Blaise Serra Hangs Out With The Magic Guys #186

They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys oh boy ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 186 of the magic guys i'm one of your hosts josh norbedo to my left we got doug khan salutations of the interwebs who is doing some uh some light reading there and nick k is on his way to malaysia so he's listening in and we appreciate you being here in spirit nick he actually jumped on backstage quickly to say hi and to our guests but now he's off just sitting around the world but doug

you were doing a bit of light reading there what's uh what's the latest this is the sabrosa shen lem work it's magic instructions there's a hundred a hundred it's a hundred card tricks if you can't read is it really Really? Holy moly. I don't know what's in here. What would we actually do with 100 card tricks? This is how when you put out the Evolution of Magic kit, available through Murphy's Magic. Come on, Murphy. And when you put this out, now you can say there's over 100 tricks in the kit.

But it's really that pamphlet and like a deck of cards? Is that what the kit is? No, it's just freaking Fizimac. He's got the whole black art and all that stuff's in here. The lapping. Holy. I lie. It's not all that.

Okay well look we're here probably made too many of those magic kits true and you know when's the doug con magic kit coming out man that's what i need another project no that's right that's right you can it's an it's an ever-growing live learn slide of hand.org i need a team i need the magic kit team to make that happen but also hey welcome to everyone in the live chat right now if you're You're not watching us live. We do this live so you can interact with us. We got Jesse. We got Chris.

We got Tom. We got Fahrenheit. Everyone's here. Caden. Look, we really appreciate all the kind words. And everyone's excited for this guest because I think, you know, this has been in the works for a while. We've been asking this guy every now and then. We just keep reaching out like, hey, would you grace us with your presence? And he's always been very gracious to eventually come on here. They say timing is everything.

It's perfect timing for this man to join us. And we've had some great guests. I've been super excited for like all of our recent killers. And just as excited today, even maybe more so. And I don't want to, you know, cast shade on who maybe I haven't been as excited about. Let's go with Blaze Sarah today. Come on. Let's do it. All right. Give us the 10 second intro, Doug. And let's bring him on. Wow. Blaze Sarah. Sarah, what do I know that maybe you don't know or need to know?

You might have seen this young man on Penn and Teller Fool Us. If you were at MagiFest, you might have seen him as a featured presenter. And if you're so, he probably fooled you badly. If you were at the Tacoma, the IBM convention, you watched him get the People's Choice Award and the Award of Merit. And then he trekked on down to the next national convention, which was a combined big deal.

Society of american magicians it's the fism qualifiers and he got first place in close up there like that's not enough you happen to live in new york city go catch him at speakeasy magic where he's doing the real work entertaining live humans five or six days a week multiple times a night one of the hottest tickets in magic and wow he's here today how was that intro let's go let's bring him on. Music. Hey, guys. Thank you so much for the intro.

It's so, it was like, I knew Josh would ask me, I was like, I got to do the intro, and then I was like this. That's going to be easy. All I have to do is say the things that I know about you. Like zero work involved in making you sound good. That was really kind. Thank you so much for having me, guys. We finally made it happen.

I kept procrastinating for a long time, just like, oh yeah, guys, real soon, just after this and then i think i think doug i kept telling you after after the fism competition then i'll finally yeah you're like let me let me get this win in the bag and then we'll get on the thing man that was just what two weeks ago is it even that no it's been it was oh it was last week yeah it was a week ago a week ago oh yeah that was last monday this convention wrapped up on labor day in the

united states yeah yeah so a week ago i was doing the they had they had like.

A winner's performance basically so it was like all of the finalists then had to perform again and you find out the night before at the banquet that you won yeah basically yeah you find out at the banquet the night before oh you're in the show tomorrow better start rehearsing tonight get all of your stuff together and then and then yeah we had to we had to do that final performance so i think that i had just found out the uh the results about a week ago i know

you work so hard for that and you're just a hard worker in general the magic you do is like so far off the beaten path original and like uncharted territory it's like oh thank you dude that's really kind yeah it was oh man i it was the most stress that i've ever been for a performance because it was just kind of like it was so many months of preparation and trying to get it ready for the act and then i feel like any i since it happened i've been so zen i've just been like nothing can

faze me nothing thing is that level of stress because it's like if i do a performance if i do an hour show if something goes wrong in the first 10 minutes you still have 50 minutes to get those people back on your side and to blow them away whereas i really felt like the weight of the past.

Couple years of like preparation was all on this one 10 minute performance and if there's a single mistake or something that could deduct you could penalize you from the judge's perspective then it's just done then you don't have a chance to make it up to them for another three years to qualify, to have a chance to go back at it. So I was really like, oh man, I just want to go back. Is that the deal, one and done? You do one performance, that's your shot, huh?

That's your shot. Yeah, that one performance is your shot and that's what you're scored on. The secondary performance that was for the winner's show, that was also kind of a competition because that was for the People's Choice Award. That's how the SAM gets out of paying talent. I hope you got a check for that gig. I think i think all competitors lost money on that regardless of their plays like everybody.

It's a pay-to-play kind of thing yeah so a few bucks i won some money for this is the thing i think that that people wonder about like oh should i compete in if you're thinking about a cash prize as any of the motivation for why someone want to compete in fizzle then i'm sorry that's just not part of the deal like even at the world championship level you i don't think there's any cash price like if you win fizzlem you don't get 50 bucks or anything like that no even if even at this point where

i've won the north american championship and i'm representing north america and you know sponsored by the organizations to go to worlds i'm pretty sure all competitors at worlds still have to pay for the registration and everything it's kind of like a prerequisite is that everyone's paid before they compete so yeah it's definitely not a funny thing yeah i mean wasn't that wasn't that mark hobie's whole shtick yeah when he came to perform was like

how much money he has yeah i spent two thousand dollars to be here if you equate the man hours put into the competition act oh man yeah but the people's choice does give you a cash prize so for the ibm they they had a people's choice cash prize and so i got that and then and then And at this last competition, I did win the thing, but did not get a cash prize because there was a separate People's Choice Award that Michael Blomacki got and he got the cash prize for that one.

