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I performed a (fairly unimpressive, if I do say so myself) magic trick for girls on my floor at a hall tea tonight. The trick begins when I present someone from my audience a rope, and I ask her to tie the rope into a simple knot. Then I ask her to do the same thing, but while holding both ends of the rope and not letting go. I’ll allow several audience members to try this, and generally no one is able to accomplish the task, however they may try. Then I take the rope and, through magic obviously, am able to tie the rope into a knot without ever letting go! It’s magic. Ooooooooh…

Reactions to my Magic Trick

I performed for, conveniently enough, 15 girls, in small groups. After each performance, I asked each group the same question, roughly, and recorded the answers:

7 people said they focused on the rope
4 people said they focused on my hands, in general
3 people said they focused on my left arm
1 person said she focused on my right hand

Only one person said she thought she knew how I did the trick; the rest claimed to have “no idea”.

When they attempted it themselves, no one was able to do the trick. 6 people out of the 15 tried, and I asked them to try before I performed the trick.

I asked all of my audiences what they thought the trick was based on, and some people said that they were distracted by me talking (I chatted about summer camp while I performed the trick). One girl mentioned that the rope was black, and so was my shirt, and it was difficult to see what was happening.

I should also note that on two occasions, I messed up the trick the first time and the audience was nice enough to let me try again. Both times, people still did not discover my trick.

My Results

I think the most important aspect of my trick was that I distracted the audience by talking during my trick. One article in our reading mentions the pickpocket performer bantering with his audience victim while simultaneously stealing his wallet and watch. While my rope-tying adventures were not nearly as lucrative, I did use the same trick of casual banter to distract. Also, the visual limitations of not being able to watch all of the areas of the rope at once (I tie the knot with a grandiose gesture) enabled the slight of hand needed to perform the trick successfully.