Latest / The Magic Guys / From Stage to Space: April Jennifer Choi’s Wild Ride - Whips, Fire, and NASA #234
Transcript
- 0:00They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
- 0:08Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 234 of the Magic Guys,
- 0:13the podcast where we as professional magicians interview guests, talk about our lives,
- 0:18doing full-time giggory, and occasionally we have a cat cam like you saw earlier.
- 0:23To my left, we've got Doug Conn.
- 0:27Where am i i'm over here there goes the cat
- 0:30all right well it was fun while it lasted what's up y'all
- 0:33glad to have you here mainly the
- 0:36cat if you could bring the cat back and down below we've got my boy nick k hello
- 0:42friends i'm nick k welcome to the show and welcome what go on who also just
- 0:50opened the theater of magic in melbourne thank you.
- 0:57We did it, buddy. I feel like we could talk all about that. But if you had to
- 1:01sum it up into a short, how was it?
- 1:04How was it? It was awesome. We'll talk about it in Geek Stories today.
- 1:08It's a very proud moment. More importantly, I want to welcome our friends in the chat.
- 1:13Guys, good to see you all. We have Eric LeCliff in the chat. What is up, buddy?
- 1:18Best roommate ever. We have Tim Askin. We have Gehan.
- 1:21Guys thank you all for being here again we
- 1:24have an amazing guest today so of course if you do have
- 1:27any questions do not be shy put those questions in
- 1:30the chat we'll present them to our guest today because i am pumped i have questions
- 1:35i want to get into it and not waste another moment who's in you in hands in
- 1:39let's let's go i'm ready one two three i'm ready for the podcast i love these buttons.
- 1:48All right, I'm going to get ready to press some buttons. Nick,
- 1:50let everyone know who our guest is today.
- 1:53Okay, friends, our guest today was someone who created such a buzz that she
- 1:58was totally unaware of this amazing skill that she had while at Magic Live.
- 2:01Now, Magic Live, as you know, it's a convention of interruptions and you barely
- 2:05have time to spend all the time you wanted with people.
- 2:08And so I literally was like, April Choi, I wanted to spend more time with you.
- 2:12And we did not will you please come on our show she was like yeah so after having
- 2:17an amazing 30 years of like movement and dance and arts she's broken more guinness
- 2:22world records than we've had so vlakia please join me in welcoming the amazing april choy.
- 2:49Hi friend oh am i pumped april
- 2:52joy thank you for being here please tell us who you are and what don't
- 2:55you do my name is april jennifer joy i've been a dancer and performer for about
- 3:02like 30 years now i'm not a full-time performer anymore i stopped when the pandemic
- 3:07hit and decided that I was going to go and go work on rockets instead.
- 3:12So you decided I better get a real job and went, you know what? I'll go work for NASA.
- 3:18Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of a dare. You're like the reverse Jack Rhodes.
- 3:22You're like the opposite of Jack Rhodes.
- 3:25Oh yeah. He, nuclear engineer turned full-time magician and obviously space opened up.
- 3:31You're like, you know what? Yeah. I'll jump on that. Why not?
- 3:34Yeah. So your expertise are in fluid dynamics. I don't know what that means. That's correct.
- 3:40There's a set of equations called the Navier-Stokes equations that are set up
- 3:44by some French engineers long, long ago and mathematicians.
- 3:47It's basically, how does fluid move? How does like various fluids move?
- 3:51So they write these differential equations and be like, oh, it moves because of this.
- 3:56So then it's just kind of studying like, how do those moves?
- 3:59Finding a general solution to the Navier-Stokes equation is actually one of
- 4:03the Millennium Prize puzzles, so if you ever find that, congratulations,
- 4:07you'll have a million dollars in historical mathematical eclipse.
- 4:11I have to ask you this, and I apologize if everyone does. Big Bang Theory,
- 4:16when you watch that, are you like, they don't know what they're talking about?
- 4:19They fact-check that show so much. They're so impressive.
- 4:24Oh, wow. Okay, so it can be educational if you soak in some of that,
- 4:30So what's also really cool about the part that you're on, which is really spinning
- 4:34me out, is that you are basically part of a team that plans on sending us humans back to the moon.
- 4:41That is correct. How exciting is that? And how did you even fall into that?
- 4:47It was the pandemic. Lost almost all my gig work and was like,
- 4:51okay, what am I going to do for work?