Yeah, wow. So how does one, or I mean, for you, how do you approach like rehearsing for this competition? Is this like a, you know, every day you have to nail it 20 times? Or is it like in sections? Yeah, it wasn't 20 times. it was more like all day every day it's my life it's just like it's just yeah it's just. And there were other projects that I've been working on simultaneously. So it wasn't like I could make it as much of my life as I wanted to.

But I think that whenever you have, I don't know, maybe other people are of a different mentality, but I had this constant feeling of dissatisfaction with the act and wanting to get it ready and wanted to get it ready. And even right before my performance was still thinking I might want to make changes to it to make it better for the act. So, and post performance, now I have more videos of the act.

And so getting to see it in that context, I have a bunch more ideas for things that I want to change for the world championship. So I think that it was just this thing of like the, the, I don't want to discourage people from competing, but I definitely, the anxiety didn't end for a while leading up to it. It was kind of until they finally announced that I was going to Italy, the stress wasn't over.

I was just like still thinking about all the things that I wish I had done differently or wanted to change or, you know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So it was never, it was never done. So it was really, yeah, the preparation was mostly it was because the tricks in the set were all effects that a year ago, I didn't know if I would ever be capable of. And then that was what made me set them as the goal for what I wanted to include in the competition act.

And so then it was just constant practicing to get the ideas to look in my hands like how i had imagined them when i first set out to do the act wow i've had the joy of watching some of this stuff evolve through discord jams and stuff like that and watching these goals be set and.

Here like blaze here it doesn't the when we some people have to climb over a wall blaze just walks through it it's just i'm just gonna do this yeah i mean i also i guess i have like a pretty brute force kind of approach to sleight of hand like i set very particular criteria for like exactly what the technique must accomplish and what it needs to look like and and then i'll just grind away at it until it finally looks like that idea so it's not usually like oh i,

you know i've got an idea for an effect i want to achieve the method that i'm trying to do isn't really looking right yet so let me try and find a different method it's kind of more like once i decide that this is the right method for this thing to look exactly how i want it then I'm more likely to stick to that method so that I don't compromise the vision than to compromise the method to try and make it easier, which I don't know, ended up making this probably way more stressful for me

than it needed to be leading up to this competition. It's the way it is. When you break new ground, you have to go through the muck. And yeah, maybe by the time you get to FISM, it'll be something different. I'm curious how much of this material in the act is material that I might see you do if I could get a ticket to the speakeasy in New York.

Yeah it would be it would be my act so that was what was great was that i i i was really scared for a long time and didn't know if i would be able to take what i wanted to do for the competition act and do it at speakeasy because the act itself is pretty angle sensitive and the way that speakeasy magic the show that i perform in in new york city is is laid out is every table is kind of a kidney being shaped.

And so the magician sits at the center of the table. And then there's like 10 to 12 audience members seated around the table. So there are two audience members that are directly on my left and right. And not only are they on my left and right, based on the shape of the table, they're actually slightly behind me to my left and right. So they have the angle I would put a camera if I was filming a tutorial. And now I want to try and do my FISM act, which which is extremely angle sensitive for them.

But I think that was the most crucial thing for me that allowed me to get the act ready for competition was the fact that I had the opportunity to do it for new audiences so many times. I mean, I perform my FISM act five times a night for five different audiences per show. And then on Friday, Saturdays, we have two show nights. So then I end up getting to do it 10 times a night on those nights.

Nobody gets those rooms unless you're bossy. Wow. So that's the rehearsal right there. We're not saying how often are you practicing? Like you're thinking about it all day, but you're actually...

Performing this for real audiences yeah performance for real audiences every night yeah every week speakeasy i think i've had someone in australia come to my show and talk about this your show is this the one that begins at a secret entrance where you have to have i don't i don't want to say it out loud in case it's not a known thing but is this the one i'm thinking i want to pitch the speakeasy show for us let people know what what's the scoop like if we wanted to go see you

in new york what's the path yeah no and i like the way that josh was asking it because there is a certain level of like trying to preserve the secrecy yeah so it yeah the.

We were we so the show is called speakeasy magic and if anyone's ever heard of the show sleep no more which has been running for the past decade it's an immersive theater production that's in new york city it's probably the most popular like immersive theater show it's it's a retelling of of Macbeth, but it's in a five story building where all of the actors are all around you. And you can choose which characters you want to follow and which floors that you want to walk to.

And so your retelling of the story is going to be different than any other person's retelling of the story because they experienced it in their own way, following the characters they chose to in what order they chose to. So the producers of that show, then started producing our show speakeasy magic. And so I've only been a part of it since the beginning of 2022. But the The show's been going since before COVID. And I think they just had the sixth year anniversary or something of it.

And this is, it's Todd Robbins, is that correct? Yes, Todd Robbins is the host and creator of the show, yeah. And then we have Mark Calabrese, Alex Boyce, Rachel Wax, Jeanette Andrews. We have Eric Dittleman. There's a big cast of people. Matt Holtzclaw, Prakash Puru. And Prakash is outrageous. Are you sure you're talking about the experience itself?

Like what people experience when they come to the show? yeah well i think that it's a yeah so i think it's a unique format so like josh was saying there is like a secret entrance that i don't want to spoil and and then you know the show begins on stage and you're watching the show and everyone's seated at these tables these tables that are like 10 to 12 people and you're watching the show on stage and you're thinking like did i have did i get a crappy seat like this is not

the best sight line and then suddenly the light dims on stage and then a spot like a pin spot like appears on your table and suddenly you realize there's been a magician sitting with us the whole time and then the show really begins right at your table where you yeah it's just then there's a magician per table 10 tables so it's like just a room full of screaming that just ignites all at once and then 10 tables 10 tables and there's a magician per table so there's 10 magicians that all

begin performing their own specialties at the same time and then we rotate so it's a curated show so you know the like when they're. When they are scheduling the show, they make sure that every person that's booked has a different specialty and so that every magician that someone sees while seated at their table is going to be completely different throughout the night. And it's broken up by acts on stage.

