Magic Shop

Grown-ups

🎗️ The Jumping Rubber Band

Ooh, a good one. Here's what they'll see.

What your audience sees

A rubber band sits round your first two fingers. You show it from the front and the back, close your hand, open it again, and the band has jumped to your last two fingers. You can send it straight back.

  • ✨ Level 2: Conjurer
  • ⏱ 15 minutes to learn
  • ✏️ Everyday
  • 🎒 Ages 6+

A bit of setting up, or ten to twenty minutes of practice.

What you need

The secret

All tricks

Questions about this

How do magicians do their tricks?

Magicians use secrets. Some secrets are hidden objects, some are special ways of holding things, and some are clever maths. The biggest secret of all is attention: a magician gets you to look at one thing while the secret happens somewhere else. Then they practise until it looks like nothing at all.

How long does it take to learn a magic trick?

An easy trick takes five or ten minutes. A trick with a secret move takes a few days of practice. Here's the rule magicians use: practise until you can do it ten times in a row without looking at your hands, and then perform it.

More in Ask the Magician.

The Jumping Rubber Band Trick for kids: the whole trick

A rubber band sits round your first two fingers. You show it from the front and the back, close your hand, open it again, and the band has jumped to your last two fingers. You can send it straight back. It's a level 2 conjurer trick for ages 6 to 11 (grades 1st–5th), takes 15 minutes to learn, and needs one thing you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.

The secret

As you make a fist, you stretch the band open and tuck all four fingertips inside it. From the front nothing has changed. When your hand springs open the band flips itself onto the other two fingers.

What you need

  • A rubber band

How to do it

  1. Put the rubber band round the bottom of your pointer and middle fingers.
  2. Show your palm, then the back of your hand. Nothing hidden.
  3. Pull the rubber band towards you with your other hand, stretching it wide open.
  4. Close your hand into a fist and tuck all four fingertips inside the stretched band.
  5. Say your magic word and spring your hand wide open, fast.
  6. To send it back the other way, do exactly the same move again.

Magic words to say

“This is a nervous rubber band. It never stays where you put it. One magic word and it leaps. Ready? Boing!”

Pro tips

  • Keep the back of your fist towards your audience the whole time.
  • Open your hand fast. Slowly, the flip is visible; fast, it's a jump.
  • Once you can do it, add the second band lock from the Haunted Rubber Band and it becomes impossible.

If something goes wrong

If the band shoots off across the room, chase it and say it was more nervous than usual today. Then borrow another one, because you should always have two.

Safety notes

  • Practise in a mirror.
  • Only from the front.
  • No fire, no flames and nothing sharp in a child's hand anywhere in the Magic Shop. Nothing ever goes in a mouth, a nose or an ear.

What kind of trick is this?

🔀 Transposition. Something jumps from one place to another. Almost every trick ever invented is one of eight kinds, and knowing which one you're watching is how magicians work out how a new trick is done.

The skill it teaches: Practise like a pro. Ready means ten times in a row without looking at your hands. Perform it and it counts towards the Showstopper badge.

Questions about the jumping rubber band trick

How do magicians do their tricks?
Magicians use secrets. Some secrets are hidden objects, some are special ways of holding things, and some are clever maths. The biggest secret of all is attention: a magician gets you to look at one thing while the secret happens somewhere else. Then they practise until it looks like nothing at all.
How long does it take to learn a magic trick?
An easy trick takes five or ten minutes. A trick with a secret move takes a few days of practice. Here's the rule magicians use: practise until you can do it ten times in a row without looking at your hands, and then perform it.

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