- 4:53My wife actually dared me to be
- 4:56like you should totally apply for NASA because you've always wanted
- 4:59to join it like there's no effing way they're gonna
- 5:01hire somebody who like is part of
- 5:04the circus I applied I didn't
- 5:07get rejected by the first offer and they called me back and
- 5:10said hey so you're not going to be an engineer but
- 5:13how about if you want to manage the team instead so I'm
- 5:15like sure and then they basically said hey can
- 5:19you move to Florida in two weeks so at the start of
- 5:21the pandemic we basically had to drive through empty roads
- 5:25in the united states to move into my uncle's house
- 5:28melbourne florida coincidentally and
- 5:31then there for several weeks before working
- 5:35at the space center that is unreal so what was
- 5:38it a big move were you moving from like one side of the planet to another like
- 5:41how far it's from a little south
- 5:44of chicago to orlando florida so i don't
- 5:47i'm not that good at geography that's a big move you know the size of the united
- 5:52states that's like yeah it's like as far north that's as far north to south
- 5:57as you can move in this country basically like a thousand kilometers my goodness
- 6:01thank you for doing the conversion thank you okay yeah question.
- 6:06Do you use a different metric like in the NASA realm? Is it centimeters and
- 6:12meters or is it feet and inches? Like what's the deal?
- 6:15Depends on the customer. Like it really, every launch, every piece of launch
- 6:19equipment, somebody shoots something else.
- 6:21It's weird. So we have like four units of temperature.
- 6:26We use, some people use centimeters, some people use millimeters,
- 6:29some people use meters, some people use inches, some people use feet, somebody's bananas.
- 6:34Like i was surprised how much engineering i data i got entirely in bananas so
- 6:40like i i decided i have the tattoo where i'm like i'm going to get this in metric
- 6:45and imperial because it's just.
- 6:48Wow okay so what about the moon like what metric would the moon be in we only
- 6:54measure things in badgers on this show i've never done the math on how much
- 6:59the Moon weighs in hundreds.
- 7:01The average badger is 3.5 feet.
- 7:043.5 feet? Okay, I know the moon is, what, one-sixth gravity?
- 7:09It's like a quarter of the diameter of the Earth.
- 7:12I think the Earth, like you said, is 1,000 meters because that's what they wanted around.
- 7:17So, like, is it roughly like 4,000 meters divided by, you said 3 feet? Oh, my God.
- 7:23She's actually doing it. This is crazy.
- 7:26Roughly, I want to say like, is it?
- 7:29Roughly 10,000 badgers. That sounds pretty right. Let's go with that.
- 7:3410,000 badgers, baby. Wow.
- 7:38It's been a while since we've had some really big brain on this show, which is super cool.
- 7:41Have you ever applied that mental energy to a version of the 21 card trick?
- 7:46I tried to do like a 52 version and a 49 version. So it's like a three fight seven. Oh my God. Yeah.
- 7:55Okay. Okay, so, yeah, did this way of thinking first start in card magic or
- 8:01earlier than that when you would plan stunts or like?
- 8:03Oh, I mean, math, I've always had an interest in math.
- 8:07And then like, what is it, Diaconis and Gardner, I think, their magical magic,
- 8:12like that's inspired a bunch, like trying to figure out brilliant sets, which is being like, oh,
- 8:19what obscure mathematical principle can I use to like fool magicians?
- 8:24Yeah and then i just like liked math so i kept doing it i had an interest in
- 8:28cards so like card counting became a thing for a while.
- 8:32I wanted to keep using math in some ways, so eventually I pursued a degree in
- 8:38engineering, and then eventually I went like, no, screw engineering, I want to go perform.
- 8:42Quit engineering to be a performer, and then quit performing to be an engineer.
- 8:46Okay we'll circle back to the to the engineering realm because there's obviously
- 8:50a lot of things you do performance wise but let's focus on the magic for the
- 8:52moment by saying that some of the skills that you have with regards to card magic specifically.
- 8:58Really were earning you a reputation around the magic live convention
- 9:01and that yeah now i don't
- 9:05know i'm not entirely aware of what other realms of magic you perform whether it
- 9:07be card coin stage or to browse mentalism but the one particular thing
- 9:10that was on everyone's ears and josh and
- 9:13i were talking about it right quite frequently was this ability to
- 9:16clock a deck some people don't even know what that means can
- 9:19we explore that together now yeah i think
- 9:23clocking the deck i first i don't want to say i first
- 9:26read about it but a book i read recently on kind of like giving you subtle ideas
- 9:30i think ruin carlson put it in his book x i feel like it's an animan somewhere
- 9:35and it's essentially like looking at a subset of cards can you tell like the
- 9:39one that is missing So some people refer to it as if you just put in like ace of 10 of spades,
- 9:44you can put that in a packet somewhere, you can force that chunk instead.