So rather than it feeling like a normal kind of walk around thing, it's more like we're watching an act in front of us on stage and the light dims at our table. And then suddenly we're watching this act on stage. Alex Boyce doing this incredible dove act. And then by the time that light dims, now there's a new person at our table. So it's kind of like bam, bam, bam. It's a very New York show. I'd say it fits with the kind of pacing and lifestyle of New York. Like the Magic Castle in L.A.

Is probably the closest thing to this experience. Yet it is a show where you have various theaters in one venue. So you go to one show and then you wait in line for the next show, almost like Disney World, where you're waiting for the next ride. It's like you're waiting in line between shows at different theaters in the same venue. Whereas like this, from the moment that you sit down, it's just a barrage.

Like you're just getting bombarded. We're just beating these people down with so much magic before they have a chance to breathe. They're getting hit with something that's a completely different specialty. So like they can't even process and try and break down what they've just seen before they're hit with something else. How much time are you spending with each table? Like it's 10 to 12 minutes. 10 to 12? 12 minute sets.

Yeah. So I cut it down slightly. I do basically a slightly extended intro of my FISM Act, but the FISM Act is a hard cap at 10 minutes. If you go over 10 for the competition, then you're disqualified. Yep. The gentleman that I spoke to in Australia that had been to that speakeasy, from his point of view, what he tried to explain to me was like, you know, he's like, the entertainment starts from the second you even are trying to get in.

And he's like, it's incredible. like unless you follow a very specific set of instructions you actually won't even know how to to get in even if you're like at the door and so he's like that's awesome and then I think you know people love the idea that it's like a hidden thing in New York like it's not like a thing that just every tourist can go to like unless you bought a ticket like you're not gonna even see this.

Theater happening oh and what i love is the uh oh sorry what were you gonna say no and then and then kind of like you described then he said yeah you go in and you're just seeing so much magic there's so many different performers it's like a he explained it as like an organized chaos like there would be a show happening on stage and then all of a sudden there's someone performing in front of you and then you're seeing yeah and there's like

he's like yeah it's so old school there's like you know i think he even said at one point like someone was doing a smoking act which which, you know, you can only do in the speakeasy environment. Yeah, Matt Holtzclaw has an incredible cigarette act that is part of opening the show. Yeah, yeah. So it's really cool because it really is fit to, yeah, to this particular show. Like you were saying, like you couldn't do a cigarette act anywhere.

It's only some places that you can really make it happen. And to like emphasize the level of commitment to the immersion and the surprise that the producers have, One of the executive producers of the show, Arthur, he said, like, if if too much gets out online on social media about this secret entrance and about what's there and everything and people stop talking about the magic show and they start talking about like, oh, you got to see the show at this place.

He's going to just rip down the whole thing and build something different, you know. So we really care about keeping the mystique and making sure that it's more of a word-of-mouth thing. Exactly, Fahrenheit is totally right. That's what a speakeasy is. It's meant to be actually in a hidden location. And so, yeah, if the location isn't hidden anymore, then we'll tear it down and build a new one. Wow, that's so cool. And sorry, you said your, how many times,

how many nights are you, how many nights does this show run? Is it? Yeah.

So the show has a rotating cast and it's Tuesday through Saturday. So yeah, so it started off as just weekends. It's what brought me over to New York. So I was in Connecticut and then I was reached out to by Todd about the show to perform. And at first it was just weekends kind of sporadically. And then, yeah, then we ended up moving to the new venue and things got much more consistent. So it's still a rotating roster of people, but now it's really, you know, we all get to work very frequently.

Five nights a week. you do work in some other theaters there as well right do you do like the box maybe or yeah yeah i was performing at the box for a while yeah that came through mark calabrese and then i don't know if he's been doing much of the box recently either because both of us were performing there after speakeasy we we used to the box is a nightclub that they also have one in london and it's it's really kind of this it's like burlesque but taken to the nth degree like

it's it's like burlesque but where they're doing stuff on stage where you're you're like, is this legal? Like, I can't believe I'm watching this. In a very entertaining, crazy way. Like, it's well-produced. Yeah, like they'll put a magic act in there, you know? I mean, the magic was me just doing strolling around for, like, the VIP tables and definitely did not fit the vibe of the box. Because, yeah, yeah. You know, I talked to Kieran Almighty, Kieran Johnson.

Do you know this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He performs at the box in London, yeah. Yeah, right. And he does cigarettes there. He does the Mollica act, but impromptu, you know? He's walking around and he just starts eating cigarettes in a crowd and taking a beer. He does the regurgitation. And this is what people expect in the box, right? To be shocked. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's one of like the most, just the image of that.

And the non-magicians who may be listening, if you're a non-magician, you're listening. Why? But thanks. But if you're a non-magician listening and you just heard Moloch impromptu, you do not realize that like to all of us, that is like one of the most painful sounding things like that sounds absolutely ridiculous that Kieran can do that. He's the only one I think. Like when I think of people that should or could do that routine, he's like the only one. No one should.

But I think he's the one who could. Yeah.

And and specifically in that venue yeah oh my god yeah that's crazy i mean i'm sure he does do that but that's insane well he was doing it i haven't spoke with him in a few months he might not be doing it i can't imagine you're happy doing that trick for any length of time i mean and you're using modern you know trains of thought or you're not actually, putting all the cancer in your body not all of it but there's just just a smidge i don't know but yeah so i did i did the box and that

was a really cool venue and i also performed at another nightclub that's called the stranger that the same producers also created in new york that that's come out more recently and that's a huge space where it feels like you're in a nightclub and then you walk upstairs and you realize that the nightclub just keeps expanding and there's insane choreographed acts on stage as well as like blackjack tables and just it's like just this whole space that's beyond just a nightclub so they also had

me doing shows there but then because of speakeasy magic calabrese and i both now have started just doing like the late night shows now that we have two show nights so what is that time yeah so now we're doing just doing speakeasy rather than than those what is your late night show is it like 10 o'clock yeah we have one One at eight and one at 11. So the second show that starts at 11 definitely is pretty late. Yeah, we're getting home around one. And then I'm actually starting a new residency.

