👀 Spot the misdirection
🐰 Misdirection is the most famous secret in magic, and it isn't about being fast. It's about where everybody is looking. Three questions on how it works, then five rounds: which trick is the misdirection one?
Flick is getting the questions ready…
The answers, and why
People look where… You look. People look where you look.
Is misdirection about being really fast? No: it's about where eyes go. Misdirection is not about being fast. It's about deciding where everyone's eyes go. If you look hard at your right hand, every person in the room looks at your right hand, and your left hand can do absolutely anything.
Which of these moves everybody's attention? Asking somebody a question. Three things move attention: your own eyes, a question ("What's your name?"), and something bigger than the secret happening somewhere else. Tearing paper loudly works because ears pull eyes.
Which of these tricks is all about misdirection? (Round 1) 🪽 The Floating Pencil. In The Floating Pencil, your other hand is holding your wrist to steady it, and its pointer finger has quietly stretched up behind your fist to hold the pencil in place.
Which of these tricks is all about misdirection? (Round 2) 👻 The Ghost Pencil. In The Ghost Pencil, a short pencil is tucked under the band of your watch or hair tie, lying across your palm. It holds the real pencil against your hand, and nobody ever looks at a wrist.
Which of these tricks is all about misdirection? (Round 3) 🎗️ The Haunted Rubber Band. In The Haunted Rubber Band, when you close your fist, you quietly slip all four fingertips inside the first band. Opening your hand lets it snap onto whichever two fingers you choose. The cage never moves, and it never has to.
Which of these tricks is all about misdirection? (Round 4) ✏️ The Vanishing Pencil. In The Vanishing Pencil, on the way up between taps, your hand goes up beside your head, and on the second time up you leave the pencil tucked behind your ear. Everybody is watching the table, so nobody sees it go.
Which of these tricks is all about misdirection? (Round 5) 🙃 The Upside-Down Card. In The Upside-Down Card, before you start you quietly turn the bottom card of the deck the other way up. When you turn the deck over to spread it for them, the whole deck is secretly face up with one card face down on top, so the card they push back is the only one going the wrong way.