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00:00 Hello and welcome to the explanation video for Stuck.
00:09 Stuck came from the idea of being able to do a complete coin vanish, completely impromptu,
00:16 and to have a new premise to the old idea of having a coin pass through your hand.
00:23 First I'm going to go ahead and perform one of the many variations of Stuck that we will
00:28 discuss on this training video.
00:30 And then we're going to break Stuck down into two phases.
00:34 The first phase, which is going to be very common to all the different versions of Stuck,
00:39 is the vanish sequence, which means that the coin actually gets stuck in the middle of
00:44 the hand.
00:45 And the second part of the trick is when you're going to reveal the coin.
00:49 So we're going to discuss many different ways of actually either pulling the coin out of
00:54 the hand or having the coin suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.
00:58 So we're going to go through them one step at a time.
01:01 So first let's get started with the actual performance of Stuck.
01:06 Starts here.
01:07 There we go.
01:08 I'm going to try to see if I can squeeze the coin in the middle of the hand.
01:11 Hold on.
01:12 First of all, let me show you.
01:13 It's right there.
01:14 So just a little bit of a squeeze is all it takes.
01:17 Oh man.
01:18 It's stuck.
01:19 But it's somewhere stuck actually in the middle of my hand.
01:25 I can actually feel it, you know, somewhere close to the middle of my hand.
01:28 But then if I start rubbing it...
01:30 Hold on, hold on.
01:31 You don't need to feel it come through.
01:32 Hold on.
01:33 Let's see if I can feel it right here.
01:34 One, two.
01:35 Ah!
01:36 There it goes.
01:37 It pops right through.
01:38 There it is.
01:39 So that's one of the many variations of Stuck.
01:40 Now the first thing we're going to discuss is, like we said, the actual vanish sequence.
01:45 Here's what happens.
01:47 You probably noticed that when I first started doing the trick, I rubbed my nose here like
01:52 that.
01:53 I'm going to give you the behind the scenes look of really what happens.
01:55 As I come closer, you're noticing that you just simply, either with the coin in your
01:59 hand or with your hand in front of your face, as you're going to be rubbing your nose, your
02:04 tongue, right there, it's going to apply a little bit of moisture to the back of the
02:10 hand.
02:11 This is the area of the hand you're going to be making moist.
02:13 Once it has done that, now as I turn towards the spectators, you want to take the coin
02:21 in between your middle finger and your thumb.
02:24 You're going to see why this is important in just a moment.
02:26 First, you're going to actually take the coin as you display it like this and drop it right
02:31 on the back of the hand.
02:32 Then you can actually tilt your hand over slightly to show the spectators that it is
02:36 actually in the back of the hand.
02:38 Now at this point, the fingers come together.
02:40 The first and second finger closes, the thumb is going to close behind it.
02:44 At this point, to the spectators, it seems like you're repositioning the coin in the
02:48 back of the hand.
02:49 In reality, on the behind the scenes look, the thumb is going to move from behind the
02:55 coin to the front of the hand.
02:57 This is one of the reasons why these two fingers are providing that cover.
03:00 As the thumb moves behind, there's two things that are going to happen at the same time.
03:05 As you pivot around like this, you'll notice that the coin is going to pivot to this area
03:13 of the hand, which is right behind the back of the hand, which is between where your thumb
03:19 curve is and your first knuckle.
03:22 The moment that it reaches that area, because of the moisture that you have applied with
03:26 your tongue, it is going to get stuck.
03:30 At this point, as you're continuing this pivoting motion, I'm going to once again pivot to the
03:34 front of the camera.
03:35 This is now the spectator's view.
03:38 You continue the motion as if you're trying to drill the coin or to squeeze the coin into
03:44 the hand.
03:45 At this point, the spectators don't know that the coin is gone yet because they can still
03:49 see a little bit of cover you're providing with your fingers.
03:52 As you do that, you slowly raise your hand up and then you brush it clean.
03:56 You probably noticed that one of the most powerful things about stuck is that there's
03:59 absolutely no motion on the right hand.
04:01 In a little while, we're going to discuss how this is going to work with the left hand
04:05 as well.
04:06 But first, as you're looking at it, this hand is completely still.
04:09 There's no need for motion at all.
04:10 Now, if you notice that the moisture that was on the back of the hand ends up being
04:15 not too much or it seems as if the coin still wants to slip off the back of the hand, don't
04:19 worry about it.
04:20 Here's what I recommend that you do.
04:22 Right after you go through this motion, as you come up to brush the back of your hand,
04:27 you'll notice that the thumb is going to apply a little bit of pressure.
04:30 You're going to push down slightly, only once.