- 9:47And if you be able to see what's there, you can say what's left.
- 9:51So like if it's something like easy through one through 10, the classical way
- 9:55of clocking a deck refers to as like, what would be the remainder if you went
- 9:59around a clock, right? So if you add 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 all the way to 10, you get 55.
- 10:05So if you start adding those numbers and you end up with a mainder of 0,
- 10:09that means the last number remaining is a 5.
- 10:12People realize, rather than just doing straight addition, you can go around
- 10:16the clock face with either a 10 or a number system, and you can be like,
- 10:20okay, if they add up to a really, really simple example, let's say you have...
- 10:2512 cards they each take up a space on the clock or they add up like four fours add up to 16
- 10:31that's not gonna work because that's real dumb uh uh one
- 10:34two three four adds up to 10 so if you add two
- 10:37plus three that's five plus four that's nine you're
- 10:40one away from 10 so you know that last card is going to be an ace so
- 10:43it's like a number system to do it so that's where
- 10:46you can get like a pip value right or if you just do it
- 10:49for like suit values you know there's like you know
- 10:52say you have a pack of 20 10 red cards 10
- 10:55black cards you go one up one down you ended
- 10:57up with a plus one which means you have one more black card than a
- 11:00red card that's another way of doing it there's high
- 11:03low systems for counting decks so like for
- 11:06example you know that there's going to be five cards i'm going
- 11:09to face cards as in like ace 10 jack like 10
- 11:12jack queen king ace those are my highs two three
- 11:15four five six those are my lows that should be equalized when
- 11:18you get to the end of the deck so if you have like plus two
- 11:21or plus three you know there are three more high cards in
- 11:24the deck than low cards in the deck that's why you
- 11:26can block like a deck for blackjack yes do
- 11:30it for like full 52 cards if you are bored
- 11:33enough and just keep doing that i see why nessa hired you okay i feel like you
- 11:39might have played a blackjack hand or two in your day wow i wasn't actually
- 11:45that good i have never felt like learning the math behind the systems that actually doing it.
- 11:52Yeah i think now i think chat gbt is actually
- 11:55listening to this conversation and getting smarter because
- 11:58that was a lot to take in and we appreciate it and this one
- 12:01i'm gonna have to watch back again but i love where
- 12:04this is going well what you
- 12:07said but what sort of effects can we achieve with this with this actual skill
- 12:10set like like method aside the effect
- 12:13what's the effect that's like oh i i
- 12:16used it either as an out because i probably
- 12:20the one i was example is using earlier in the conversation was
- 12:23i would glance the bottom card i would classic force but in classic for below
- 12:28the break so i didn't think the card on the top of the deck not below the deck
- 12:30i'm like how do i spot this well if i flip the deck and show that they have
- 12:35something like i know that this card is missing right and then as a challenge somebody at magic live,
- 12:41I forgot their name.
- 12:44Might come to me a little bit later. I'm going to guess it was Patton.
- 12:48No, Patton, we had a lot of discussions on, like, what you could use clocking for.
- 12:54He's probably... I've got a great one. Paul Cummins.
- 12:57But there was just, like, hey, we had challenges of, like, how quickly could
- 13:01you spot the card that got with through if you just shuffled a deck of cards,
- 13:05took a deck out, flipped it over, spread it out, and said, who could name the
- 13:08card that's missing the fastest?
- 13:09I think we did that challenge.
- 13:12Mystify and at MagiFest this year, and several times, I could get it within,
- 13:17like, A lot of it was luck, right?
- 13:20I could tell, like, it's probably a low card that's missing.
- 13:23I'm going to think if it's a four. So I just quickly scanned for fours,
- 13:27and it just happened to be that.
- 13:28So there was a couple times where they'd shuffle the deck, take out a card,
- 13:31flip it over, and I could immediately say, oh, it's four space missing.
- 13:34So in, like, three seconds, I could immediately tell what the card is.
- 13:37And then, like, I haven't got that down fast enough that I would put it in,
- 13:41like, performance, but it's just kind of a fun skill to shuffle a deck,
- 13:45flip it over, or take out a card flip it over and see if you
- 13:47can name what's missing what i what yeah go
- 13:51ahead what i find remarkable about that is that before the show
- 13:54we're talking about it and you're able to do this from a
- 13:56shuffle deck yet don't or haven't mastered mnemonica yet and i think that is
- 14:02yeah i haven't really i've tried to commit mnemonica to memory for a long time
- 14:07now and i would just keep getting distracted by like oh there's a new new one
- 14:11oh joshua j just came out with particle system.
