Those are the basics, the fundamentals, and you can really get by with those. But you don't want to just get by, do you? You want to be amazing, right? Well, you can be! There is so much more to learn - but it is all really cool stuff that you are going to love to do...so, let's go deeper into the Magic of Misdirection...

Timing.

Timing, or the way you use the rhythm of a trick, can make the difference between a "yeah, cool trick" response and a "What the...how the..how the freak did you do that??" response.

One of the best ways to use timing to enhance your trick is to hide the fact that you've actually done your secret move right before their eyes during the 'set-up'. Think of the magic number, 3. That's the key to rhythm in magic. It goes: on-off-on. Here's an example:

on: you hold a coin up and say, "you see this coin?"

off: you pass the coin to the other hand

on: you raise the other hand in a fist and say, "let's see what I can do with this..." You slowly uncurl your fingers - and the coin is gone!

Impact.

Of course, what you did was palm or ditch the coin on the 'off' beat, when they thought you were just passing it over to the other hand. It's the quiet time, when their attention is relaxed between one 'on' move and another.

Effectively you've done the trick (ie vanished the coin in this case) before they even think you've started.

Do not underestimate the power of this technique. As you use it and understand it more, you will find yourself doing it naturally all the time. It's as easy as 1-2-3 but it will seriously rock your magic.

So, to the second deep technique of misdirection that I want to share with you. It's related to rhythm although it is fundamentally a psychological technique. It's called habituation, or conditioning or brain-training. Basically it's a way of using the fact that we tend very quickly to 'get used to things' and that molds our expectations.

In very simple terms, if a thing happens several times over and over your brain stops paying full attention and as soon as the thing starts happening again fills in the gaps with what it expects rather than what it sees.

So, to make use of this in misdirection, we use rhythm again and again the magic number 3. Back to our simple coin vanish, here's an example:

1. you show the coin, pass it to the other hand, close your fingers, open them again and there's the coin.

2. you show the coin, pass it to the other hand, close your fingers, open them again and there's the coin.

3. you show the coin, pass it to the other hand, close your fingers, open them again and there's the coin.

4. you show the coin, pass it to the other hand, close your fingers, open them again and ...the coin has VANISHED!

You see, the first three times you really do pass the coin so by the third time your audience just accepts that the coin got passed over (their brains are just going "oh, yeah, I remember this, he passes it over to the other hand, yeah,yeah." But on the third time, you palm or ditch and bam! You have high impact magic.

So the rhythm here, the timing, is just the same but you actually do do the trick at the end, it's only that by then the audience think they know what you're going to do next, so they don't see what you do do! Get it?

It's as easy as 1-2-3-BAM!

So the final way that you can use timing, use rhythm, is in the 'delay technique'. This basically relies on the human tendency to forget stuff very, very quickly. And that is very reliable. Believe me.

What was I talking about? ...oh yeah... ;)

Lots of card tricks rely on someone picking a card that they think is random, but you actually decided precisely which card they were going to pick. It's called 'a force'. So here's an example of how to use the 'time delay' technique to effect a force:

1. On the top of the pack is a card you know (you put it there or sneeked a peek); let's say the Ace of Spades. Okay.

2. You put the pack on the table and ask your guy to cut, or split the pack.

3. You then take the bottom of the pack and place it over the top half (reversing the order)

4. You then leave the pack, make eye contact, and say something like "Okay, we have a standard pack, I asked you to cut, you had a free choice and..."

5. "...I marked here the place you cut to." You indicate the pack. "So, now you take this card that you cut to freely..."

Of course they take the Ace of Spades because by this time, and convinced by all the true statements before (remember Part One?) they really believe that is where they cut the pack.

They have just forgotten the details of what happened. You can rely on that.

In summary:

1. Use the off beat

2. Repetition

3. Time delay

All the best with your magic and check out Part Three where I will tell you THE MOST POWERFUL SECRET of all misdirection.