And the kids wanted to do some magic on their special day with all their friends from school and family! Which means its time to break out some Tenyo!
Ages in question range from 4-12. The majority being 7 years old. About 14 kids total.
Up to this point, I have only performed for strangers twice. Once at Disneyland, and recently at a church function (which went surprisingly well). I'm still insanely anxious doing this. But the church function impromptu show showed me that I'm at least able to keep the kids entertained (as well as keeping kids messing with me in their place. I got a group of kids to verbally gang up on one kid who wouldn't hand a deck back to me. "Looks like I can't get my deck back from Travis here. I guess the magic show is over....OH! I got my deck back, looks like we can resume!").
So the way I do things is to have a Tenyo do one of two things:
- Have it look like that they (in this case, my twins) do the magic
- Have it to where everybody can participate in the trick in some way, shape, or form
- Big Mac Cubio - All right, I'm going to say this right now: if you perform for kids, this is an absolute knockout. I had GREAT success with it during the church show, AND it's my daughters favorite trick (as we worked =a routine to where she commands it to stop and then proceeds to stop it silently--with her mind). I started with the 'Cubio in a styrofoam take-out container and a napkin, saying that it was my lunch--a small lunch (hee hee). One kid asks (there is always one) that asks about the string running through the middle. I tell them that it's how I test if someone has magical abilities. I have it run down the string a couple times and I instruct my daughter to VERBALLY say stop after I count to three. I say say 3, she says stop, burger stops on string. We do the same sequence again. Then I tell them that shes goling to command it only using her MIND. We do the same procedure, sans verbal cue. Stops 'on command'. All the kids in the room (as well as the adults) were absolutely floored.
- Undercover Cube - Okay, this one was a new one for me to actually perform. I've done it several times before and had a rather modified routine in which I don't use a cup at all, but instead turn the trick from a penetration to an impossible location. Here's how it works: I start the trick by having my daughter put the orange cube in the box. "Please put them all together." She puts it together, and then I announce that 'there you have it! The magic and the power of 'please'!'
That got a decent reaction.
So then I go into telling her to do it again--but she can't look at her hands (as I cover them up with a thick blanket). Here's where things start to go wrong. I remember why I can't do this trick: the blanket I'm using is the WRONG PROP. In fact, what I SHOULD be using is a much THINNER material which I HAVEN'T HAD TAILORED YET! Whats supposed to happen is that I have the gimmick in my pocket, and the way I put the handkerchief in my pocket, I can grab it and set it on the table without detection. The blanket I'm using--a THICK 36"x36" baby blanket that our dog uses as a bed (shes a small dog) does not fit in my pocket very well. By 'very well', I mean 'at all'. So some fumbling around and I manage to get everything where it needs to be. I then have my daughter assemble everything again with the blanket over her hands--but as a distraction, I have a stopwatch to 'time her'. So she tell em shes done, I stop the watch; then terror strikes: I completely forget what I'm even doing. I get self-conscious and it felt like my hands were getting burned like crazy because now I can't remember--or improvise a way to make the reveal less suspicious because now my hands are automatically messing with my pockets. Now I'm getting burned. So I have my daughter ball up her fist as if shes holding the cube and toss it to me. She tosses it. Then I forget what I am doing again. So I have her repeat the procedure. I remember (somewhat) and 'catch it', bring my hands to over my pocket and make it seem like the cube melted into my pocket. I then pull out the orange cube and the reaction was good. The kids liked it. But It could have gone A LOT better.
- Magical Sneakers (Color Test) - My daughter requested to do this one. And I thought it would be fine, especially since I have a whole routine around it about finding a certain pair of shoes in a mixed up pile. The adults could relate to this as this is a common occurrence before you go ANYWHERE. Kids seem to want to wear the ONE pair of shoes you can't find both shoes for--even worse when its right before you have to get them to school and you're on a time crunch. ANYWAY!
