason I didn't start studying it seriously until recently. But here I am, with two years toward retirement, so with luck I'll have many years ahead of me to nourish this interest.


Best regards to you both,


Bob