The Hopping Half Magic Trick

The Hopping Half magic trick is astonishing and visual coin magic at its best. But it needs a gimmick to work – and that gimmick is expensive.

Well, in this video you’re about to discover a stunning Hopping Half routine that uses ZERO gaffs. 

This routine is a ‘worker.’ No gimmicks required, super practical and looks stonishing (plus comes with a bonus ‘kicker’ ending). You’ll carry this around all the time.   

It looks incredible, and it’s EASY to do. 

This routine is taught by one of our in-house astonishment team, Steve Barcellona.

 

 

 

 

Transcript:

 

Aaron Fisher:

Okay. Participation. Right. It’s not just the participation as a tactic in Steve’s magic. It’s almost like Steve’s magic is a tactic in Steve’s participation, right? So everything he does is based on that and you can really feel the way it informs every routine and who really wants to make stuff happen with people out there in the universe, you know, without breaking into their phone with it. They’re knowing their pain codes. Secret layer, any other weird, odd Eastern European app magic. Okay. Is that off topic? No, not at all. I tell it to live on the internet and you know, all of a sudden I started to like, you know, share inappropriate details about myself [inaudible] with words. But Steve, would you say that I got that wrong or

Steve Barcellona:

Is that definitely, you know that was actually prewrite on how I think about it. I really use magic as a vehicle, right? Like, like a singer uses a song as the vehicle, right? To get something across. I use the magic to get people to really participate and engage and really be part of it. So it’s not just about watching something, it’s using it to get them to be a part of it.

Aaron Fisher:

And the exciting thing that everyone should, that you can get out of what we’re going to watch today, and this is really amazing, is that when you learned Steve’s trick and you learn anyone’s trick, you actually get a little piece. It’s like a horror crux, right? You get a little piece of that person. So by doing Steve’s trick, the way Steve built it, you actually will develop that aspect of yourself, right? Which you can add to everything you’re doing, right. So it’s a real opportunity to take one simple trick and make, make everything you do just to convey audience engagement so much more. You know, participate is such a sterile magic word, right. As opposed to engage, which is really, yeah. What Steve is trying to do. I agree. Well, why don’t we go ahead and watch it and then we can talk about it.

Steve Barcellona:

Yeah, no doubt. All right. So we’ll we’ll check it out here. This is [inaudible].

Aaron Fisher:

I,

Steve Barcellona:

This is mr Steve Barcelona showing us this is pretty old. Yeah. It’s pretty old. Yeah. This this is one of, this is a stellar routine. Let’s check it out

Aaron Fisher:

Least you don’t have that weird facial hair. Look at that

Steve Barcellona:

Back in the old Steve Barcelona. How are you sir? I am. Well, are you going to share with us a trick tonight? That was all the rage at 3:00 AM live with the condor communities. This is a fun little thing, man. I’m actually gonna pull in a Alexander slammer. I think he’s, he might be here and I have two cameras tonight. He is, it looks like he made it. Oh, okay. Hi Alex. Slimmer welcome. He made it. He made it. Let me see. Where are we? Okay, here we go. Right. So,

Steve Barcellona:

Oh, that’s actually pretty good, isn’t it? Can you guys see that pretty well? Yeah, it’s looks great. Right? Okay. So I’m going to show you my famous two coin trick and I call it that because it uses two coins. I have a, a Chinese coin and I think you can actually see that pretty well in a silver coin. If you can see that they’re over here. I have that so these people can see over here. Now I’m going to put these into this in here and I take out the Chinese coin. I put it on the back of my hand so you can see it and it polices in my pocket. Real simple. How many coins are in my hand? Aaron, how many coins are in my hand? I want to say one coin. Oh, I messed up. I’m sorry. There’s, I messed up. I apologize. There’s, there’s two. I gotta get it right. I haven’t done this in awhile. Take the Chinese coin, put it in my pocket. How many coins are in my hand now, Aaron? I would say one coin in your hand and Chinese replica in your pocket. Why can’t I get this right? I’m sorry about that. I keep on kind of messing up. One more time. Outcomes the Chinese coin into my pocket again. How many coins are in my hand?

Steve Barcellona:

Oh, good call. This isn’t a, this isn’t working out like I had planned. Let’s change it up and take out the silver coin this time. Place it into my pocket. Rosemary, how many coins are in my hand? Maybe we’ll do a card trick with that. You go to a card trick, something like that. Couldn’t get any more practical that couldn’t get any more usable, real world ready to go. Yeah. And I I broke my own rule there and I went one phase too many, but it doesn’t matter. You know, it literally doesn’t matter. It’s, it’s such a great trick. It’s always in my pocket. It’s one of those things I learned so long ago and I just never stopped doing it. I mean, it just literally comes down to I just never stopped. So originally this not what’s up. I’m so sorry. It’s absolutely nothing.

Steve Barcellona:

Please continue. You’re doing so great. Has Tourette’s syndrome. I would appreciate. My name is Tourette. That’s what my friends call me. So it actually comes from a Carl Andrew’s VHS. That’s how old it is. I’ve completely changed the handling on it because I just didn’t, I don’t like he teaches it using a classic Palm. So when you’re, when you’re transferring the coins, he holds that coin back in a classic Palm. And it’s just not a comfortable Palm for me. It’s not something I like. So I do it with a finger Palm. I think it makes it look way more natural. And then I got a couple of little touches on it, so let me take you through it real quick. So what you need is you need three coins. Let me see, where’s my camera? Here it is. Whoa, there it is.

