Hi all. I recently had an experience where I was performing a trick involving the DL for my colleague. After I had placed the top card on the table, she said that she did not believe it and she reached over and grabbed the cards in my hand (not the one on my table). She immediately turned over the top card there while I was too stunned to react. Needless to say, having just picked up magic not too long ago and not being too experienced in performing, it was a slight blow to my confidence. I did not think i 'zao geng' while doing the sleight as I had sufficient practice already.

I have two questions:

The first question I want to ask is how can I deal with hecklers who do not stick to comments but instead physically disrupts the process of the trick by touching my props?

The second question I want to ask is how can I deal with hecklers who keep insisting they want to see both hands? For example, the routine where the ropes become of equal length (not sure the name of the routine)?

Thanks for the replies. Appreciate your help. Also, I want to apologise if what I am asking is repeated. Thanks. =)

[COLOR=red]You don't have to be describe the tricks in such details... most of us would understand what you are talking about

Hey,

It's probably quite difficult for us to give comments other than anything general unless we actually see you performing in action. It could be issues with your presentation or routine that leads the spectator to suspicion.

A spectator who does something like that is not necessarily a heckler, rather, the person just wants to confirm the suspicion. To quote Shade (hopefully without misrepresentation), we often give our audiences less credit for their intelligence than they really have.

In fact, there are probably times when the spectator probably suspects what's going on or sees something but is too polite to mention it.

First, you should make sure that in performing, both your presentation and effect structure should not invite suspicion, if there's such a possibility, structure the effect in a manner to dispel suspicious notions. For example, there should be logical, sensible reasons for why you're turning a card face down.

When I first started, I was always very scared to perform because I would get really bad nerves (I still do!) and telegraph my actions a lot resulting in drawing unnecessary suspicion. Needless to say, I got challenged a great deal and experienced a lot of "heckler" issues.

Technique and presentation plays an important role. You may not be fumbling but because of nervousness about your own technique, you may inadvertently telegraph that "something" is happening to your audience. This can come in the form of giving your hands undue attention during execution or hesitating/pausing at unnatural moments and thus disrupting the performing flow or even shaking when the time for execution arrives. These can all be picked up and we're sometimes unaware of these ourselves. So body language is really important. Execution should seem like second nature.

Rather than shifting the blame onto the spectator heckling, think about your own performance first and foremost. What could have been improved, your presentation, technique, etc? What is it that you did that might have went wrong? Why did the person have such a suspicion? Can you do anything to remove it? Is there something inherently weak in the structure of the effect?

Hope this helps. All the best!

From your description, I think it was because your effect is too "linear", or rather the structure (as what Jlow had said) of your effect is too linear.

Eg: A basic coin vanish. Anybody who doesn't suspect the whereabouts of the coin must be pretty naive. But if you did a few things in between and throw them off the track, it is impossible for them to backtrack to the method.

If you (I am assuming here) did a DL and went staight into doing a change, it was not too difficult for anybody to guess what happened, even though they might not know EXACTLY how.

Yes, I can write a lot, but many times we would still make the same mistakes. Just be conscious of it and make some improvements.

Read Designing Miracles. It should give you some ideas.

I do not know what is your definition of you have sufficient practice so its kind of hard to see where exactly went wrong. But lets just assume that DL and all are well excuted for your case.

This is what I feel personally.

Technique is definitely to core criteria to magic, without technique you can't even do magic. After which would be presentation. In fact I would even rate technique and presentation at the same level in term of importance. Since your technique is fine (as assumed), problem could lies in your presentation. When you are performing your stuff are you interesting enough to get them to be involed in your 'story'? Such that at least 50% of their attention is on your 'story'. If you have failed to do so, they would most likely focus more of their attention to your hand, waiting to see the loopholes or trying to crack your trick. That could be where you have gone wrong. A good presentation would contribute to a certain degree of misdirection thats for sure, which ACR would need a fair bit of it.

It is tough to tell you how to work on presentation here, I feel that it is a huge knowledge by itself. Check out more books.

As for hecklers, what I personally feel is that you just have go to field, fall down more often and you will learn. (I know it is not very helpful but its true). From there you will find out what are the stuff that most hecklers would do and you will know how to avoid them in future if you meet the same kind.

Hihi!

Thanks for all your replies and opinions. I think I will concentrate on working on my presentation. Might be that that causes suspicion. Will work on presentation. =)

Also, I will alter my posts next time so that not so much is revealed. Sorry about that and thanks for editing and understanding.

Firstly! Don't let this experience stop you from growing!

1) Presentation

You have to be very confident with yourself. Always think that you are the best. Keep talking.

2) Trick

Like Axl pointed out, structure is important. We can't just call a classic vanish a "trick". It doesn't work alone. Thats why i spent so much time on my handwash.

3) Audience

Although we all start performing to friends, someday you learn that you should not do tricks for friends or family. Unless of course its one of which you "perfected"

Lastly, do your tricks out the next time the magicians meet! And they'd be able to spot whats right and whats wrong. :lol:

Keep it up!

My advice:

Presentation is only part of it, the main problem is that most people who perform do not educate their audience that they're trying to entertain them, which will cause the audience to react in this way.

Audience who knows you're entertaining them and not trying to fool them will not try to be funny when you're doing a trick - due to the fact that they ALREADY know it's an entertainment...

If you educate them before you start perfroming, and they still trying to be funny, they're either just plain rude or they are hecklers...

In my humble opinion, i did experience almost the same things. But wasnt as stunned and managed to improvise and get away with it.

I think its because the props are too near to the audience, they tend to reach for it, keep a safe distance away and keep the "heat" away from the...eh...lets say, if you switched the card, you should keep the "heat" away from the place where the original card is ( i hope i am not too confusing) , by either using sound ( in this case, after you do the DL and take the "card" out, flick it a few times to attract attention and pull the deck away from the audience and out of reach.

Also, do the moves smoothly and make eye contact ( thats really important :P )

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/28278904#28278904

You don't want to be like him....lucky he did not screw up that badly