So this is the one that I'm most excited about. So aside from Speakeasy Magic, now my main focus is my first solo residency. So I'm going to be performing in New York City starting in October. It's going to be every other week to start off. And it'll be two shows a night. And it's starting on Saturdays. It's the event. The venue is called Vintage Green and it's so I'm really excited. It's a solo one hour show and it's going to be two shows a night.

So I'll have one at eight and I'll have one at 10. And it's also there's a whole dinner package and everything so that. People can come at 6.30, have dinner before their 8 p.m. show. And then while the 8 p.m. show is happening, another group is having dinner in the other side of the space. So then they can come in for their 10 p.m. show and then they're mine for a whole hour and have been creating a ton of new magic specific designed around the space.

Like I was so inspired when I went to this venue and saw what would be capable there. And so it's a lot of moments that I never really expected or saw myself doing before that now I think are going to be like perfect for this space that I just couldn't do elsewhere. especially because it's a rooftop. So that's like the big thing that I'm really, really excited about.

And yeah, part of the October programming is like, I was like, I really want to do, I really want to have something that feels really Halloween and October themed. And we're talking about different themes. And then the one that I loved and that I was pitching to them and I was really hoping they were going to like, and they did, they did go with is the idea of an apothecary.

And so when people come in, part of their ticket is they're also going to be getting an elixir you know at the beginning of the show and then i've been working on designing a ton of different elixirs that both either are linked to magic that people are going to experience later in the show or are literally just like experiences in and of themselves like using a brazilian type of cachaca called jambu that is from a that's extracted from this plant that gives this

like numbing tingling sensation to the mouths and stuff so i think like just giving people you know like you can take. I don't know if other people are thinking about doing this before October and are wanting to do a show. I think that, you know, something like that really adds to the experience or those, you know, kind of, you know, Halloween themed things. And especially for this, I'm really excited about being able to give people different potions. Yeah. Take them to the next level.

They used to do it that way in the old days, you know, let some ether loose in the room and stuff like that.

Yeah. yeah because then they get a question you know am i seeing what blaze is doing because i'm tripping on this elixir or is this really happening there's another way to just like suspend the disbelief of like what's going did i just yeah that's true it's almost like their excuse now to release their you know expectations and just suspend everything that's so exciting you'll be unstoppable then how long is the run for you got like a month booked or what

uh we have starts in october and And then we have dates booked through December, through the end of the year. So it's going to be, so it'll basically, starting October 5th, I'll be performing at Vintage Green every other Saturday through the end of the year, through the end of 2024. Wow, yeah, cool. So that's the thing that I'm really, really excited about. Yeah, and that's been, yeah, all of my focus. It was kind of like straight off of winning the competition.

It was straight into now I got to get all the stuff together for this show and get it ready. So it's going to be really great. I'm going to put your website up here as I ask if you will have the information here. I don't have it up yet, but I, yeah, because this is actually my first place I'm announcing. I haven't posted about it or anything. So this is my first place I'm announcing the new residency.

Right, right. This is a good place for people to go look at some of your cool original magic, like some of the insane things you do with a deck of cards. One on bandit. Can we talk about that for a second? Sure. Yeah. Like, God damn it. First of all, do you know anyone else that can also perform it? Yeah, I know this guy, Yanai from Israel is amazing. And that's about it. I got to say, when it came out, I was like, this is crazy that someone, that this can be done with a deck of cards.

And then when I started to study it and learn it, I was like, oh. For the listeners at home on the podcast, I'm on Blaze's site. What you'll learn, a one-handed side steal to classic palm, side steal to bottom palm, one-handed control to top or bottom of deck. And I've seen all these things in action times 10. Like the stuff he's doing here is unbelievable.

Yeah. When you came up with that, did you just, I guess what I'm saying is that's a very particular skill set that you have to be able to do that. And when you came up with it, did you just do it and then assume everyone else would be able to do it? I mean that in the best possible way. I couldn't, I couldn't do it for a really long time.

So it's like, yeah, I think that people, yeah, like they'll see these, the moves that I come out with and they're like, man, he must've just like found that he had this knack for this technique and then decided to publish it but i have a very particular kind of formulaic creative process you know for a lot of the magic that i do and all of these were man this you're going through my website and i'm like man i haven't updated this

website i'll get off that you're not just like i'm just like man i'm looking at me when i just graduated high school yeah i couldn't do these moves for the longest time it was. It was like visualize how fingers would have to move in order to accomplish the task that I need to be done in the most efficient way. And then, and then try and force my hands to be able to do that thing.

So like some of them, like, I do think that I like, because of the fact that I have a background in guitar, I think that I have a natural level of dexterity, but at the same, that being said, I'm fretting on a guitar with my left hand.

And then all of these things that to publish our right-handed moves so it's not that it had that much of a carryover it was more like i had to i had i had to learn these moves just like everybody else i think the process of learning an instrument lends the mind to learning other things so if you're doing that you can understand the process of learning magic you know well yeah and i think that with with music and and magic there is a lot of similarity in the

in the practice process and everything and i i think that I you know I'll perform something from the mirror and then it doesn't look like how I know it can look and so then you keep working at it until eventually what you see in the mirror is more and more and more like synonymous with with what you you know it's like it finally lines up and it's in sync with how you're envisioning it and it's the same thing that if you play a note and you like you fret something on guitar

and it sounds really bad then you keep going at it and you go slowly and very methodically, and you try and eventually pick up speed until the point where it sounds good. And I think that a lot of magicians will like. They'll pick up a deck of cards and then the thing that they're seeing in the mirror isn't what they want it to look like. And then they'll be disheartened as though the technique is the problem.

But if you were to try it on an instrument and it didn't sound good, you wouldn't assume that the technique was the problem. You would just assume that the amount of practice was the problem until you can get the technique. Now, I do think that one thing that I have that is fortunate is is that I really will stay committed to ideas for a long time, even if it's a couple years that they don't look good.