 

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the Hopping Half magic trick. Remember, you can watch the video above to visually see what we’re talking about. 

 

Steve Barcellona:

Three coins. So I have two coins. Usually I do coppers and a silver. Tonight I grabbed a two Chinese fake Chinese coins. Like I doubt you can spend these in China. And a silver. Okay. So they live in this pocket here. And I’m going to give another plug to this because everyone talked about this at, at 3:00 PM. This is a little thing I got from Kenowa har bottle. It’s called the PMs pocket management system. And the big thing about this trick was stopping the coins from talking when you put them in your pocket. That’s the biggest thing because when you go to your pocket, if they talk and it ruins everything, right? Because know it’s called the PMs. It is the pocket management system. That is correct. That’s checking. Okay. That’s it. The PMs that is right. I didn’t name it. I just, it just works.

Steve Barcellona:

I just had PMs. I’ve had the PMs for over a year. Yeah, I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve actually enjoyed it, which is the PMs. I carry it with me all the time. I’m permanently PMs. We have certainly rung as much as it’s in there, out of that. Okay. So, okay. So we would come out of our pocket with the three coins and I just hold back and sometimes I even look and hold back one coin in this hand like that in finger Palm. Okay. And then I want to have the in, you know, the duplicate coin in finger Palm in the other hand. Now here’s the thing.

Steve Barcellona:

I am pretty comfortable holding out in like a Ramsey subtlety kind of thing. I think touching that pinky right there, really, instead of doing this, I think letting that pinky touch also allows you to point very naturally. But here’s the thing, it’s tension is the thing. If you’re, if you’re holding out like this, you can see that tension across the internet, right? I mean, you could see that I’m like holding out, but if you’re just lackadaisically holding out, look BA, I mean it’s just like, you know, loosey goosey. No one’s even going to look at the other hand. Plus they have no reason to suspect there’s another coin in play. So I’m holding out here and I’ll say, I’m going to show you my two coin trick. It uses two coins and it’s real important that you want to show the coins to these people over here.

Steve Barcellona:

So you don’t want to just throw it over. To the other hand, you want to have a reason to do that. And the reason is to show the coins to these people here. So you have the two coins, you shuttle pass them over and you show them over there as you kind of stand up in this hand, just kind of swings. And I’m holding out here now, right? So they look at the two coins in. The beauty of this is there’s no gimmick coins. When I extend my hand like this, if someone wants to pick one up, okay, we’re just waiting now. So you give it back to me. You know there’s nothing, you know, there’s no nothing to worry about. When it comes time to bring them back, I just put them back under my hand like this. Now of course it works a lot easier if I do it at speed.

Steve Barcellona:

And so what happens now is I know the coin next to my hand is going to be the duplicate coin or in this situation, the Chinese coin. So then I’ll take that out of my hand and I’ll hold it on the back of my hand just for a second. I’ll say, if I take the Chinese coin and put it in my pocket, how many coins are in my hand? Now here’s the thing. You don’t take your hand out of your pocket, okay? Because if you take your hand out of your pocket and you’re holding out now and someone says, what’s in your other hand? Which I mean it could happen if it hasn’t happened in a while, but maybe that’s because I never take this hand out because if they were to say nothing, if they were to say what’s in your other hand, you go nothing. And then we just go to the end. Okay. Which I’ll get to in a second. But generally if I’m just holding it here, I’ll put this coin in my pocket and I say, how many coins are in my hand? Rosemary? How many coins are in my hand?

Aaron Fisher:

What?

Steve Barcellona:

Oh darn it, I messed up. So here’s the thing. I used to go, no, it’s to where you’re not paying attention. And so I changed that away kind of a while ago. I kind of slept back and forth cause I did it one way for so long. But generally my philosophy is I don’t like to put it on the spectator, that Damon in the state, I like to put it on the, I made a mistake. So generally as that coin comes back, I go, Oh, I screwed up. I’m sorry. There’s still two there. It’s still the same two you saw over here. Okay. So awesome. Because then it makes it on me instead of on you way better, right? Way better. So then I put these back in again. I go, let’s try it again. I’ll take out the Chinese coin again and because it will be the one next to my hand on the inside of my hand next to my fingers.

Steve Barcellona:

It’s always easy to pull it out and know that’s what that’s going to be. And I’ll say put this in my hand and we’re going to go for another phase and say how many coins are in my hand? Rosemary, you know, I can’t get this right. I apologize. I practiced it at home. I went really well. I’m sorry. Let’s do it one more time. A Chinese coin into my pocket. How many coins are in my hand? Now you notice I pulled my hand out cause I ditched. Okay, so now I ditched and it’s, it’s there. Rosemary, how many coins? You’ll say one, you’ll say two. It doesn’t matter what you say. And then you’re like, darn it, this was worked really well. Now I’m going to actually shuttle the two coins over, but try to make it look the same as I did before.

 

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the Hopping Halves magic trick. Remember, you can watch the video above to visually see what we’re talking about. 