04:32 You want to stay away from the back of the hand as much as possible because you want
04:36 to hide the fact that the coin does go in the back of the hand.
04:39 So only if you notice that the coin is beginning to slip off the back of your hand, you want
04:44 to actually apply that light pressure as you brush.
04:47 So, once again, this is now the front view.
04:50 Now, by the way, at this point, the trick is done because the vanishing part of the
04:53 trick is done.
04:54 At this point, you spring open your hands and you come up.
04:58 Now, when you do come up, both hands, this immediately, the spectator's hands, once they
05:03 see this hand completely split wide open, are going to notice that, well, it's not over
05:07 here in this hand.
05:08 You say, "Oh, no, it's stuck."
05:10 Bring this other hand up, flash the front and the back of it, and then this hand pivots
05:15 back down again to brush the back of it.
05:17 So, at this point, let's talk a little bit about the angles for stuck.
05:21 As we pivot around, you can see that the angles actually are pretty good up to maybe about
05:26 this point over here.
05:27 So, your audience can be anywhere within approximately a 120 degree angle in front of you on your
05:34 left hand side.
05:35 As I keep going, obviously, at some point, you're going to be able to see the coin that's
05:38 behind the hand.
05:39 So, you don't want spectators to be standing behind you.
05:42 As far as audiences that are going to be below you, that doesn't matter because if your audience
05:47 is a little bit lower, then they can't see the coin.
05:49 But if you have audience members that are going to be super tall or for some reason
05:52 they're sitting higher, then you just have to be a little bit more careful about tilting
05:55 your hand back maybe a little bit.
05:57 But believe it or not, just keeping your hand even level, like a little close to your chest
06:02 should be perfectly fine.
06:03 All right.
06:04 So, now we come up to this point here where the coin is, as you can see, literally stuck
06:08 to the back of the hand.
06:10 So, that is the first phase of the trick where we have made the coin disappear.
06:15 Now, for all the different ways of retrieving the coin or making the coin appear, here's
06:20 the first variation.
06:22 First, this hand is going to come up now.
06:24 At this point, the only part of the hand that the spectators have not seen has been this
06:29 part right here.
06:30 As your hand comes up to brush once again the coin because you want to feel the coin
06:35 that's stuck in your hand, here's what happens.
06:38 This, that part of your thumb on the left hand, left hand is going to make contact with
06:43 the coin as the front fingers, two fingers of your left hand are starting to feel the
06:47 coin.
06:48 What this allows to happen is as you close your right hand slightly, not into a complete
06:52 fist, but slightly, you move the coin.
06:55 This is going to be kind of hard to show for the camera, but I want you to see that closer
06:58 right there.
06:59 As you move the coin with the base of your fingers, this keeps moving, keeps moving,
07:06 keeps moving until it's going to drop the coin off into the base of the fingers over
07:12 here.
07:13 This is very, very deceptive because you want to keep the motion of your first and middle
07:18 finger of your left hand as you're doing this kind of an action because basically you're
07:22 feeling the bump for the coin that's stuck in the middle of the hand.
07:26 As you do this, this hand should stay as motionless as possible to allow the coin to drop into
07:31 this area.
07:32 Once that has happened, you notice that now since the coin has left the hiding area, you
07:37 can actually tilt your hand up a little bit and bring your thumb up.
07:40 This will allow this part of the hand to be seen.
07:43 Now, all the suspicions are gone.
07:45 They have seen the complete back of the hand, the front of the hand, and the coin being
07:50 in this position over here can very easily come into the finger subtlety.
07:55 The finger subtlety from the classics of magic looks something like this.
07:59 Right immediately after here, the hand is going to come up, kind of gesture for a moment,
08:04 and it will go into kind of like a grip of some sort, like a claw grip.
08:12 This is a very powerful subtlety.
08:14 It was invented by my friend Zaria Gorgian.
08:17 What it allows for is, as you can see, these fingers are split wide open.
08:21 That finger is split open.
08:22 The center of the hand is where the spectator is pulling all the attention.
08:26 In reality, the coin is currently hiding right over there.
08:30 At this point, the coin can completely close.
08:34 One, two, three, and there it goes.
08:36 The coin has now appeared in the middle of the hand.
08:40 That concludes one of the many variations of actually introducing the coin.
08:45 Well, we are now going to discuss some of the other variations for revealing the coin
08:55 out of the stuck position.
08:58 One of the things that I failed to mention as far as the actual hiding place of the coin
09:04 on the beginning is this.
09:06 When the back of the hand is slightly moist and the coin is stuck to the back of the hand,
09:12 one of the things that you probably notice is that if you are using a quarter that has
09:18 the eagle on the back of it, the eagle is the better side to have stuck to the back
09:23 of the hand, in contrast to having the head stuck to the back of the hand.