I'll stay committed to that method, knowing that it has potential and eventually it'll look good. Even when almost every single magician that I show it to along the way says this is a waste of time, I'll still stay committed to that idea. And my physimac, if I had listened to all of those people on the way, none of the tricks in my physimac would have been possible because every single method in my physimac is all a method that at some point, some magician told

me, you're wasting your time. You should just switch the deck. You should just put your hand in your pocket. You should just do this. And it was like, yeah, but that wouldn't achieve exactly what I want. Like, yes, it could look smoother and better and more perfect if I switch the deck, but then that wouldn't achieve the specific goal that I have that I want to be able to do my FISM act with any deck someone could hand me and to actually borrow the den.

And I really want to give that deck back to them in new deck order at the end of the act, because I want them to think that there's a curious if you wanted to talk about it, but can you imagine that as a, as the act you're doing, you borrow a deck and. You got a deck I can borrow and then win, you know, give them their deck back a new deck order. Back a new deck order. Yeah. I mean, and now it's, now it's happening and it's crazy because it took so long of not looking good.

I mean, I remember I had just come up with the algorithm for how to get it back into new deck order and was working on the technique. And I was lecture, I got, I was booked to lecture in Beijing in October of last year.

And so then I was over there and i was just showing people separating the four suits in in one spread and then i was i pulled a couple friends aside and i was like you can go back in a new deck order and they were like what no way and it took me probably like like almost 10 minutes of just spreading like of just really slowly being like and then this one goes here and then this one goes this way and this one goes this way and it was like it was so slow and everybody i

showed it to in beijing was like okay this is like a cool concept i guess but like i don't this is so not worth your time just switch the deck yeah and but then i was like if it's doable it's practicable if it's practicable then it will be performable and if it's performable then it's perfectible so it's just about getting it to the point where you can do it and then if you can do it then you you can practice it and then you can hone it and then it will be,

it will be great in the end if you just stick to it. Damn. And it's obviously come true now. Yeah. It's all come true. Yeah.

Are you actively working on things that are insanely hard that'll be good two years from now? Oh, yeah. Right now, the current project is the 12-way separation. I promised myself that I wasn't going to start really practicing the 12-way separation until after FISM. But now that's definitely the next focus. And it doesn't look that great right now at all.

It really doesn't look that great. but the 12-way separation is i want to be able to borrow any deck and i should probably i should probably explain what this means a 12-way angle separation because i'm realizing that that concept probably sounds strange to people but essentially a call is when you are separating the cards into two vertical piles right so you have one the spread and then you have the hidden spread which which is the, this second pile. So along the Y axis, there's two piles.

The technique that I created for my FISM act is along the X axis. It's four horizontal separations. So that's one, two, three, four. So those four separations, now the, those horizontal sections are not disturbed by a vertical separation along the y-axis so if you were to take a call that a normal like roadrunner call if you were to take a hoffsens or call that separates into two vertical sections if you were to extend that so it actually separates into three vertical sections.

Then that still does not disturb my four horizontal sections from my technique, which means that you can spread, which I've done a bunch of times, it just is slow right now. And I want to, by next year, I'm thinking it'll be smooth. I want to, I borrow a deck, I spread through the cards one time to take out the four aces.

After that one spread, the deck will now be in four of a kinds in order all the way through uh holy fuck and then one more spread to have those aces put back in which would be a four-way separation now the decks in new deck order so essentially i want to take the whole process of getting a deck back in a new deck order and make it just two spreads like one to take out the aces and then one more to put the aces back in and then it's fully back the new deck

and so yeah the 12-way separation is my next focus is like right now i'm currently doing i'm I'm spreading through the cards in the act. It's technically three times. I spread through once to then give the deck out to be shuffled. The deck can be shuffled after my first spread through. And then I have to go through. So this is getting way too overly technical and nobody's interested.

Anyways. Yeah. So that's the next focus is I'm working on a 12 way angle separation, which is essentially a triple call combined with the quadruple angle separation. So it's just, it's just a whole lot of super practical.

Simpler applications of these techniques i've seen right maybe using half the deck and you don't have to go all the way down the rabbit hole but while this is you know you're explaining the hardest stuff and then if you apply some of these techniques to other effects maybe you have the deck preset a little bit or something now you're making miracles oh yeah yeah if the deck is if the deck is like shuffled by three people instead of instead of shuffled by one person,

then now you can go one, one spread in the whole decks back at noon. Right. Like if you start with your deck and you're like, here, you shuffle some, you shuffle some, you shuffle some, you can just go bang and be. And now you're straight back into new deck. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I have one that you guys might like. This is a new trick that I've only been showing magicians. I think I'm missing a card though. I'm missing the, I'm missing the king of spades. So.

If you're interested in a trick. Let's go. This is one that I've only shown magicians so far. But essentially, I would give out these two piles to somebody. They're like, here, can you mix these up? And so they shuffle them. And while they're shuffling them, I'm also shuffling a pile. And then I go, here, can you take these and can you mix these face up into face down? Out so you've you've shuffled these and now you're shuffling them face up into face down.

So this would have been your shuffle so it's actually a mess you can see it's like like really crazy that's a mess so at this point then i can go through and i can have however many people take out cards so if if you want to pretend you're taking one out doug let's just go with like here the three of diamonds yeah three of diamonds all right three diamonds okay and then we'll have another one for you josh wherever so maybe we'll go with the the queen of clubs okay okay all right

and then we'll put it back in the deck so here we'll put your your three back in should it go face up or face down face down face down okay and again also you could have picked cards that were face up or face down it really doesn't matter um and then you can put it back in face up or face down should this be face up or face down let's go face up face up okay yeah and yeah so i like to to think of this like problem solving right so what do we have right now we have we got some problems okay so

first you shuffled them it would have been you you shuffled them then on top of shuffling them then you shovel face up face down then on top of that you guys will pick cards and now you're expecting me to do something about that so that's a lot of problems so let's take a top down approach what's our biggest problem right now finding the cards right and probably also the face up face down right if that wasn't an issue it'd be so much easier

to find your cards If you're going to fix that, that's the problem. Finding the cards, the face up, face down, that's two big issues. So let's try and solve that here.