 

Steve Barcellona:

And the nice thing about this is I always have the Chinese coin or whatever coin is a duplicate in finger Palm. Your finger palming the same coin every time. So there’s nothing to think about. There’s no switching. It’s just very straightforward. This time, I’m now going to hold back in this hand, the Chinese coin, and just throw over the silver coin and say, let’s do it different this time. And I like this move here because you can hold out in a Ramsey subtlety and go, let’s do something different. And that’s an hand, right? That is an empty hand, especially if you have no tension and you’re just like, let’s do something different. Let’s take out the silver coin this time. Okay? And I take the silver coin and put it in my pocket. And this is where the PMs comes in handy because I have so many little pockets there.

Steve Barcellona:

I boom, I just put it in his pockets. It didn’t clink. I go, how many are in there? And you’re like, boom, none, right? You’re like, yeah, let’s do a card trick. How about a car? You like card tricks or somebody buy me a beer, I’m getting tired. You know, whatever you say. So that is that is in general. I have one more coin here. Now, the other part of me, marvelous that the one thing the little tip I want to give you is the first time we do it, we’re going to throw the coins over holding out here. I’ve got it in finger Palm. They all three go over. I take out one. This is phase one. It goes into my pocket. Okay. Now if right now I said Rosemary, how many coins are in my hand and you go to, the trick is over.

Steve Barcellona:

At this point I’m going to ditch the single coin in my hand. Come out empty and go, yeah, this, you’re really good. You must’ve seen this before. I’m just going to fast forward to the end because if she’s not saying one, okay, she already either has seen this trick, knows what’s happening or she’s not playing along with me. And so I have to change the script. Hate that girl, right? I have to change the script and I go, yeah, you know, you’re right. It’s too, wow, you’re a lot smarter than most of the people I show this trick to and that’ll get a laugh or something. And I go, okay, let’s do it different this time I’m going to take out the silver coin. Okay, Rosemary, how many coins now are in my Palm and my hand? And she says to whatever, let’s do a card trick. That would be a lot better. Right? And so what’s happened is though she thought she was ahead of me and I’m only saying she because you know, I’m using Rosemary as my spectator, but what’s happening is I am listening to what she’s saying and reacting to it and changing my routine accordingly so that I am still ahead of her thinking, not necessarily want ahead, but ahead of her thinking.

Aaron Fisher:

And Steve, I really liked that you said Oh. Oh, you’re really, you’re really picking this up quick and when you have to fast forward rather than any other less kind of thing that you could say,

Steve Barcellona:

God, why I, you know, I, I think that there is a certain amount of inertia we all have to break in doing magic. You know, a lot of people have a lot of thoughts about what magic is and what it should be or that really we are really held to account. You should tell your screen up so we can see your face. Let me sit down for a second. I’ll switch back for a second. Hold on. I’m to pull an Alec Alexander

Steve Barcellona:

Slammer here and go back to this camera. All right. So I think we are being held to account by the last magician they saw. Okay. And so if they saw, you know, Aaron Fisher and you’re doing a card trick, you know, you’re probably in an uphill battle. Okay. But if they saw uncle Bob does the one coin trick from behind the ear, you’re probably, you know, one up on them. Right? So that’s kind of like the general thing. So I like to have the script loose. So if, if you’re in my script, then we’re going to go the way it goes. But if you’re not, I’m going to switch it and go right to the end.

 

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the Hopping Half coin trick. Remember, you can watch the video above to visually see what we’re talking about. 

 

Aaron Fisher:

You know Steve remember how Sean was saying that he found out David Williamson likes to do the to surprise method for the, the, not to surprise method, but the two card trick when he’s got a challenge situation, two evil, nasty surprises and there’s no way out. There’s no wiggle room. There’s no, you know, extended sequence for them to Matt Smith. That’s just, you know,

Steve Barcellona:

Yeah,

Aaron Fisher:

No, that’s it. Right. And so it’s a total, it’s a total, like you said, tempo changer. Well, what basically happens here is if anyone starts to mess with your tempo in the slightest, you immediately shift directly to a very similar

Steve Barcellona:

Structured routine. [inaudible]

Adam Grace:

Okay. That is cool. Let me start everybody’s cameras. Sorry about that. I all right. I literally had to stop everyone’s cameras cause let me see here. Here we go. That was great.

Steve Barcellona:

That was so great. I forgot that that last touch on Steve on taking the multiple out and getting right to this nice sucker ending. If they happen to be tricky. Ricky, it is really good. Steve. So many good things about this routine. I mean, this is a like a workhorse for me. You know, I always have it with me and it never fails. Never, you know? [inaudible]

Adam Grace:

Yeah, yeah. You not only that you’ve got you know, you can tell, you can really tell when you watch. Like there’s two kinds of magicians, those magicians who will show you tricks that they never do. They’ll teach you tricks they never do for anyone, you know, and then there’s magicians who show you their actual material. And the thing about this you can really feel is that this is your actual material you’ve thought about all, like the real world circumstances, which surrounds it. And I love that about this. I always feel like when you show us these, these pieces that we’re getting stuff that, you know, you’ve worked out at over 15 years or you know, doing this stuff. So it’s really, really cool, man.

Steve Barcellona:

Yeah. And the little touches come from being like caught out under fire. You know what I mean? It’s like that’s how you learn hard lessons, you know, and make good decisions about what to do next. You know, when you’re working for the big wigs and you get caught out or something, you know, but I recommend this to everyone. The thing, the thing I like about this a lot is it’s just regular coins, you know, so it’s just, you could have multiple sets everywhere. So every closeup bag, I’ll go into suits I haven’t worn in a while and they’ll dis will be in the pocket, you know what I mean? There’ll be a setup in the pocket and you can have multiples all over the place. And I love that.