- 14:14Oh, I want to revisit memorizing a Debrouillon stack or Osterlin's or somebody else comes with.
- 14:21They're like, oh, I just bought memorandums. So like Woody's like system or an Harrison stack.
- 14:25You're like, I'm going to just keep doing them. Like I have like five stacks
- 14:29I've studied and haven't stuck with one long enough to just be like,
- 14:34this is wow. Do an A can just do this.
- 14:36Just. Okay. That's first of all, that's wild. But Second of all,
- 14:41because you have studied multiple stacks, because I only work with the moniker.
- 14:46Is there one you found that seems to have a few advantages above the rest?
- 14:52Or have any stuck out to you?
- 14:55Depends on what you want to do with it.
- 14:58Just because Joshua J did his lecture at MagiFS, it's like, do you really spend
- 15:03a lot of time with the face cards face up and having people inspect it?
- 15:06No in which case like if i really need to
- 15:09know like a full stack of the deck right you can
- 15:12like basically slop shuffle new deck order like
- 15:16new deck fall shuffle slop shuffle
- 15:19like you can just show them chunks and even though they're like runs people
- 15:23don't glance at enough to know that it's still they think it's shuffled if you've
- 15:27convinced them enough that it's shuffled then you see like oh it's in you know
- 15:31new deck order ace king ace king king ace king ace you just look at it,
- 15:35like, I know what the next card is.
- 15:37Like, it became a lot easier to be like, why do I need this? And then for.
- 15:41Like a cam right like we're like okay we
- 15:44need to know exactly where this position i can basically
- 15:47block count 13 cards and then cut to
- 15:5026 fast enough that i'm like as long as they
- 15:53don't name like 48 they're gonna name something like 17 all
- 15:57i needed yeah right there and doug just blocks 13 off you're like okay screw
- 16:01it i'm just gonna know why we learned the pinky count right everyone should
- 16:05be pinky counting so we can be i found there there are much easier methods that
- 16:10i needed on the spot because I just effed something up and I'm like, okay,
- 16:15so I can't do this routine anymore. How am I going to change this?
- 16:19I got an idea. Just run with it.
- 16:22Amazing. Ever say everyone got that? Okay.
- 16:27Jazz with a deck because I don't practice all routines.
- 16:32Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my recommendation is you learn heavy sleight of hand first,
- 16:37and then you learn stack then you learn
- 16:40stack work because when the stack work fails you can
- 16:43resort back to your sleight of hand your palming your
- 16:46necessary oh my god i effed up this is how you fix it you know yeah you just
- 16:52you're mentally just freeze you know like man you drop a card people are drunk
- 16:57they splash water on it you forgot that you somebody signed a card you left
- 17:03them as a souvenir you come back you're like.
- 17:06Crap, I only have 51 cards in this stack. Yep, you speak of my language.
- 17:10Just the other day, in my head, I did all the math, but they said four of hearts,
- 17:15which actually would be very easy to get to, Nomonica, but I just,
- 17:18in my head, had four of diamonds for some reason.
- 17:21So when I revealed four of diamonds, I'm like, yeah! And they're like,
- 17:24that's not what I asked for.
- 17:26I'm like, goddammit. And so luckily, sleight of hand kicks in, and then you're fine.
- 17:30Yeah, five, yeah. Okay, I just want to double check that I had Nomonica memorized correctly.
- 17:34Yeah five which is much easier than 42
- 17:38which is what the four diamonds was but you
- 17:41know alas a lot of folks may come up with your own
- 17:44stack and i i tried that at one point and
- 17:46i've lost it but i called it i called it the bubble stack and basically what
- 17:51it was it was 26 cards that then repeated oh yeah yeah yeah and so the idea
- 17:56was that like you would just convert the suit so if the first card was ace of
- 18:01spades for example it would be a club it would just be like the mirror,
- 18:05of like i have a new stack and i'm going to memorize this
- 18:08and i called it this is going to be the april choice stack and then like five
- 18:11weeks later you open a book and like by the way this is the space stack i'm
- 18:14like god damn it yeah but like
- 18:17i wanted a story deck at the time so i wanted a reason to
- 18:20be like here are four queens here and
- 18:23then you change them to like four kings and they're like they had four friends
- 18:26with the four jacks and then you're just like oh i've got
- 18:29a job with nasa so then you can count down 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 so i'm like why don't
- 18:35you just push it in that order seemed a lot easier yeah okay what why don't
- 18:42we talk about geeks because obviously now you're an astronaut essentially but
- 18:45before that what kind of geeks were you doing what um.
- 18:50Yeah, I want to ask so many questions, but let's start with that.
