Blog #2, 3/20: The Magic Behind the Magic

 We are officially on the second Blog post of the genius project. Between the time of the first and second blog of the Genius Project I have put a more specific focus on what goes on to make the magic work. This involves all of the manipulation techniques used in magic. This ended up with me looking into cognitive phycology and all the works within it.

This led me to one website that I found useful in explaining some of the cognitive techniques and how they are used in magic.

Link: https://kidsvue.pubpub.org/pub/magic/release/1#:~:text=In%20this%20paper%2C%20we%20will,and%20the%20vanishing%20ball%20illusion.

Cognitive Phycology:

There is a lot of brain science that ended up being behind some of the most simple card tricks. A lot more than I would have originally thought to. This all ends up surrounding controlling the direction in which the audience or whoever the trick is being done on is directing their attention. To break it down super simply, you make one thing move so that they get distracted and don't see the other thing move. This is exemplified by one of the images on this article that help explain one common trick.

In this trick, it uses your cognitive phycology to distract you from the movement of the card. This is done through the consistent waving movement of the hand. In doing this all of your attention is taken towards the steady movement of the hand. Suddenly, the magician will make a quick flicking movement that is out of the ordinary from the movement. This breaks your attention and causes an overall scramble in your brain that leaves you blind of what is happening. This temporary blindness allows the trick to work.

Despite sounding very simple, the window I am left with is still very tiny. Being able to complete tricks smoothly within this manner has still been difficult to complete and make look good. Along with it, it takes practice to trick the mind as well. Even though I can move my hand around in a waving motion, I still have to keep a very steady motion with the hand. Along with that, I have to make it all look natural. When I seem more focused on my hand movements that my trick participants, it does not leave a very good look for the trick.

Card Skill Basics:

Along with learning some of the background behind the magic. I also decided to delve into the basic mechanics behind card tricks. Through this I learned that most tricks are pretty much a routine few steps of these different mechanics. This means that this is the difficult part of the magic tricks. So, little improvement has been made so far, but I am certainly beginning to reach a point where the magic can start. Doing simple movements such as shuffling, hiding cards, and overall movements that place cards where I want them. Once again though I could make improvement on making myself look less interested in what I am doing. By eyeing up my movements it can often give them away.

Other than that I have definitely made improvement upon my skills and will continue to do so.