Adam Grace:

So Steve, having said that, do you have another solution other than that little wallet, the PMs thing you were speaking of so that you, since you have it in all these different suits, do you use a different method?

Steve Barcellona:

Well, you know, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve stopped having that in my pocket now. Since I don’t know how old that video is. I mean I still have it and I use it to store stuff in my closeup case, but I do not put it in my pocket. Just cause it makes a lump.

Adam Grace:

Huh. And how do you handle all that now? How do you deal with the songs?

Steve Barcellona:

I go old school. Okay. So I have a handkerchief and I just fold the handkerchief up with, with the folds down so it essentially makes the little things anyway and it’s a smallish handkerchief that I’ve found. It might actually be a lady’s handkerchief [inaudible] a little bit smaller and and then just have that in my pocket and then it just shove it into the folds and then that stops it and it doesn’t, I was carrying a lot of extra stuff in that PMs holder that I never used. Okay. You know, like I had to set a Morgan’s for that thing I did, I do a like a Troy who’s your routine? I had a different set for that in there and I just decided, you know what, I’m not even doing these things. I’m just carrying them around so we got to tighten it up, you know? [inaudible]

Adam Grace:

Before you, before you did this routine, did you, did you do the classic copping half gaffed hopping and a half?

Steve Barcellona:

Well, well I used to work in a magic store, you know, when I was probably 15, maybe 19 or 20. Right. And so I had a hopping half routine there. It was in a flea market with like tons of raw layman traffic, you know, and the hoppy half for a while was my c’mon to get people to step up and buy a ball and vase or something, you know? That’s funny. You know what I mean? That was like my break in this routine there to keep them occupied or was it after? No, this came much later than that. And I’m just always looking for economy. Right? So I have another two coin routine, like a Troy who’s your two grand jury that these two coins will work for and then have a one coin routine. So that means if I carry three coins, I have three coin routines and that is way more than enough. That’s right. You know, and then I have a deck, I have that and a few other sort of things that I think I’ve, you know, showed around quite a bit. And those things are just, you know, economy of motion. Do you think that routine is so perfect? It’s like the simplest, I would carry that around with me everyday too. I think I might actually start carrying it around with me every day,

Adam Grace:

You know? I I gotta say too I love the classic GAF topping half, like is one of my favorites and I never worked in a magic shop. I think I’m might be the only one here today. Sean, did you ever work in a magic shop?

Steve Barcellona:

Kind of. I did like some of their events by in there. Like I didn’t work like a steady gig there.

Adam Grace:

Right. Okay. Well, I take that back. I worked one day at the, the Hollywood magic and they didn’t invite me back. 

Steve Barcellona:

[Inaudible]

Adam Grace:

I’m not sure what to this day. I’m not sure what I did wrong, but

Steve Barcellona:

Yeah, I have livestock. You know, that might’ve been your downfall.

Adam Grace:

They might have. Yeah, they might have. But think about the CLA I think, I think, you know, w when we talk about the classic hopping half the thing about it that attracts people to that the GAF version. And the reason why I think we always talk about it when you’re getting into magic is because of, you know, it’s, it’s sorta like is the ultimate GAF set to, you know, you get a, you get a, you get a copper shale, you get a a half dollar shell, you get a sun and moon coin. So there’s like, it’s almost like a great, it is a great starter kit for commercial. It really is. Yeah, it is. So, but the thing about, you know, I that I love about this is that with this routine you could, you could borrow you know, if you had to do it this way, you could, you can borrow a handful of change and you could use a quarter and a nickel if you needed to. Or two nickels. You know,

Steve Barcellona:

You could use three quarters to do this. You know, the coins don’t necessarily have to, not Matt have to, you know, it’s true. I didn’t even think about that. Here’s what really attracted me to this and made this something that I just continually worked on. Is that I like to be very loose. I never liked to have any guarded moments, right. So cause I think like, you know, we’ve all seen that guarded moment. Sometimes someone, there’ll be a moment where they have to make sure no one’s looking over their shoulder or do I have it right? Or you know, there’s always that moment sometimes. And what I like about this is when you extend these coins out like this and you’re just like, like that, if someone picked that up, you don’t even have to flinch.

 

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the Hopping Half magic trick. Remember, you can watch the video above to visually see what we’re talking about. 

 

Steve Barcellona:

Right. They can just pick it up. And there’s been times when people will do silly stuff and it’s usually ladies where they’ll take the coin and go, ah, make it disappear and come back. Or some nonsense like that and not give, want to give you the coin back. Right. So what I do in those situations, I just move into my two coin routine that I, it’s like a Troy who’s your handling of a two coin routine. I’d just move right into that because they have no idea what I was going to do anyway. And then all of a sudden it kind of diffuses her and then eventually she’ll give it back or not. And if she doesn’t, I don’t really care because this is 50 cents or whatever, you know, it doesn’t mean anything.

