Learning The Tricks: Rope Tricks
Rope tricks rely on the illusion you give to your audience that
you're doing something to the ropes when you're really doing
something else. You need to be deft with your hands and to
practice your tricks you have mastered it. You should also try
to find videos of this trick being done.
Here is one classic rope trick that never fails to amaze
children and adults alike. It's called the 'cut and restored'
trick. Basically what you will tell the audience is that you
'cut' a rope into two pieces, say your magic words and 'restore'
it back to one piece looking as if it wasn't cut in the first
place. It will sound impossible and because of that, finishing
the trick efficiently will result in more applause.
You will need sharp scissors for cutting the rope. The rope
should be about 2 meters in length. You might also need to
practice what you will say while doing your trick. Sometimes
that will help you distract the audience more than the trick
itself.
Show your audience your rope. Start telling your story while
passing it around. Tell a few jokes perhaps to get things
started. Then double up your rope and then triple it. You will
end up holding three sections of the rope. If you could come up
with some story for that too, then do that.
You should do a cat-shank knot on each end. If you don't know
how to do this, just put one end of the rope through the larger
loop and then around itself and put it down through the small
loop that resulted with what you've done. Try practicing this
bit at home as it is the most important part of the trick.
Tighten the knots in place and show to the audience that you
have divided the rope into three sections. Tell them your story
again. Just make them laugh while preparing the most anticipated
part of the trick. Now you can tell them that you will cut the
rope.
Now here is where the illusion starts. Yes, you will cut the
rope but what you're cutting is the small section of the rope
with the knot at the end. This will result to 2 new ends. Grasp
this two ends and pull the rope tightly between your two hands.
The knots will stay in place if you managed to remember to
tighten the knots earlier.
If you have done this correctly, your audience will just think
that you've cut the rope and is eagerly waiting for your next
move both because they think it's impossible to make or probably
skeptical that you can do it.
Say to your audience now that you're going to repair your rope.
While grasping with both of your hand, you will now cover your
left hand with your right hand and slide your hand from end of
the rope to the other end. You will notice here that as you
slide along the rope, the knots will slide easily with your
hand. The remaining trick to do is hiding the knots in an unseen
way. You could do this by either pocketing it or letting it drop
to the floor if you're hidden behind something, preferably a
table.
Remember that part of the illusion in this trick is the story
you are going to tell. Once you have your audience enchanted by
your story, you will have an easier way to complete your trick.
This is one of the traits of a good magician, to be able to tell
a story while doing a trick.
Another tip is to research more variations of this trick. This
trick has been done for a long time now that most people will
find it boring. One advantage of that dilemma is that you will
find out that other magicians have found different ways to do
this trick. What you need to do is inject more life to the old
ways to make your trick seem original in their eyes. This could
also be helpful if your audience asked for you to repeat that
trick in the hope of catching how you do it. You just show them
a different variation and the secret of the trick remains.