My daughter and I have done this trick a lot. She loves this almost as much as Cubio.
The thing is that I have the routine go in steps. I would walk them through the steps, but explain it in a way that wasn't so dry ('we need to make a second pile of shoes so that we have the lefts in one pile and the rights in the other', etc).
The problem here is that my daughter knows exactly how the sequence goes, and she was PLOWING through it, and I had trouble keeping the dialogue up to speed and having her slow down. The kids ended up lost. No reaction.
Prior to the show, I spoke with the twins that if they wanted to do some magic, they very well could. I had my daughter slated for three tricks and my son for two. At this point, I had my daughter sit in the audience and I called my son up. The issue here is that he was completely engrossed in a prior activity we had going on at the beginning of the party (on top of the fact that he realized that neither of my tricks were train related or Pokemon related) and declined when I asked him to come up. No big deal.
- Soft Coins - Here's how plan B works: I get everyone involved by having 7 kids inspect everything beforehand. 3 kids look at 3 quarters and make sure they aren't nickels. 3 other kids inspect 3 pencils just to 'make sure they aren't made of rubber'. 1 kid inspect the paper to make sure its 'paper-like'. I hold onto the Soft Cons case because...well...it just got discontinued, and I don't want to risk a broken Tenyo. I haven't prepared much of a routine for it, so it was really just a stock routine. But I did milk the pencils going through the paper for all it was worth. It went over pretty good. I just wished I had better patter for the whole thing.
- Security Lock - Oh yes, I'm bringing the mystic and wonder of Lubor Fiedler to kids. I tried this initially with the church group and it went well, although the kids thought I was holding it funny to prevent the card from going anywhere. From this, I learned to hold the sleeve differently (because I'm not going to hand it over to a group of kids to inspect). I go into a routine how I lose the things in my wallet and how I use a lock to prevent it from getting lost--but then I can't get it out. So I resort to magic to keep the card where its supposed to be.
At this point, I'm barely holding the sleeve on the long sides and I give each kid 1 go at trying to pull the card out. Its kind of funny watching their reaction go from 'I got this!' to 'HEY!' in half a second.
Every kid gets a go, and I pull the card out effortlessly. The reactions were great, except now every kid is saying I was holding the sleeve funny (which I wasn't).
So here's what I learned from it all:
- Big Mac Cubio has now solidifed itself as the best Tenyo in my performing repertoire. That damn thing works so well on so many levels. The fact that it looks like a burger makes it instantly relatable and totally worth it.
- Undercover Cube does not have a lot to work with visually, so you need an engaging routine. Thanks to lack of proper props on hand, the routine kind of went sideways. Even though I messed this one up pretty bad, it did give me insight of how I can make future performances of it go...not as bad. In hindsight, there was about 6 different ways I could have made it not look so clunky. I also could have opted for Shrinking Pen. But honestly, I think I wanted to see how 'Cube would go.
- Magical Sneakers is a trick that works best at a slower pace. My daughter was excited to show that she knows how to do the routine. I can't blame her. The trick is pretty neat. But it'll obviously go slower for a kid who hasn't ever done it before.
- Soft Coins. I just need to construct a routine for it and make it more interesting than doing the stock presentation.
- Security Lock. I like this trick. I like it a lot, its simple and absolutely diabolical. And I have struggled with trying to make a routine to where it doesn't come off as a puzzle and after two goes with it, I don;'t believe I can figure a way to get around this fact. I'm shelving it for now.
I'm still terribly anxious performing. More practice and performing will help this along. I'll probably do more at church functions after Thanksgiving. I really want to give Ghost Card and Illusion Truck a go.