Adam Grace:

Yeah. Somebody who just started in magic grade, putting that same situation may freeze and not know what to do. Like, what do I do if a spectator gives me problems? You’re going to know it comes up a lot like how you deal with hecklers, but I love it. You don’t deal with hecklers, you just have a plan to

Steve Barcellona:

Move forward. Yeah, I mean, I think anyone who has a heckler, the plan is always to diffuse them as quickly as possible. Don’t you know, you don’t want to get into a back and forth or anything like that. You just want to diffuse it,

Aaron Fisher:

You know? And so that’s, that’s what I always try to do. Guys. Remember Keith Fields wrote a book on hecklers and the last appendix of the book is filled with [inaudible] the lines, it’s got lines, but two thirds of the book is about how to make sure you never have to use the lines you actually get to the part. I mean, it’s all packed into several pages. There’s a hundred just, you know, really funny, wonderful lines. But the entirety of the book is about how you should never ever end up using those lines because there’s about a thousand things that can happen before you’re ever brought to the point where you actually say something that, that actually, you know, because if you get it wrong, if you go too early, we’ve all done it. We’ve all done it. We’ve all had that line at the ready. We’ve got beat up one night by the audience we vowed that would never happen again.

Aaron Fisher:

So we loaded a couple of silver bullets into our, into our pack and we went out and then we were a little trigger happy. And what ended up being perceived by the audience as a good natured participation, which you are in a heightened sense, perhaps feeling a little defensive. You feel like perhaps it’s a heckle or maybe it is stage one and you already see it going and you just are, have lost your patients or whatever. And then you lay it out there and if you get ahead of your skis, if you get ahead of the audience, it really turns your whole show into a garbage in front of your eyes and you can’t get it right. You’ll lose the room. Yeah. So and, and it happens fast and it happens hard. So, yeah. You know, the better those heckler lines are, the more double-edged they are, the more they, they, there’s blow back involved. So yeah.

Steve Barcellona:

Yeah. I was going to tell ya a line I’ve used many times before, which has worked really, really well. Let’s say Alex hired me. Okay. And he’s sitting somewhere around the, the front right. And someone is heckling right? And I’ll say like, Oh yeah, Hey, I’m so glad you’re having a good time. Hey Alex, can you do me a favor? Can you go take him a drink on me? Hey that drinks on me, even though it’s open bar. You know what I mean? It’s like, Hey, take them a drink on me. Good sir. Glad you’re having a good time and you move on with the show. And that just tamps it down right there. Because what I just did was I told the guy who hired me to go tell that guy to shut up. Right? So when he goes over there, he’s going to go, Hey Aaron, can you shut up? I mean, everyone’s like, it’s the boss Kona. Tell him, you know what I mean? Here.

 

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the Hopping Half magic trick. Remember, you can watch the video above to visually see what we’re talking about. 

 

Aaron Fisher:

That’s not after the heckler line. That’s instead of the head.

Steve Barcellona:

Yes, it is instead of the heckler line. And then if he was to come back again, now it’s open season, right? You can take a shot if you want to, but I generally don’t.

Aaron Fisher:

That’s all you to, we have a couple of good questions here, but we’re having some pretty hilarity is in suing and I think it’s probably worth sharing since Newell was there and is here. So this is just a quick story in the LA days you know, Jonathan Neil Brown used to work a day or two in the magic shop a week is one of the greatest magicians in the universe. Newell was hanging out in the magic shop. We had buddies hanging out in the magic shop. I like Steve. Steve worked in a flea market. I worked at magic masters growing up where I used to pitch hopping halves and all the classics. And if you watch things like our thumb tip training, soap vanish training, that’s all the exact training I learned as a boy and then realized how well structured it was when I grew up.

Aaron Fisher:

Right. so it’s all from that time period. So when Adam and I, we’re kicking around in the two thousands Zs we thought it would be fun to keep our chops sharp by demoing a day a week and having some fun in the store. And neither of us, you know, traditionally at a magic store, they’re very, very wary about hiring a new demo guy who’s more interested in doing magic than selling magic and a magic store. So one of the things that magic retailer in, in the brick and mortar days had to be aware of.

Aaron Fisher:

I was checked out on selling magic from being a, you know, as a demo guy from, from my earliest training like Steve, that’s what we learned how to do first. So I didn’t want to go in there to jam with the guys. I wanted to go sell magic and just the participate with the team. So the manager Jeff was happy to have Adam and I, he recognized that we would be a lot of fun to have around and we’d sell a lot of magic and they had us come in for a day and we work the day behind the canner. We sold a lot of magic. We pitch pitch pitch. And as you no remembers the end of the day their manager who the manager manager, the boss told the manager that we couldn’t come back because I was wearing Birkenstocks.

Steve Barcellona:

Yeah,

Aaron Fisher:

Behind the counter.

Steve Barcellona:

You weren’t allowed to come back if you didn’t wear them again. You just, I was not allowed to come back

Aaron Fisher:

Because I was wearing inappropriate attire for being in LA.

Steve Barcellona:

You’re not taking this very serious man.

Aaron Fisher:

Right. Diamond glass town are pitching tricks. At the magic store, pitching, you know, color changing coloring, coloring books.

