After a few years in magic and a bit of conditioning to the way people handled cards, I don't think I've ever really seen a double lift that really fooled me. You can always kind of feel it I guess.

Don't get me wrong, as a layman before I was always fooled and laymen now seem to be fooled by it still but it's just a move I seem to avoid because I can't seem to find a really natural technique that could double for reality. Any suggestions?

Pushover double. It requires practice, looks very natural like you do with one card. Need to say no more.

Matt

I agree that you can always "feel it". There may not be easier ways to do it, but there are more natural ways of doing a double lift as mentioned above.

I realize you want to keep getting better and that's great, but if your double lifts are fooling laymen, you're doing a good job and I don't think you need to worry so much about it.

:comply:

B.J. Bueno doing Allan Ackerman's "Spooky Double", the first time I saw Homer Liwag do Lee Asher's "Silver Surfer", Roger Klause fried me with a pushoff double I think (it was 4 in the morning!!)
All of these fooled me because they fit into the performer's style.
How do you normally turnover one card? The answer to that question will provide you with the starting place to find your technique.
Jason

Or you could alter the way you turn over a single in order to mimic your double....just thinking in reverse sometimes helps too

Hi Seth, I think you brought up a very good point. I guess most doubles can be "felt". (I'm speaking from a magician's point-of-view.) What I mean is that even though the double is executed perfectly, somehow there's something in the action that telegraphs to me that it's a double.

But if it gets by most laymen, that's all that matters right?

Jamy Ian Swiss has a killer double lift.

Aaron Fisher fooled me badly with his display sequence used in "Three Ways to Leave Your Lover" from his FISM 2003 notes. I missed the double in the second phase.

Jeff

Yes, I've been fooled by the most incredibly natural looking double lift I've ever seen (I mean that I haven't seen) performed by Jack Birnman. At the bottom line, though, I suggest that you worry about laymen, not magicians, and that you strive for a natural and relaxed look.

The push-off double lift is probably one of the most Natural. Joshua Jay is excellent with this sleight.

Micheal Vincent does a mind-blowing double, and he deals doubles on the table.
vinny

If you can "feel" the double lift, then something is really wrong! That "feeling" is not just your instincts coming to the fore, it's the performers' "tells"! If you can't "see" anything, then the physical technique is perfect, right? So, if the visual aspects are perfect and you still know there is a double lift underway (that's important - underway - as opposed to detected during a reconstruction of the effect so that the only solution possible was a DL), it stands to reason that the performer has a "tell" that you are picking up, consciously or otherwise. Determining what the tell is and resolving it will result in a DL that you can't "feel". And that is what you're after, right?

I have been fooled by a DL, and I have fooled many well posted magicians, some of them on this Café, with a DL, so I know it is possible. And, since I know at least one technique, I also know it isn't particularly hard to do. But it does require more than perfect sleight of hand. It requires analysis of the effect, plotting, and several other techniques that help remove the tells that give spectators the "feel" you refer to. Just something to think about...

Best, PSC

Vinnie has aroused my interest in Michael Vincent.
MartyK

Martin Nash's Knockout DL or Dai Vernon's DL. Those two are the most natural to me.

wow.... Vinny has aroused a Café member again, WATCH OUT!!!!!!!!!

I think most of the problem arises not from the double but from the tells BEFORE and AFTER the double...

Normally You can tell a double is about to happen because you just saw a top cover pass or perhaps it was in the context of red hot momma where you know the card isn't really red... etc.

Or you almost always know it is a double because before they put it down on the table or move it anywhere else, they turn it face down on the deck THEN move the card...Those are tells(yes I know you could do a miracle change into tenkai but that has tells of its own...) that you can't get rid of FOR A MAGICIAN.

Unless you are trying to fool MAGICIANS, don't worry about whether or not magicians can see your DL...

All the advice is good in this thread, but there are some tells for the double that you just can't get around... the fact that a card can't *really* be on top, or the fact that you turned down the card before you moved it off the deck.

I can´t remember that I have been fooled by double lift, but I have fooled some very knowledge cardmen with my double, for example Daryl and Michael Vincent

I use my own method of push off double. It took two years to perfect and it looks just like you just push and turn over the card in normal way. I also might to mention that I have never been.

MacGyver tells that you should worry about using your d-lift and that it wouldn´t have to fool magicians. I completely disagree! If you have a good enough double to fool magicians, think about the laymen. They just don´t have no clue. Laymen are not stupid! If they see something suspicious they might not say it out loud but they sure will remember it when they think about the trick.

The biggest problem in magic these days in my opinion is the fact that most people do even basic sleights horribly and they explain it that laymen couldn´t see them. B.S! Again, laymen are not stupid! I quote Jamy Ian Swiss, Swiss says that if you have audience of 100 watching your performance and there is one intelligent person who can really think (Really there is much much more). If you can fool the hell out of that one person then the rest of the 100 will come along the ride for free. You don´t have to think about them.

Juha-Matti

Whoops, English isn´t my first language. MacGyver tells that you shouldn´t worry....

And I´d like to mention that I have never been caught using d-lift.

No matter how well you perform a double lift, magicians may know that you're performing one because of "context," meaning the particular effect in which you're using it, or merely because you turned the card over on top of the deck. These are "tells" for magicians, but not for laymen, and are irrelevant to those of us who perform in the real world.

Larry D.

Exactly!! Korttihai_82, even if your double lift is PERFECT , if your doing an ambitious card routine, and even if I don't see any double lift, I will KNOW that you did a double because your doing an ambitious card ! I don't know in which context you fooled Daryl, but it certainly wasnt in an ambitious card routine.

The point is not to fool other magicians.
I have seen some horrible DL made by beginner magicians and they pass ok.
it is all in the situation/atmosphere.
learn to distract and misdirect and you are on the right way.
I think my DL is OK but still when I do a card routine and I need a DL I raise my head from the pack and ask a question so the spec looks at me. just a habbit - why not be on the safe side...

n

- Exactly!! Korttihai_82, even if your double lift is PERFECT , if your doing an ambitious card routine, and even if I don't see any double lift, I will KNOW that you did a double because your doing an ambitious card ! I don't know in which context you fooled Daryl, but it certainly wasnt in an ambitious card routine.


Actually I fooled Daryl twice with my double lift, they were both times I use double in my ambitious card routine. After that we talked about double lifts a lot and he said that I did one of the best doubles he had ever seen, because when I turned over first one card and then double and kept repeating turn overs and he couldn´t tell witch one of the two was the double. As Daryl put it, It just looks that top card keeps chancing back and forth between two cards.

Also if you said was true it would be easy as hell to fool magician. Just do ambitious card with out using any doubles. It is possible. Actually every ambitious card routine should be structured in a way that methods keep canceling each others out.

My orginal point was that if your tegnique is so good that it will even bear the watching of another magician and go unnoticed, then you don´t have to worry about laymen starring your hand with magifying glass. They wound´t see a thing. Many magician in my opinion have a very poor tegnique and they don´t even try to cover it with misdirection, they just believe that laymen are so stupid that they won´t see it.