Now you're talkin'!!!

When performed great. I don't think laymen will know the secret to the rings. You have to make them believe that the rings really do link.

Just performed the rings last week and afterwards a gentleman remarked "I know you're not suppose to give away your secrets, but I just don't see how you linked those rings...I was watching very close!"

Ah, the classics are the classics.

andrew

Confusing the method with magical entertainment is like confusing a kettle whistle with nutrition.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

So for the first time in a LONG TIME, I had someone ask to examine my Ninja Rings at my restaurant Sunday Night. This guy was a real tool. The 2nd pulled out the rings, he said "not that tired old trick...it's the oldest one there is! Everyone knows how it works."

I asked for his theroy...he said "there's a hole in one of them!" I said...no...there's a hole in ALL of them and I do the gag "in the middle." He laughed so hard I thought he'd choke. Still...he wanted to examine the rings...a little misdirection and he thought he had looked at and held EVERY SINGLE RING!!!

I did the routine and he was blown away! It's all about performance and knowing how to get in and out of a sticky situation!

Or confusing the method with the magical entertainment is like confusing a teaspoon with the tea!

Or confusing the method with the magical entertainment is like confusing the lawnmower for the lawn...

Keep em coming!

Ahh the rings, they are clearly magical. One word and one word only from my side on the topic of the rings. There are many routines, but only a few like Dai Vernon's that constantly shifts the key ring from hand to hand, so even those who are using the rings professionally gets confused and starts thinking - are those rings different from mine?

Point being, if you love the rings, but your routine is structured so that the key ring is constantly in the same hand through out the routine, then do yourself a favour and study Dai Vernons routine, here you have a simpley floating story with 6 rings, false counts, showing the ring to be complete, and the key ring is constantly changing position. You can learn a lot about great magic from studying that routine.

Don't just do a mediocre routine with the rings - they deserve your best effort. There are many great routines out there - but there are even more poor routines where the key ring is stationary.

I love this - but I don't perform very often and it needs my constant attention, so it is often not a part of my act. Sadly so.

The linking rings are a mainstay of my stand-up act, and have been for over 25 years.

Just when I think I've discovered/uncovered all of the magic they can possibly contain, I see a new (to me) routine by someone else and I'm once again entranced.

Even now, remembering the first time I saw Richard Ross perform his silent, slow-paced three ring routine, I get goosebumps.

The moves. sleights and subtleties are virtually endless. I liken it to the musical scale. It's the same eight notes, but there's no ending to the different music that can be played.

For the record, I don't think that the majority of laypeople know "how its done," and even those who owned a set of rings as a child are often completely baffled when the rings are performed by a master.

I haven't don't ninja rings in a while but since I read this thread I started doint the ninja ring routine again and people really enjoy it. It's amazing the reactions I get. So far, no one has figured it out becuase it just looks REAL.

I just love the rings and so does everyone that sees it it seems. When they started doing those TV shows that exposed magic tricks I was kinda worried but I have yet to suffer from an audience crying "We know that trick!" And I figured out why... I don't do tricks, I perform magic!

As for the rings; I do a three ring routine to music that I have written my self. It's slow and, I hope, poetic where the rings just glide silently through each other. But in the middle of the routine I do something very bold: I hang a chain of all three rings of the tip of my index finger with the key in the middle. Everyone knowing the secret (that we always hide the key in our hand) is instantly 'converted' back to not understanding. It's also the point that most often gives spontaneous applause.

Tina

Remember when Richard Ross performed the Linking Rings. As a magician, I was even amazed. Any trick regardless of the exposure done well, entertains, and kills. I have done shows as well as many of you I'm sure, where someone handed me a prop they bought and was still able to fool them. In fact, I was doing a Trade Show, and one of the attendees came up afterwards and committed on how he bought a set of rings for his son but his ring had an opening. Its all in presentation.

I still can't believe that the prosecutor was so stupid as to not powder the latex glove before having O.J. try the glove on. If a glove fits, before it became crusty with blood, it won't fit if you're wearing a latex glove - it'll snag.

Re Dai Vernon, yes and he made some brilliant refinements:Spinning the Rings,the Crashing Link,the Pull Through Method of Unlinking and the Falling Ring pp.82-86 The Dai Vernon Book of Magic.
He truely was the master.

AJ

It's like watchng a great juggler... YOu know how it's done (they throw it up and it comes down and catch it) but still enjoy it.

An laymen don't know how it's done (linking rings).

I give an example.

There ws a mediochre street worker in San Francisco. Some dudes watched him, then went into a nearby magic shop and asked to see the rings.

The demonstrator was JADE...

When she finished the guys said, "No not that version, we want the one the guy on the street did with the ring with an open slot."

I don't think people know the workings or the effect. If you perform the linking rings very well then you should be fine. I always do this and have never been caught or told how it worked.

I do the rings in every show. I begin with a four ring routine set to music, and a small bit of patter. I then go into a version of Whit's comedy routine with the volunteer. The rings are a classic for a reason. They ruin the audience.

Arthur

I've been doing the rings since the early 1950s -- Carried them all through my military service. Even did them for blind audience once.

I perform the rings a lot and I get the impression that people initially think they know how it's done and they try to follow the routine keeping track of what they think they know and how the routine is pulled off given their knowledge.

However, there is more than one sneaky thing about the rings but a spectator only knows of one potential sneaky thing. The K**. Since they don't really know everything there is to know their assumptions work against them and THIS is the real beauty of the rings.

I don't think people know the workings of this effect when they are seeing it. It just looks real to them.

I performed them a couple of weeks ago. It was an outdoor performance. My wife was in the audience. About half way through the routine the spectator dropped a sheaf of papers that she was carrying. When my wife started to help her she said, "No, I'll make more copies. I want to SEE this."

Yeah, rings rock.