Does anyone have a copy of James Coats' Mastering The Art Of Pick Pocketing? Pls give a review on it... Huron, I'm sure you must have seen it B)

hmmm... y? leaving ur job soon & taking an "indefinite break" after that? ;)

erm... its okay lah... aint that bad as PM has it... but singapore cannot do pickpocket magic... singaporeans harder to get close enough to touch... but the teaching in the DVD is good

Haha... Singaporeans hard to pickpocket? NO WAY! =p
Today I was quarantined after the physics practical. So I pickpocketed this guy... took his pen. Showed him "my magic pen".

"EH THAT'S MINE"
"Yeah look it bends"
And I proceed to do that ol' spoon bending thing on my thigh.
The guy gives a very blah look.
"Look it can bend in your hands too! Hold it!"
"Okay....nothing happened"

And so I took his watch. ^_^

If you wanna learn good pickpocketing, learn from James Freedman, get his "Stealing the Show" DVD. Why? Because he doesn't rape you like James Coats does. That's all you have to know.
If you want to learn good watchsteals, get the Chappy Brazil Watchsteal DVD.

These two things are the best material you can find on the subject.

The latest addition to the little genre of pickpocketing is "The Encyclopedia of Pickpocketing" by ...yes... once again James Coats and Nicolas Byrd. Reviews say are pretty alright, but there are no rave reviews. I might just pass on this one. The ad makes the DVD seem pretty comprehensive for me. But honestly, if you can truly "Master The Art Of Pickpocketing" with their first (crappy) DVD, then their 4 DVD encyclopedia must be pretty redundant. Haha... Just seems like more misleading advertising to me.

Therefore the verdict is... Ning, I do not recommend this. If you REALLY wanna watch it, I'll lend you my copy. Why? Because it sucks. :D

Huron

HURON, YOU DA MAN!!!!

LOL... can I just be your understudy or something? Geez, seriously, I've always been interested to learn watch stealing... works great if u can reproduce their items in a locked box or something *grin*

Don't remind me of 2001... :D :D :D
Anyways, I've been pickpocketing way longer than I've been doing magic. Pickpocketing is something that can't be studied like magic can, and you must play around with it, develop your own style and develop your own methods. It's through extensive, um, on-hands experimenting that you can improve your pickpocketing. I always had the tendency to steal (for fun) since what, 12 or 13 I think. Ask anyone in my class. :D

But I suck at watch stealing. It don't know if its the after-effect of having my own watch stolen off by Mr. H in 2001...

Oh, and I haven't done any pickpocketing for a while already, so you guys don't need to worry hanging around me. :D :D :D

Hm... were you guys caught for pickpocketing before?

HAHA yes... my pickpocketing isn't very good. I use a very Ricky Dunn style. Ricky Dunn is great... It's just me. So of course I've been caught... countless times...
But not for watchstealing! =p

Last Christmas I showed this girl a few magic effects... she asked...
"Hey can you like take things from people without them knowing?"
"Haha... you mean like this?"
And I showed her the watch on my wrist. :D
Felt Oh So Good.
She freaked... and went "Oh my god... steal my friend's watch. She's over there"
"I've never done that kinda watch before"
"Just try"

Hey, you never know if you don't try right? :)
So I went over there. Did a coin vanish. Made the coin vanish in her hands... and took her swatch.

"Watch.. watch... WATCH"
"OMG"

Watchstealing ROCKS.

Huron

Wow gee.....how "touchy" must you get with a girl before you can steal their watch?
Even worse if you are trying to pick their wallet hey? especially if it's in their back pocket, it would be a really really awkward to be caught with your hand in their back pocket hey...

"NONO....I wasn't trying to molest her butt.......i swear....i was just trying to steal her wallet!! NONONO....i'm not a thief! I was gonna give it back!! Honest officer!!"

Haha touchy? Well. Actually, not that touchy.
Just a little conditioning and you can steal it right away. Some people overdo the conditioning, and they become rapists. Muahaha...

"COME... DONT WORRY. I WONT EAT YOU" -grabs girl's hand-
"WATCH CAREFULLY... OKAY?" -touches her shoulder-
"THIS WILL BE OVER REALLY SOON" -grabs her wrist and tries to undo strap-
"OKAY DONT WORRY. CAN YOU SEE THE SPOON BEND?" -grabs wrist tighter. and tighter. Starts to twist arm.'
"OKAY I GUESS THIS WONT WORK TODAY. BYE" -lets go. walks away-

Now that's just scary. Avoid at all costs.

Just slight nudges, pulling their outstretched hand nearer to you. That's all you need. Haha I think ashes thru spec's fist is a great way to condition. There's motivation for touching their hands. Doing a two card transpo... or a spoonbend. These are the methods I usually use, and I use crushed pencil lead as an ash substitute if I'm really bored sometimes. :)

Huron

Dude... WHAT strap are you talking about? :blink:

Yeah, Huron is real uber at stealing people's timepieces. I had a chronosphere embedded in my spleen, and he stole that too. Damn, he's good.

Hey 'ron, maybe you can go around stealing people's kidneys, and that way do a favor to both the NKF, and the people who are brainwashed into calling "1900-112-6868" every time there's a damned charity show with weird stunts and vibrating decks.

Yeah H, go steal JC's vibrating deck too ;)

-Kev

Haha Jc's vibrating deck. I couldn't have phrased it better. But hey I didn't watch his performance so I can't judge. He rates himself 9.5 to 10/10 for his international magic presentation. Well. Haha... he's a nice guy. And. pretty. Modest.

Huron

can i learn watch steal from u oso ... i need a few franck muller lol

Watch Stealing?! I have always been interested since eons ago, lol. Anyone cares to give some resources on where and how to learn them??? Does Solomon has the Chappy Brazil DVD??? Thanks alot! :P


\/ampire...

huron, can please explain in more detail why the james coats dvd sucks? heard how much it does from lots of places, but i still have no idea why it sucks..

I think what Huron means is that it simply teaches the basics, which well, Huron being Huron, he needs something with more "oomph" :P Maybe if you ask him nicely he'll loan you the DVD :)

Yes, they did teach the basics, and just the basics, very very briefly. Hmm, so much for "Mastering the Art of Pickpocketing".

They barely touched on the psychology of the moves and the timing, and just 'did' the moves/steals/'magic'. The patter shown and taught while doing the effects made completely no sense, and they encouraged it, resulting in a very very dry 'performance'. They people were hardly impressed by what he was doing, just smiling and and commenting to be polite. I think the only guy who was extremely surprised was the drunk guy whose belt was stolen. And he was drunk.

So yes this DVD is good for the purpose of INTRODUCING the basic moves to you,
but if you really want to excel in the art of pickpocketing or watchstealing
, purchase Stealing The Show or the Chappy Brazil Watch Steal Video. Way, way better. :)

Huron

Yeah actually, that's true... most of the people in the video didn't look impressed. Btw, the stunt at the end with the straightjacket... was it a stooge job? It looked planted :P

Huron is right-on. I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be, looked more like they were feeling people up than pickpocketing them. Maybe they should rename it

"Mastering the Art Of Molesting"

Can you FEEL it? :D

-Kev