So, my twins had a party this weekend
So, my twins had a party this weekend
Last edited by Brett H on Thu Nov 24, 2016 12:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- David DeTenyo
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Re: So, my twins had a party this weekend
What a fantastic story Brett, such a pleaure to read!! Thanks a lot for sharing this wonderfull experience and of course you're tips/routines too! ![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
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Re: So, my twins had a party this weekend
Hi Brett,
Great to hear your plan and wish you a very good luck. I performed soft coins about week ago in front of my kids and I came up with the idea that the kid write a big word "Fire" on the paper before the performance. I just explain them during the performance, once we place the "Fire" near the coins, they are starting magically to melt and we can push through the coins with pencils. But once we remove the "be Fire", all coins will be magically restored. I do the similar routine with sun and moon tubes. I put the coin in the SUN tube which is "hot" and the coin begins to melt become water, and after I pour the water into the MOON tube, it starts to freeze and become a coin again.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
Great to hear your plan and wish you a very good luck. I performed soft coins about week ago in front of my kids and I came up with the idea that the kid write a big word "Fire" on the paper before the performance. I just explain them during the performance, once we place the "Fire" near the coins, they are starting magically to melt and we can push through the coins with pencils. But once we remove the "be Fire", all coins will be magically restored. I do the similar routine with sun and moon tubes. I put the coin in the SUN tube which is "hot" and the coin begins to melt become water, and after I pour the water into the MOON tube, it starts to freeze and become a coin again.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
Re: So, my twins had a party this weekend
Sounds like it was a great party.
Great work Brett.
Great work Brett.
Re: So, my twins had a party this weekend
WAY TO GO BRETT!
I have preformed music for very large audiences internationally for many years.
I am always anxious before the show.
BUT ... THEN,
I remember that this is part of doing what I do, and that I want to do the very best that I can.
I look at the anxiety as a gift that helps move me towards a more passionate pursuit of excellence ...
Continued success, and all the very best,
Bob~
I have preformed music for very large audiences internationally for many years.
I am always anxious before the show.
BUT ... THEN,
I remember that this is part of doing what I do, and that I want to do the very best that I can.
I look at the anxiety as a gift that helps move me towards a more passionate pursuit of excellence ...
Continued success, and all the very best,
Bob~
and now, on with the show ...
Re: So, my twins had a party this weekend
Thank you. I'm trying. I got to get out more and keep trying some of the routines. And maybe have a list of 'You need ___x___ before you go and perform ___Tenyo trick___'. Would have prevented the Undercover Cube disaster :pDavid DeTenyo wrote:What a fantastic story Brett, such a pleaure to read!! Thanks a lot for sharing this wonderfull experience and of course you're tips/routines too!
VictorS wrote:Hi Brett,
Great to hear your plan and wish you a very good luck. I performed soft coins about week ago in front of my kids and I came up with the idea that the kid write a big word "Fire" on the paper before the performance. I just explain them during the performance, once we place the "Fire" near the coins, they are starting magically to melt and we can push through the coins with pencils. But once we remove the "be Fire", all coins will be magically restored. I do the similar routine with sun and moon tubes. I put the coin in the SUN tube which is "hot" and the coin begins to melt become water, and after I pour the water into the MOON tube, it starts to freeze and become a coin again.![]()
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Those are really great ideas for both Soft Coins and S&M Tubes (After typing that, I giggled and I'm leaving it as is).
If you don't mind, I'm going to use them!
The prior 48 hours of getting everything ready for the party was a sleep-deprived nightmare. But worth it. It was really fun to break out the Tenyo.JohnM wrote:Sounds like it was a great party.
Great work Brett.
Thank you for that! I have what you said printed out on my desk so that I can ingrain it in my head. ITs a great way to look at performing and perspective about it.BluBob wrote:WAY TO GO BRETT!
I have preformed music for very large audiences internationally for many years.
I am always anxious before the show.
BUT ... THEN,
I remember that this is part of doing what I do, and that I want to do the very best that I can.
I look at the anxiety as a gift that helps move me towards a more passionate pursuit of excellence ...
Continued success, and all the very best,
Bob~
Where's my colon?!