So that should look somewhere like this. Nice where was the other one where was the other one where was the other one we miss it we miss it okay whatever here it's here anyways right it's like these two it was these two okay but then obviously right if you guys are magicians you're you know that this is incomplete because we set out to solve three problems and we only solve two of the of the three problems right because because first you mix the cards then you mix them face up face down,

right then you guys pick the card so we found the cards we fixed the face of face down but we still haven't dealt with the mess that you made in the first place right so we might as well fix that bear in mind we're missing the king of spades at the beginning like i told you that should look, something like this damn damn new deck order for those listening on new deck reviews.

This is ridiculous stuff wait so this is you know that's mathematically impossible for the record i know i know things i know mathematically impossible this is so much easier than the competition act because this is this can be done with any deck but this doesn't start with a shuffle deck it starts with the deck in new deck order and then they shuffle it and then after one spread it's both triumph like the cards are fixed face up face down and it's back in new deck the The FISM one,

yeah, is much more complicated because it genuinely starts shuffled. So you're using your original culling techniques to accomplish this effect, in essence? Is that agreeable? I would say no. I would just say no because I make a big distinction between culls and angle separations personally. And so I say that this is like original angle separation technique, but there's no culling. There's no culling. Okay. Angle separation.

Right, right, right. Original angle separation, which is a Leonard Green concept. Yeah, exactly. If the student hasn't studied that idea, that's a good starting point for this whole ball of wax. So the cards, you still have to do like a cut or something to shift the cards at the end. So I did that cut, cut, and then it's fixed. A cull would do that shifting during the thing, but then you're dealing with other issues and the fact that you're reversing the order and stuff. Right, right.

Have you ever considered, or I guess first I'll ask this, do you work with Mnemonica or Arisons at all? Mnemonica, yeah. Okay, so my next question is, have you considered applying that to getting into Mnemonica from any shuffle deck? Yeah, here's the spreadsheet. Really? Yeah, so I really need to shout out Ryan, Rhino. He, if anybody knows Rhino Magic on Discord, he's incredible. Incredible. He's outrageous. It's light of hand. And he's a really smart guy.

He's also just studying like in culinary school right now. So he, he's not in discord as much as he was before, but he was one of the first ever members when I started my discord back like in April of 2020. And he, he joined, he had bought one arm bandit and I've known him become friends since then.

And he was probably him and my fiance, Gabby were the two number one people that I worked with on the fizzle act it was just gabby is a is a filmmaker she's an incredible director and her feedback was and also i like she knows how everything's done so like she's really able she can give me that feedback of you flashed here like you know she knows so she was the biggest help and then i would say after after gabby was was rhino and so yeah here yeah we've

got we've got the the notion and everything if people if people are trying to figure out how to get a deck back into mnemonica then yeah use use the four-way angle separation which i'll publish eventually after FISM and then, uh, yeah. And then use this algorithm to, to get it back and it'll, it'll go into mnemonica instead of new deck from a shuffle deck. Holy crap.

So you literally have, cause in my head I was like, that would be so far fetched cause now you're not trying to think of, you know, one to 13 in the actual numbers you can see, but now you're having to convert, you know. Queen of hearts is 11 and whatever, whatever, but you've already done that. So, yeah. Yeah, it's not. There are patterns that pop up in normal NUDEC order. So even though the algorithm as you're sorting does not look like it's particularly.

You know, sorted until you get closer to the end, there's a lot of pattern recognition. One thing that's great is when i'm sorting into new deck order all of the fours go into one section all of the twos go into one section that's not the case for mnemonica for mnemonica you don't just look at the value and i go okay the twos go here yeah i have to literally just look at every card and its suit as its own entity and memorize each individual one for this separation you know.

The two of spades specifically goes here at the end it actually gets easier because for the final separation it's a four-way separation and my way is that the cards at that point are now in four of a kinds so now all i have to do is just separate by suits and then they'll be in new in new deck order if i separate the suits like all of the clubs there if i have kings queens jacks tens nines right if i separate all of the clubs together then now i'm getting all

of them in order i have all the clubs in order for this instead of thinking of all of the clubs and all of the hearts all the spades you're thinking quarters of stack so everything in the fourth quarter of stack is its own chunk everything so you're are you separating everything that is the first card of each quadrant for example and then everything that's the second one instead of four of a kind Are you going like, you know, the two of hearts.

The six of spades, the, you know, you know what I'm saying? The three of hearts and the. I guess it's not exactly, but kind of like that. Yeah. And especially for the last separation, it's like, I know that.

The four of clubs through the queen of clubs the first 13 will be one section so all of those cards go in a pile and then everything from the ace of diamonds to the end of the deck is its own pile the you know the eight of hearts to the king of diamonds this is so means nothing to the majority of viewers i'm realizing this is so sorry this is great it like this is so overly technically complicated but yeah i i mean i love talking about this kind of stuff because it's been an obsession and it's

also the kind of thing that you don't usually have the opportunity to talk about the methodology and the thought process you more just have to do the do the performance and and dude that's insane to be able to have a shuffle deck look like you're doing other effects and then end up in mnemonica or whatever thing that you want to end up in is ridiculous it's all possible yeah so the method when i put it out is going to be called chunk yeah so chunking we're chunking yeah so

and does it and does this one use two hands or yes yeah because yeah because you're spreading yeah yeah no nick nick had a question he wanted to jump in i guess you have maybe you have a funny answer for this but he asked what were you doing with the other arm when you came up with one arm bandit that's a that's a funny question i mean that was actually i remember where I was when I came up with One-Eyed Bandit. I was at Tannin's Magic Camp.

And it was the only year that I attended Tannin's Magic Camp. There's this guy named Cameron Dirty from the UK. And he's great at sleight of hand. I don't think that he performs like full time. He just casually is an amazing hobbyist. But we were both campers. And so I remember one night, we were hanging out really late jamming. We were both around like 15, 16 years old. And, and.