- 18:52Yeah, well, let's circle back to your history of dance, choreography, and fire performance.
- 19:00And what started first?
- 19:02Magic was later in the game? Were you always dancing? What's the deal?
- 19:06So first, performing art would probably be dance.
- 19:10Signed up as a child in dance classes. Did the school plays and stuff. What kind of dance?
- 19:16Glass tap ballet when I was younger. eventually moved to
- 19:19country western because my mom really loved it line dancing and
- 19:23then in high school it was latin and ballroom started teaching
- 19:26ballroom that's how i met my wife was through teaching ballroom
- 19:29then started teaching swing joined a swing club eventually like started helping
- 19:33run this swing club as a treasurer and then started primarily performing and
- 19:38teaching swing tango blues teaching a swing east coast lindy workshop in gainesville
- 19:44i think next month So then it ended up being a lot of swing dancing,
- 19:48East Coast, West Coast, Lindy, Bobo.
- 19:51We just taught a shag workshop in Orlando, maybe a couple words back.
- 19:55Collegiate shag, not Carolina shag, not the other shag.
- 19:59That stuff's no good. Yeah. So then after dance, then came performing arts in general.
- 20:09So fire performance. So that was like 2011 when I started fire performing.
- 20:162012 was my big break with the Indianapolis Super Bowl with Super Bowl Village. So that was 2012.
- 20:23And then fire performing till about 2016, which case then it switched over primarily
- 20:28whip cracking and whip shows.
- 20:30And then only started putting magic like quick change of my own version of like
- 20:36bank night slash paycheck roulette, like in the last couple of years.
- 20:40Let's talk about the whip game because you've done some amazing feats with that.
- 20:45You've obviously broken a few world Guinness world records with it.
- 20:48One of which was when you did this.
- 20:50Let's talk about the Jenga one first. Tell us about that.
- 20:53Was it my fur? No, longest whip was my first.
- 20:56I think it might've been my second Guinness world record ever was most number
- 21:01of Jenga blocks removed with a whip in a minute.
- 21:04And that one went viral online. It got picked up by talk shows,
- 21:09actually a couple of talk shows got picked up by the Guinness Book.
- 21:12So then that's like the trick.
- 21:15I don't call it a trick. That's the thing that like.
- 21:17Took me places like that's the one that's
- 21:20like oh this is what i want to develop it was actually i
- 21:23was going to use that as a pen and teller a foolish
- 21:26audition piece for a while because i was like man there's
- 21:29no way they're just going to guess like you can straight up hit the
- 21:32block you want so it's going to like label there's 54 jenga
- 21:35blocks in there so it'd be like your card is
- 21:38and then four of diamonds and then
- 21:41they're like search through the deck this is the only block labeled four
- 21:44diamonds and of course they're not going to be like oh
- 21:46they're going to say some methods some switch something and
- 21:50not just you just effing hit that specific block
- 21:53i don't know i reckon they might think it's
- 21:57like the the painting or something the the like a like a puzzle piece kind of
- 22:01thing like maybe there's magnets or you know yeah that's what everybody's loose
- 22:04when i first did the video everybody thought it was the whip part was just mimed
- 22:09right and then you were shooting a BB gun or like you had it on a string and then it got pulled out.
- 22:15And they're like, that's how she knew that exact block that she was going to do.
- 22:19I did it blindfold in Russia as well and succeeded.
- 22:22And it was like, how the bleep did you know that specific block that you're
- 22:27going to hit when you can't see it?
- 22:29And it's like, dude, one, I've done this a ton and it's, it's diagonal corner to me.
- 22:35I put this side, which is either all diamonds, spades, whatever.
- 22:38Right toward me, try not to have a face value because those are going
- 22:41to be the center ones and then i'm like okay one two
- 22:44three four now you can just force a card but even
- 22:47if it's a free selection i know where roughly the blocks of
- 22:49cards are going to be then for that show i know it
- 22:52was four four up from the four not four
- 22:55like this way so it's like two four six
- 22:58eight so it's a block up i know that's the
- 23:01block i need to hit so even if i can feel the edge of the table with
- 23:04a whip i know this is the height i would need to just hit that
- 23:07specific block and like i stacked the the
- 23:10jenga set so i know exactly like which are the loosest blocks
- 23:13some of them like the first time i did it on the james corden
- 23:16show it was just they i effed up
- 23:19the first take so they stacked it up for me because they didn't want me to move
- 23:22otherwise it changes continuity so i'm like oh shit i have to legitimately take
- 23:27out a completely random block which is why like the entire tower shifted because
- 23:32This is a block that had weight on it versus like a block that's easily movable. Wow.