Steve Barcellona:

Yeah. I mean, yeah, hopping halves. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s the stuff you want to stay in strokes

Aaron Fisher:

On because it’s wonderful stuff and it keeps you connected to the, to the core of it. You know, because when you’re behind the counter doing magic, it’s a great apprentice chip because in order to sell magic, you have to sell magic. You have to put magic over. You have to, it’s a great way to learn how to do closeup magic eight hours a day. And it’s a, it was a kind of job that we used to, would have loved to have. So Adam got told he couldn’t come back because of he was having cigarettes. 

Steve Barcellona:

Too many cigarette breaks. One every, I think one every 10 minutes is not unreasonable. I’m an hour. What’s the big, yeah.

Aaron Fisher:

So this was fun. So one day I got to work with Newell and it was so sad that we, we, we missed the jets. Right. Did you answer that question for may or, Hey, how old are you mayor? I’m just curious, where do you live? I remember Greg, I remember working with that guy a bunch. Greg st Pierre, right? He, he, he was, he was an interesting cat. Created a world where the you guys got to understand Hollywood magic was a great old magic shop. He’s around for a long time and legendary magic shots. Totally. well we didn’t stop being friends Newell, of course. And that’s why we were friends. And when Newell joined the club, it was such a treat for us all because I knew that the members would have a chance to have access to Newell’s big brain, which had been, you know, not only one of my secret weapons being a buddy of Newell’s, but a lot of people secret weapons.

 

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the Hopping Half magic trick. Remember, you can watch the video above to visually see what we’re talking about. 

 

Aaron Fisher:

But Greg st Pierre took that Hollywood magic, which I think belonged to his dad, who loved the business, I think and basically created with the environment he put into that store be entire possibility for Hollywood’s magic Apple to be in existence. Because Hollywood magic, the place where you weren’t allowed to hang out, you weren’t allowed to shoot the bull with the guys. And do what magic stores do. And so all Brent Garris had to do in North Hollywood was allowing magicians to be welcome at the store. Right. And, you know, unlike the magic castle where you have to pay membership and dress up in a tie, and I’m like Hollywood magic, which had this magicians in the store are considered loitering policy made it possible for there to be a flourishing magic community in the new magic shop over the Hill there. [inaudible] Los Angeles. Absolutely astonishing.

Aaron Fisher:

Steve. I legitimately think your eye, I remember people had put together on gaffed hopping halves in the day. I remember Jamie swish had Swiss had an uncapped hopping half in the day and I don’t remember how it works, but I just know with certitude that the method that you have taught is exponentially easier, more practical, more elegant. Maybe Sean remembers the other one that I’m talking about and can agree with me. I’m sure of it though. I mean, there’s not a chance, I mean, this is streamlined. It’s so good. I’m going to put it in my pocket and carry it around instead of whatever shenanigans I’ve been kicking around with my silver dollars for months, I think. I think I like this better. I think it’s just so good. It’s just a real working man’s effect too. You know? You know, it’s a bit like, you know.

Aaron Fisher:

How have you noticed that? A lot of these magic tricks, there’s very similar plots across all of the props, right? So there’s a trick called the homing card or the six card repeat where you’ve got six cards, you take three away and now there’s six cards or you have the homing card is where you have five. We can see caps do it. Maybe one day we’ll have a watch party and watch caps do the homing card where you’ve got the five cards, you take one away and now you still have the five cards. Or if you look at the way Williamson did it, the old three card trick, which has four cards. Sorry, I made a mistake. It’s the three card trick using one, two, three, four cards for cards. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened there. There’s three cards and the three card trick watch, one, two, three, four cards.

Aaron Fisher:

And it goes on and on and on. It’s the same basic effect if you think about it, slightly different presentation at two coins, but a place one in my pocket and do the one coin with two coins. Sorry. It’s, it’s, sorry, it’s a one coin trick. I’m going to place one and put it in my pocket. Oh, I’ve two coins. You know, it’s the same basic plot, but what Steve has done, and especially by realizing it, by suggesting us, that doesn’t matter what coins they are, what color they are, you literally can take this effect and build it up as much as any of those other effects. And it’s got that Pat ending too. So, so Steve, have you ever experimented with playing with any of those other presentational gambits and seeing if it can be, play it up even further or long time?

Steve Barcellona:

So this has had so many versions and so many routines in so many different ways. I’ve tried, cause I’ve done it for so long, you know lately what I’ve been doing is maybe I’ll hit somebody on the second pass through the room. So I’ve met them at the cocktail hour. I’ve done a set for them, you know, and so like we’re friends now, you know, and maybe I’ll be coming back through the room and they’ll flag me over and want to see something else. And so to enter that group I’ll always say, well do you guys want to just see something? I’m kind of working on it. I don’t have it all worked out, but I mean, do you want to just see something that I’m just trying out, you know? And there’ll be like, Oh yeah, absolutely. Cause now they’re thinking, Hey, I fooled them really bad with my first set.

Steve Barcellona:

You know, now they’re like, Oh, somebody is trying out. We’re going to have a chance now. You know, that’s like kind of what they’re thinking. And then I go into this, right? And I’m like, Hey, but one of my pocket. Oh yeah. See I told you I was just working on, there’s just two left, there’s still two left. I’m just working on this. And then you’d go into it and then they finally vanished in the end. And that’s when they look at you like you’ve got me again. Like you like led me down the garden path. You know, that’s where they realized that the whole thing was just, you know, you were just lead them down the path and yeah. I I think you’re right Erin. That’s a really insightful thing cause I never thought about that. It is six card repeat with coins.