We were just like, wouldn't it be so crazy if you could, because we were showing each other, like, I think I was a junior in high school at the time. And we were obsessed with bilateral center steels. So like this, where you, you do that. So you have two breaks. It's Dr. Jacob Daly from Expert Card Technique Edition 3. You have a break here, you have a break here, these two breaks, and then the right hand card goes to the right hand and the bottom card goes into the left hand.

And so it's a, it's a bilateral center steel. So that was what I was really practicing a lot at the time was, was that bilateral center steel. And then I was like, jamming with Cameron, we were thinking, wouldn't it be so crazy if you could just do a one handed center steel, no one would ever suspect anything, you know, and you have unlimited misdirection because you have an, you have a whole hand dedicated to misdirection. You could do anything with this hand.

You can be dragging a drink, you can be handing something to someone. And so then Then from that idea, we got really obsessed with it. And that night, Cameron and I both came up with our own versions of a one-handed center steal. Mine, both of them were from an Erdnase break, but mine was to just be in the hands and then you drop the deck to strip the card out. So the initial method required me to kind of like toss the deck to get rid of the cards because it's still kind of halfway in there.

And Cameron's was he found a way to get it out and then spread the cards and and steal it during the spread.

And yeah then it was it was only until like close before i put out the one-armed bandit a few years after that that i called cameron and reconnected with him and then he was like oh my god i can't believe you kept playing with that after all these years and he had his own versions and variations and yeah so that was where you have a replacement where you reverse the card and replace it face up into the deck at a chosen position you want

to talk about that at all yeah so you got the you You got the card, you steal out the card, you get the named position, and then we steal the card, we reverse, and then we replace at the position. Any card, any number, any position. And if I'm not mistaken, you do that with two freely named selections at two named numbers. Yeah. So I do a thing where I have my deck and it's in the box. So what I just did, I do in the box during the competition now.

So my deck that I bring out hasn't come out of the box yet at this point in the act. It's still sitting there in the box. I've brought up the people on stage and I borrow the deck.

And i'm doing the whole act with their deck so then in my left hand i have them name a card and then just start dealing the cards into my left hand and they can deal like groups or bunches if they want and then they stop whenever they want and wherever they it's like a stop trick in my left hand and so they wherever they stop in my left hand before revealing the card they stopped then i go how many cards would you guess you dealt into my hand and they're like i don't know like 16.

I'm like, okay, about 16 cards. And you wanted the queen of hearts. Okay. I'll trust you flip it over. And they flip it over simultaneously while they're looking at this in my left hand, I've picked up the deck that's in the box and it's still in the box. And I do all of this with now, because I've asked them to guess how many cards they dealt. I now have a position that I need to control too.

So now when they take this deck out of the box in my right, that's in my right hand when they take it out and spread it there's one card reversed and not only is there one card reversed i go now you had no idea you're going to think of the three of spades and you definitely didn't know you're going to deal however many this was into my hand how many did you say you thought it was 16 how did you know and then and then we count and the face up one is 16

so it's invisible deck at any number and it's a two deck thing and it's convoluted but it works and holy jesus this is bullshit i wrote in the blurb for this i said he does things with cards no one else does i wasn't lying wow there you go that's yeah i'm just you know imagine seeing that without having talked about it first yeah and so do you ever you know when you're performing say that maybe not the speakeasy but let's say you perform maybe you're doing a gig or

something think do you ever perform something like that where you know no other human can do it but then you have that person say because maybe they're not a magician and they're like oh yeah i can do a trick can i borrow your dick let me show you one and then it's like the 21 car trick or they're like oh yeah i i've got it that that's a that's a sphingali dick right i've got one at home too i can do that something like do you there must be such a disconnect they're like that's a good

one you mind if i do one yeah i mean it's like i don't know it's nice that like. I think I get shielded from that because of the show, that speakeasy. When I do private gigs, then yeah, you get that all the time. When you just have people being like, hey, can I see that? Let me show you a trick. And they always want to show you the same trick. For some reason, everybody knows the exact same version of the 21 card trick. And at speakeasy, I think it's such a wonderful thing to be a part of a show

where people are buying a ticket for a magic show. And I think that it's actually rare that we as magicians have that as the type of performance environment that we're in.

Most of the time, the dream high paying performance environment for most magicians is a corporate event where your job is to interrupt people's evening. And I've done that countless times. I've done a lot of restaurant gigs. When I was first starting out in Connecticut, I was doing like three restaurants a week. And like you get that experience of having to of having to interrupt people's dinner and make the night about you.

But to have people already have bought a ticket to sit down at your table and then they are there to watch you do what you do best in its best light. And it's just such an incredible feeling. Like, I'm so fortunate to be, you know, to be a part of a magic show like that. And so, yeah, I think it's really different, you know, well, yeah, when you do private gigs, you get those kinds of crazy things all the time, but you know, in this show, it's, it's pretty great. Yeah.

It's rare that they're so primed for it. They've been thinking about this magic show. They're going to go to magic. Do you have an interest in booking private gigs now? Or are you just full on theater doing that? I would imagine it's hard to go back once you've tasted those waters. I mean, yeah, I would love to be making more money than I am.

Yeah, I was like, really, I was really just grinding away at this competition thing and was kind of missing out on some opportunities that I probably could have capitalized on because of the fact that I felt like I needed the time to practice. And so I'm really happy that it worked out.

Yeah baby hey right on the horse of that your own show coming in october like i don't know if you could do anything better for yourself than that you know so congratulations oh yeah thank you so much i'm really excited about that that's that's gonna be huge but yeah i i would love to do more, work and i and i'm yeah i i think that i think that like it's never good to look down on any kind of gig you know like i think that you know not now that i'm fortunate enough that i'm

in a magic show that you know where people are buying a ticket to the show i still you know i'd still be really grateful to be doing more of like things and stuff yeah well it's all part of evolution you put the hard work in and good things come and you know yeah. But that being said, I think if people are doing corporate gigs and they're like, what is the next echelon from this?