- 23:37Yeah. So that, that's the, that's the trick I guess that took me,
- 23:40that started my, my performing arts career went viral.
- 23:44It just, it got me a lot of gigs from right there.
- 23:47Where'd you, where did it go viral? Were you like actively producing social media content?
- 23:53I mean, I was make, I would say I was making content, but I wasn't like,
- 23:56it wasn't like high production value.
- 23:58Like I see Doug, actually all three of you have like fantastic studios.
- 24:02Oh yeah there it is there just as we're chatting there's a few yep yeah that was slow mo.
- 24:10This is wild. Is this on YouTube? Yeah, that is. That's it. So that's just me,
- 24:15like, the first time I did it, just trying it.
- 24:17Just being like, I'm going to try this. And later on, I'm like,
- 24:20oh, now I can get to the point where I can hit a specific block out with a whip. Wow.
- 24:23And then I see everyone should scope this out. But then on YouTube,
- 24:27there's a few. You're doing it on a talk show, being interviewed.
- 24:31And yeah, well, then there's a fire version. Oh, my God. Oh,
- 24:35yeah. We built a giant Jenga version.
- 24:39Got two whips. lit the entire thing on fire
- 24:42yeah i know this was just dumb and
- 24:45then me and a friend was like hey do you want to play giant fire
- 24:49jenga and then we didn't think about how are we going to pick up
- 24:51these flaming blocks and put it back on all within like but three minutes while
- 24:56this thing is still on fire and like the exposure sucked on that because it's
- 25:00because like three foot tall of flaming fire and why didn't like think about
- 25:05exposure compensation at this time because i I was like, I'll just try this dumb idea.
- 25:10So then we're trying to play Jenga as fast as you can with flaming whips.
- 25:14Wow. Yeah, I was surprised that
- 25:16that worked out. That wasn't like us playtesting to get to that point.
- 25:20That video was the first time I show up at my best friend's house and like, hey, I got an idea.
- 25:25You want to get some cameras, set this giant thing in your backyard,
- 25:30set it on fire and try to play Jenga. And he's like, sure, let's do this.
- 25:34I like it. That weekend, we just went and tried it. and that's
- 25:37the video that i am now i can see why that
- 25:40went off the fire stuff while we're still on the on the whip game you cracked
- 25:44a 365 foot whip that that's 100 64.5 or 365.4 one of those two wow 111.12 meters.
- 25:58Now what i'm like i've tried cracking a
- 26:01whip yo it's not as easy as it looks okay you think
- 26:04you think you're indiana jones you're not you're not
- 26:07and so like there is
- 26:10obviously a lot around that now like is your knowledge of like fluid dynamics
- 26:13beneficial to this yeah is there
- 26:17like a physical strain that you sort of had to deal with like you know
- 26:20in order to get it right or you like got it first crack
- 26:23like what's the deal oh no it took it took forever that
- 26:26i started like making that whip I built
- 26:29it and then I started like adding to that whip so
- 26:32I built the first whip which I think was like 100 even and I
- 26:35think it went 100 127 I
- 26:39want to say 169 214 I think
- 26:42214 is when I first did it at an
- 26:45event like for their showcase and then
- 26:48I want to say I went to 260 something I think I got the Guinness record somewhere
- 26:52around the 260 range and then bumped it up to like three 300 something and then
- 26:58nathan griggs took the record he's in i think he's queensland australia i don't
- 27:02remember that and then i came back and tried to get it at 360.
- 27:06364 365 i don't remember the exact number so it like got built up longer and
- 27:10longer it it's very physically straining but like there's a lot of other people
- 27:15who are stronger than me and it turns out the thing that was the most important
- 27:18was accuracy because it's like if you try to throw a loop,
- 27:22but it's not on plane, the thing will spiral.
- 27:25Do I have a cable or anything that's near my... Hey, look at that.
- 27:29Oh, I don't mess up my lighting system that I just tried to set up before this.
- 27:35If you throw a loop and it's dead on, it will travel down the length of the whip pretty easily.
- 27:44But if it spirals and it's just like off that gap and it starts widening,
- 27:49it's just, you throw the whip and immediately widen.
- 27:52So when I got the Guinness record for that, the surveyor, who's like the person
- 27:57officially measuring the length of the whip, they ended up being like three
- 28:01hours late. I don't remember why.
- 28:03So for like two hours, because they're like, we're supposed to do this thing.
- 28:07It's supposed to be in this like one hour time slot at the festival.
- 28:10They're like, you know what, everybody go ahead, take your shot.
- 28:13So we had people who like, just kept doing this over and over and over again.