Aaron Fisher:

Well I just wonder like, cause when you said two coins could be the same, right? I thought, well two in the hand, one in the pocket, right? Yeah, it’s, it’s really one in the hand, one in the pocket. It’s really like taking a three cup routine and turning it into a one cup routine or taking the four card, three card trick and turning it into a one and two card trick. Right. I’m going to use one Cardo I have to, Oh I have to. Yeah. Yup. Or taking the coins. Now it’s basically just stripping down and the hand one in the pocket to just one coin. And the actual,

Steve Barcellona:

Here’s what I think is really good about it is the fact that it’s very simple to follow. So it’s not a bunch of stuff. Multi-Phase is what are we doing now? It’s pretty much always the same until the van, the coins vanish in the end, it’s about three phases, possibly four if you want to go for, which is what I think I did in that video. But it’s just very straight forward and easy for people to follow. And I think that’s, that’s what makes it so strong in the end. Cause they feel like they’re with you, you know, the whole way. And then boom, you know, you hit him in the end with nothing in your hand. And sometimes I will come out with the deck right there. So what I’ll do is I’ve been doing that, I did that, I’ve been working on that kind of on and off.

 

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the Hopping Half magic trick. Remember, you can watch the video above to visually see what we’re talking about. 

 

Steve Barcellona:

But what’ll happen is I’ll have the handout or I kind of steal it from my left back pocket. And then I’m just kind of palming it down. Like I don’t have a box here, but I’m just kind of Palm the deck down and I’m wearing a sport coat. And sometimes I also deliver it down the sleeve of the sport coat, but at any rate when I’ll just turn it over and they’ll just be a deck of cards in a box in my hand, Hey, let’s just do a card trick, you know, and that, that’s coming from nowhere, you know, and that’s, that’s pretty good. But what that doesn’t do is it doesn’t allow you to just end there and move out and move on. Right. Because now you have to go into the card trick. So I don’t really do that all the time because sometimes I like to just hit him with that and go, Hey man, those folks have been calling me for half an hour. I’ve got to jump over there.

Aaron Fisher:

You know, Steve, this particular trick, yesterday we were talking about deck switches [inaudible] to me when I was doing a lot of walk around the hopping half and your version, I mean I use the actual gap coins [inaudible] to me because I had primarily a card act, right? So to me this trick would be to kind of trick you would just build in an ad hoc deck switch, right? I would literally say, Ooh, I want to show you something here. And I would go into this interlude and then when I would come back, I would take out the cards and may be a different deck again. You could pull it out of a different pocket. At the end of that trick, no one’s going to realize what pocket they come out of. And so you have perfect mr action-based perfect deck switch, which requires no planning, no effort, no thought.

Aaron Fisher:

It’s an interlude. You could do it in the middle of an anybody’s just guard routine. You could say the car comes to the top, it comes to the top. Actually, you know, I’m going to have you sign it here. Hold on a second. Little interlude. Pet palate cleanser. Let’s play a little game. Check your observation. Okay, now I had a pen. You’re going to sign the car. Now you’re into, you got your Darryl gaff out there, you’re ready to go. It’s whatever you want. There’s no reason you can’t put drums in the middle of that big long song. Think of it like a nice protect, Kachin set in the middle of that big rock and roll number, that drum solo, you know, like there’s room for it. Those effects are not harmed by that. Right? So if you haven’t, if like, I’m like Steve, I don’t like to tie myself down unless I’m in a formal situation where I must, if it’s a formal closeup, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, magic castle, big convention, something like that.

Aaron Fisher:

Anytime it’s really doing close up magic, I want a groove in the moment and therefore I’m going to choose a switch where I don’t have to decide to do it until it’s time to do it in the middle of a trick even. You know what I mean? No problem at all. So to me, this trick is just perfect because if it’s because not only is it wonderful, practical, easy, so much easier to remember. I swear. I remember other versions of the on gap topic app. I think Newell does too. No, this is a heck of a lot more sensible than the other uncapped hopping halfs that you’ve seen, isn’t it?

Aaron Fisher:

I’m positive. I mean, I’ve never seen, it’s so streamlined. I can remember how to do it. Yeah. I remember seeing one, they had all these throw offs because the, the slights weren’t as nice and there was relying on the fact that the guy had a wedding ring and he would come in and tap the ring in his hand and pretend it was a coin. And it was just, you know, all kinds of nonsense. But I think what Steve’s brought here is just, it’s clean. There’s coins close my hand for one of my pocket. Yeah. It’s as simple as can be. And like you said, you’re doing the same exact thing every single time. So it’s a child could follow it. It’s as good as it gets for a magic trick. Right. Or a highly drunk person or a highly drunk person. There’s a question

Steve Barcellona:

Tagged. I wanted to answer there. Richie want to know what flea market was in, in New Jersey and well that’s really hard cause I kind of can see it but I don’t remember exactly where it is. It was in Sayreville New Jersey and it was a maybe route 18, but I remember the guy who ran it was named, are you ready? His real name Bobby guile. Guile.

Aaron Fisher:

You have to change, right? That’s why you want to change a name. That’s the kind of name, like a bit a bad magician like uses as a stage name and thinks it’s good. Yeah, exactly right. It’s like Eddie shenanigans magic show.