It may not necessarily be as lucrative, but I would encourage people to try and work towards having like a solo show because I just I think it's such an incredible, you know, experience. And also, it's very liberating creatively to be able to have that kind of experience where it's like, okay, you have an hour and you have to really create this. And yeah, I love having those kind of deadlines.

You know, I think I'm so much better as a magician now than I was a year ago because of the fact that I set FISM as the goal. And I said, I want to take all those ideas that I had that I didn't know if they'd ever be ready.

And I want to make that my competition act. right it forced me to really practice hard and so i think that like having this next show now it's forcing me to do i like i've got this idea with a balloon and i'm so excited about the idea of letting go of a balloon at the beginning of the show and then at the end of the show having that balloon fly back down to me you know on the rooftop and be able to catch it like that's something that i i'm so obsessed with that idea now that now i'm

out of the cards world and i and And it's totally out of my wheelhouse. So it's really pushing me to try and bring these ideas to life. So I know I totally went off the beaten path from your question. I think that I'd love to do more corporate gigs and things. But I feel like I'm really happy with where my corporate set is. I know that it does the job. And there's only so much of creative expression that I can have in that kind of context where I'm being booked for a private event.

Whereas if it's if it's a solo show and now i'm getting to have more control to design the space like there's a bookshelf behind me and i'm like oh man i get to fill the whole shelf with all little like magic items and different objects people could grab and pick up off the shelf and it could be an impossible object or it could be like a cube in bottle or a deck and bottle or it could be all of the books on the shelf are all going to be xan man book tests and

it's going to to be amazing yeah it's just that it's really exciting and so yeah i you know i think this is this is a huge opportunity and i hope no doubt you and you want you like you say you're already starting the path of putting your mindset to work on on this show and i i would imagine by the end of october it's just going to be insane.

I hope I can see it. Yeah, I can't wait to see some of this excellent work, the chunk, all these thoughts. It's amazing. You know, if you're ever in Australia, you definitely have a spot at our Theatre of Magic that we perform every week. If you're ever in New Orleans, keep the cards in your pocket because I got a reputation that I pulled around here. Absolutely. I don't want you to make me look bad.

For our friends, because we're almost out of time now, but for our friends listening, I didn't want to use today's episode for this, but we just had Michael Lamar headline at our theater of magic. He's lecturing in Australia and I got to tell you about his parlor show he did, which was, uh, he still got it. Did he do the lemon? Did he do the. Yes, he did. Yeah. That was insane. I just saw that recently.

I saw that last month for the first time. And I was like, this is one of my favorite magic moments that I've ever seen. Michael Lamar, if you've never seen him. Yeah. It, I couldn't believe. Did he crush it that hard? Josh? Really? Yeah. Yeah, he got a standing ovation at our show.

Was it all Magic Club members or was it the laity? No, no. So, yeah, so Blaze, the Theatre of Magic is like this intimate 40-seat theaterette style where everyone's in a semicircle, tiered seating, and you're all watching. Oh, that's a beautiful performance environment. That's awesome. It's perfect for Michael Amar, especially. And he came in and he was like, wow, this is going to be a fun night.

So, yeah, Doug, this is probably out of the 40 people, I want to say five were magicians all right so it was really interesting because obviously as magicians we know like this is a you know a legacy performer coming right but for we had audience members that had no idea Michael Ma was like they didn't know who he was they've just come to see the theater of magic in Brisbane not knowing what the hell they're in for which is which for me was really awesome.

But he, yeah, he annihilated this audience and, and he had to warn us. He's like, just so you know, the way I end my show is it looks like it's ended, but then there's another ending. And then there's one more ending after that. And we, and that's the lemon he was referring to. It's so good. The lemon is amazing. And that was the one thing everyone wanted to know at his lecture. And he was like, well, I'm going to just keep one thing to myself, guys.

Yeah yeah so that's for another time but yeah that was that was crazy you know mike's killing it yeah so blaze we're out of time now which is just you know shows how much how much info you have in there shows how much i rambled yeah absolutely which is awesome now we end our episodes the same way every time and it's giving our guests the the final word which could be you know something of encouragement or you know something reflecting on what we've just talked about or just advice

for the fellow magicians out there, but I'm going to play a little logo stinger, whatever you want to say, let it fly. And then I'll end our episode and we'll see you guys. Next week. Well, thank you guys so much for having me.

I think that one thing that just really comes to mind when thinking of a final piece of advice for people coming off of the back of this competition is, like I was saying earlier, just how much better of a magician that I am now than I was a year ago and how all of the stuff that I'm performing now and that I finally am doing in my show at Speakeasy every night and will be doing in this upcoming residency Vintage Green are all things that I just had as ideas

that I hoped one day I would be able to do. They were pipe dream ideas that finally are now possible. And it was because of setting that goal and trying to push myself. So I would really encourage other people to go out there and compete. I think North America is heavily underrepresented in the world magic, especially competition scene. And I think that magic competition is taken really seriously across Europe and across Asia.

And I think North America has really, really talented magicians that deserve to be seen. And so I'd encourage you out there, even if you never saw yourself as a competition performer, I'd encourage you to just try and discover your potential. And I think that's what magic is about, is about us discovering our own potential and discovering what we're capable of. Create magic that makes you proud to perform it, that when you perform it, you remember.

Yourself sitting in your bedroom wondering if you would ever be able to bring this in front You remember the first time you thought of the idea and it put a smile on your face, imagining what kind of experience you'd be able to give an audience. And when you finally can take those ideas and bring them in front of an audience, it's more worth it than anything.

The amount of satisfaction, the amount of pride you'll have in your performance, and how present and engaged you'll be in your performance when you're doing something that pushes yourself.

It's just unlike anything else. anything else so i'd really really just encourage people try and compete try and come up with the best magic you can push yourself to try and you know discover what you're capable of you're going to find that you're so much better at sleight of hand and you're capable of way more than you ever imagined if you do so i think just just go for it and you know strive to be original and you guys can do it i believe in you so thank you again for

having me on i appreciate this thanks for listening It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now. But we'll see you again on the next episode of the Magic Guys.