- 28:18Of course, none of them could do it Because 300 foot whip is really, really hard to control.
- 28:22And it was cool to see like all these really big, strong people make it like
- 28:26maybe 20 feet because they've never thrown a whip.
- 28:29And then some of these smaller people with more precision or myself who got
- 28:32their record, I can make the whip go 300.
- 28:36I don't remember where it was at that point, but like 300 foot down.
- 28:39So it's like, can you hit something within this window, 300 feet or roughly
- 28:44100 meters away from you?
- 28:45That is by far the more challenging thing to do. Yeah.
- 28:49Fascinating god damn okay i
- 28:52have a question in i'm listening
- 28:56to this and i'm thinking like i've never thought of
- 28:59attempting for a guinness world record like not that i have one in mind but
- 29:03it's never been a thought path for like my career and before you got a guinness
- 29:10world record was that a plan to like help advance your career by having this sort of notoriety or,
- 29:17Or it just kind of happened after that and then you realized?
- 29:21And is it something that performers should try to achieve to sort of help their
- 29:26path as a performer? To get better events or be seen more?
- 29:32It wasn't like a marketing goal at first.
- 29:35I was teaching a whip class at a festival and someone asked,
- 29:38what's the longest whip you have?
- 29:40And then the next person, what's the longest whip in the world? I'm like, I don't know.
- 29:43I'm going to go Google this. So I looked it up and like, oh,
- 29:45I don't remember what I thought at the time. It's like, it's not that long.
- 29:49It's not that long. I could make like a whip this long.
- 29:52So the first thing I tried wasn't the longest whip ever cracked.
- 29:55It was the longest fire whip. That's why I started at like 100.
- 29:57And then I'm like, oh, yeah, no, we can do this. And then we can set it on fire.
- 30:01So I just did the longest fire whip, which was my first target.
- 30:05And then we just increased that whip up until a certain point.
- 30:10I think that was when I got the Guinness World Records before I switched to nylon. because
- 30:13throwing kevlar just sucks so bulky
- 30:16and thick and heavy comparatively to like
- 30:19throwing nylon whips how heavy is it how much does
- 30:22something like that weigh had the i think
- 30:25the the nylon version had a world record of the heaviest width ever cracked
- 30:31at 22.6 kilograms it was like 45 pounds yeah no it was it was ridiculous so
- 30:40then once i got it over a certain point, I realized I was pretty darn close to the world record.
- 30:45I was like, shoot, I'll go for it. I'll fill out the paperwork.
- 30:49I'll research it. I'll do it.
- 30:50I got the record and I'm like, okay, this is fun.
- 30:54And then the next one was the, the.
- 30:57The whip jenga and people are like this would be a fun record
- 31:00as well so then it's like okay let's try for
- 31:03that and then when i started doing that one that's
- 31:06when guinness got a hold of it it's like we want to
- 31:08put this in our book like how can we partner this
- 31:11so and then i think the today's show in the united states
- 31:14they also called and they wanted to do a segment on it so like can you
- 31:17break this world record on our television show so then
- 31:20there's a video of me attempting that on the today show so
- 31:23then it's like oh this is a nice segue into
- 31:26getting on because james corden show is
- 31:29another one who aired it so like let me use this as a
- 31:32way of getting more gigs and then eventually
- 31:35it was like well we like that you did this record could you
- 31:38do a different one like okay sure i'll do this one and like italy's got talent
- 31:43was like oh so like fire jenga i think germany's got their version of germany's
- 31:47got talent was das super talent they wanted the fire one fire whip Jenga and
- 31:53then a few other ones wanted like I said Russia wanted the blindfold version.
- 31:58And then just like oh Italy wanted arrow catching and
- 32:02I was like okay you know what this is just going to be a thing I'm just
- 32:04going to start chasing me so I started chasing like talent shows
- 32:08and world records and then then
- 32:11I just kept doing it and now I have 23 Guinness
- 32:14World Records I think four world records
- 32:17with various org 40 world records with various organizations wow
- 32:20seven in the like notebook
- 32:24that i can pull out when needed if
- 32:27somebody calls me up and says we need a guinness world record what can you do
- 32:30and i'm like this one's here it's set it's practiced i could probably break
- 32:34it tomorrow well see the thing is all these records are so diverse you've got
- 32:39you got cards fire jenga fire loops card shopping knife throwing out of all
- 32:45these ones that you've done,
- 32:47Which to you is, was the most challenging and, or, and, or the most meaningful and why?
- 32:54Well, I can, the most meaningful. So the first foot longest whip,
- 32:57and then the next one was probably the loudest whip.