Steve Barcellona:

Yeah. And just about every other week, instead of getting paid, I was allowed to just take something cause he didn’t have any money, you know, pick something out. I don’t have any money to pay you. I know you stood here for 14 hours this weekend, but I don’t have any money. So just pick something. You know,

Adam Grace:

I I think Sproul is down to do a session after the show today. I’m curious is that correct? Yes. Are we, are we gonna our Sproul? Are you, you’re going to have one? Yes, C is okay. Good. So you guys, if you guys want to hang out and do move into a jam session over at sprout house, we can do it. He just put the link right in chat. I’d like to ask out of you guys that are here today, guys and girls, how many of you think that it would be good to have some hot seat feed based type sessions in the afternoon like this? Like feedback did it, what did I say?

Aaron Fisher:

Well, what Richard Dean had had asked about doing the three M session in the hot seat session, which is, the idea is you can, it can be at move you’re working on, it can be a 3m move. It can be a control you’re working on or a trick that you’re playing with or anything that you could use. A little bit of friendly hands on instruction, that kind of thing that people pay bunches of money to do privately, right, with coaches here. But as long as you’re open to getting hands on help in a social way so everyone can learn while you’re were working together, anyone who’s done it before can tell you it’s a real peaceful experience. We’re, we’re just talking about getting this stuff in your hands so that we can really work with you in real time. Right. Anything goes, we would just have to have you sign up in advance, you know, a few days in advance so that we would know that we’d be able to actually, no, who is going to be there because we don’t want to pop on when it’s time to do the show and wonder if anyone signed up or if the people who signed up are going to be here.

 

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the Hopping Half magic trick. Remember, you can watch the video above to visually see what we’re talking about. 

 

Adam Grace:

Well, let’s be honest. No one’s going anywhere for at least a couple of weeks. So, well, you know, it might be a good time to do it, right? Like what’s your Lauren, what’s your schedule on Tuesday? Look like going to be home kind of open. That’s right. All right, well 

Aaron Fisher:

Well why don’t we try one of those next week? Why don’t we try one of those? Why don’t we make it Thursday, Adam, if you can find the member mastermind link, right. Do us a favor type member mastermind and one of the top, not mastermind but type, you know, Thursday, let’s see the Thursday afternoon, just type Thursday afternoon, right? So we know when we go into that sheet cause it’s the member mastermind sheet. We want to be able to be clear on it and we’ll take the first six or four or five, six guys that we get. But just realize that if we’re going to do six folks, we’re going to have to be targeted and give you what we can do in that time period. Cause we don’t want to leave people hanging. And if you do get left hanging, say 12 people sign up, we will bump that to the next Thursday. Does that make sense, Adam and sound fair?

Adam Grace:

Yeah. So here’s the link right there, a clip. Click that link. So this is, that link I just put is not the Michael’s brow session going on right now. That link I just put is a member mastermind signup. And if you’d like to sign up to do Thursday, maybe next Thursday, a daytime member mastermind, go ahead and fill that out. And in the notes just, just put that it’s for Thursday. Okay. Cause this is the same sheet we use for the Wednesday night member mastermind. Just put a note in there that says this is for the Thursday day time one and we will get you on the schedule. That sounds good. Yeah. And

Aaron Fisher:

Just to let everybody know, we may share some of these a bonus sessions we’re doing with quarantine magicians around, it’s a nice way our club can be supportive of the world we’re doing, we’re doing in two weeks, the amount of sessions that we normally do. In a month based on people’s availability. So we’re really trying to have this a community, a be the kind of community we’re all proud of. And so we are supporting magicians around the world right now who are all kind of in the same boat. So you all are getting the very best of it. But it’s a lot easier for us to make these afternoon sessions available if we actually put them in the YouTube subscription channel so people can access them quickly. It allows us to make it, there’s a whole process that is involved in taking one of our live events and turning it into an on demand, a back room show for you that you would never even guess or imagine unless you’re stuck in the web universe.

Aaron Fisher:

Like we are. And it would take actually it takes longer man hours wise than you would ever imagine. It’s easier to do the show than it is to put up the show. So we get to kill two birds with one stone by making it, posting it on YouTube, we can make it available to you to watch later. And we can also at the same time let folks on the outside take a look at some of the fun we’re having and hopefully realize the extent to which it’s more fun than inside, which we all know. So thank you for supporting us as we support you. And that’s, and that’s really just so you understand how it’s all working and what’s going on. Okay.

Adam Grace:

Yeah, we’d like to thank you guys showing up today, Thursday afternoon delight. Is that what we’re calling it? A afternoon delights. Today’s today’s session with Steve Barcelona on the no gaff hopping half. Awesome. We’re so glad you guys were here. Throw that link up a Sprowl. . Throw that link one more time up into chat so everybody can join your jam session, which is starting right now. And there you go. There it is. So go ahead and click that little a link there and join Sproul’s a gym session and we will see you guys on Monday or Tuesday for the next a afternoon session. All right, everybody. Good?

Aaron Fisher:

Good. Richard Dean, you have to go grab that link and you have to go sign up. It’s never going to work the, otherwise. I wish calling dibs was going to work, but there’s a, there’s just so much going around. We’re just going to have to sign up on the phone.

 

We hope you enjoyed this discussion of the Hopping Half magic trick. Remember, you can watch the video above to visually see what we’re talking about. Check out more coin magic here.