09:28 This is mainly because the eagle side has more kind of like crevices inside of it,
09:33 so it would have a better job of having more friction to be stuck to the back of the hand.
09:38 Okay, so now let's discuss some of the variations.
09:42 This particular variation is going to happen with my left hand, meaning the coin is going
09:47 to penetrate into the left hand in contrast to the right.
09:50 This is for the magicians that are right-hand dominant.
09:54 I'm right-handed, so this makes sense for me, but if you're left-handed, obviously you
09:58 can flip these around and see which one is comfortable for you.
10:01 First, start out with the famous rubbing of the nose.
10:05 I have to start out by saying that this is probably my favorite variation on stuck.
10:10 Watch carefully.
10:11 Once again, coin, a little twist, and oh man, it's gone again.
10:20 Okay, stuck in the middle of the hand.
10:23 Well, actually, let's see if I can find it here.
10:27 I can feel it.
10:29 I'm going to come a little bit closer to the camera.
10:31 Can you see it right there?
10:33 It's beginning to come out of the hand.
10:35 Oh, wait, wait.
10:38 Oh, you know what?
10:40 I don't want this.
10:42 Yes.
10:44 Oh, there we go.
10:50 It's a good thing I didn't leave any marks behind.
10:53 So this one is pulling the coin out of the hand, and here's why this is my favorite variation.
11:00 This is actually based on a black art principle, and we'll talk a little bit about why the
11:07 fact that the hand being in this orientation, because of the shadow that it casts on the
11:12 coin below it, is going to really help with the pullout.
11:15 But first, let's talk about a little bit of the difference on the vanish.
11:18 Here we go.
11:19 Once again, a little bit of a moisture on the back of the hand.
11:23 Same move as we used before as far as showing the coin between the middle finger and the
11:29 thumb as it places it on the back of the hand.
11:32 As you tilt forward, make sure that sometimes I leave my middle finger over here so as I
11:36 tilt forward, the coin doesn't fall off.
11:38 If there's enough of a friction there, you can actually tilt your hand forward without
11:41 it falling off.
11:42 That's okay.
11:43 So right there, the same move as we did before.
11:45 You notice that my body pivots around, and this pivoting action is what causes the coin
11:50 now to move to the back of the hand.
11:53 So exactly like the explanation that we had before, a little bit of a rub.
11:57 Fingers first open, and once the fingers open, the hand comes up and you show the coin is
12:03 gone.
12:04 As you say, it's stuck.
12:06 Now, you already know from the first version that spectators cannot, it seems very, very
12:12 fair that because they're seeing the back of the hand here in this orientation, so the
12:17 spectators really think that they've seen both sides of both hands, both the back and
12:22 the front of both hands.
12:24 When in reality, obviously they have not seen the place where the coin is hiding.
12:27 So what is the best way of now retrieving that coin from that position?
12:33 Here's my favorite.
12:34 From this position, you always are coming up to this orientation.
12:38 You notice that the angle of movement is like this to hide the coin that's back there.
12:43 This hand now comes up to feel the coin that's here.
12:47 As it does that, I'm going to pivot it around to show you that behind the scenes look.
12:51 As it pivots around, these fingers just twitch a little bit.
12:54 As that twitching happens, the hand pivots slightly back, and that action is going to
12:59 drop the coin off into your palm.
13:02 Now, you notice that right now I fell a little further back.
13:04 It doesn't really matter because in a moment you'll be more adjustable than ever.
13:07 As this happens, the moment that the coin has fallen into your right hand, you're going
13:13 to pull your fingers down and immediately turn the hand completely over.
13:17 Now, as you do this, if the hand completely comes over, this hand is going to go south.
13:21 South meaning it's going to completely drop to your side.
13:24 Once again, let me pivot back forward towards the spectators.
13:27 The action looks like this from the spectator's point of view.
13:31 You're here.
13:32 Notice where my eyes are right now.
13:34 My eyes are focusing right into the middle of my hand.
13:37 You never want to have a situation where your eyes are going to look at the hiding position
13:41 because that's going to give it away.
13:43 Always, always look at the middle of the hand.
13:45 As you do this, as the coin gets dropped off, immediately turn the hand over as this hand
13:50 just naturally drops to your side.
13:52 Just lose all the energy of this hand as it drops.
13:54 Now, one of the subtleties that I didn't do for the performance of the pullout version
13:59 of Stuck is I just reached up to it and I grabbed it.
14:02 Here's usually what I do.
14:03 As I come up, as the right hand emerges up, I act like I can feel a little bit of the
14:11 coin protruding from the middle of my hand.
14:14 In this particular case, we're using the J-bill.