- 33:00Like that's the one I am really, really proud of.
- 33:03So proud of, that's a 10 foot bull whip. I got it tattooed to scale on my body.
- 33:09So it runs from here, wraps around.
- 33:13I'm not going to take off my clothes on a podcast, but uh you
- 33:17can just like look it up on instagram like it it
- 33:20goes all the way around this leg all the way
- 33:22around again up my body up through
- 33:25around here across the back up onto the shoulder up down and it's tattooed on
- 33:31my back so it's a two scale 10 foot width and that was the loudest width cracked
- 33:36world record through guinness yeah so like that was just like that was a i wanted
- 33:41to do that because it combined shockwaves.
- 33:45So my specialty is acoustics. So computational fluid dynamics also deals with acoustics.
- 33:50A lot of my primary projects I worked on for SLS was in the acoustics realm.
- 33:56I had whip cracking in my background.
- 33:57I had compressible flows in my background, which is basically supersonic flows.
- 34:02I had the mechanical engineering.
- 34:04So I wanted to combine that all into one thing. So that's when I'm like, I want this record.
- 34:08I really want to work this record. I worked at it a ton.
- 34:12I designed that with, I made that with my, like, I'm the one who graded it.
- 34:17I set it up. I did it. Like, that's the one that might not have taken the most
- 34:22amount of work from a like physical training aspect, but it was the one that
- 34:27I'm like, this is what I want to do with it because it brings so many elements of my life together.
- 34:33But importantly, can you do this?
- 34:45Yes oh don't don't tell me can do the better version okay,
- 34:50now i'm sure i'm sure that in amongst all these amazing attempts there's probably
- 34:54been some failures probably stuff worthy of a gig story josh what do you say
- 34:59to me for a gig story i think we gotta do it let's go.
- 35:06So gig stories is a section of the show we like to talk
- 35:09about moments of magic or indeed breaking world records
- 35:12starting this week with a story from josh josh
- 35:15tell us a story let's do it i did an
- 35:18event for well it was in brisbane city we had
- 35:22river fire on the weekend which is a big fireworks sort
- 35:24of festival and some fighter jets fly over anyway i
- 35:28go in to perform for this company that
- 35:31has a nice little balcony venue outdoor to watch
- 35:34all of this happen but i'm kind of performing right in between
- 35:37like the jets going off and then the fireworks
- 35:41would be at the end of my set and the the
- 35:43jets were late and so i'm performing to a group and
- 35:46i can see they're at they're at a cocktail table that's like perfectly at the
- 35:51sky and this one guy really wants to film this jet because it flies so fast
- 35:56but it's so low as well and anyway this woman's like no watch the magician because
- 36:01you know it hasn't come yet we'll know when the jet's coming so i start performing
- 36:05he He turns around to watch me.
- 36:06Oh, the sound comes. Right. Okay, sorry.
- 36:10No, no, you're absolutely right. So a minute goes by, he's performing,
- 36:13and we hear the sound, and he's like, oh, it's coming.
- 36:16And, yeah, because the sound is delayed because it's so fast,
- 36:18he looks and the jet's already gone.
- 36:20And he's like, and he went to film it and he missed it. And like, oh, damn, so sorry.
- 36:24Anyway, the jet, like, does a, yeah. And so he should have known that. What an idiot.
- 36:30And then the jet flew back again.
- 36:34He didn't realize that would happen. So they've gone, oh, well,
- 36:37whatever, come back to watch me. And then they've heard the sound again,
- 36:39looked back again, missed it again.
- 36:41And so hopefully I really had
- 36:45a due diligence to like make the magic worth missing this jet flyby twice.
- 36:51But, you know, that's what happens sometimes. You just got to take into account
- 36:57that the sound doesn't travel as fast.
- 37:00Yeah, 50 miles offshore or from wherever a rocket launches. It's roughly five
- 37:06miles per second. That's how you can guesstimate how far a storm is.
- 37:09See lightning, you count to five. That's one mile, count to ten.
- 37:12That's two miles. So that can be, what, a minute 15?
- 37:16So 75 seconds later from when you hear to when you see a rise in the air. That's what I told him.
- 37:22He's so stupid. That's just common knowledge at this point. Yeah.
- 37:27Not everyone knows that.
- 37:28What about you doug do you have any have you had any weird requests
- 37:31at trick supply for like this week at trick supply
- 37:34just been an amazing cavalcade of superstars
- 37:38you've had some amazing guests we have the highlight
- 37:41for sure was matt king coming in the store nick nick
- 37:44k shows up with russ nussbaum from tannins and
- 37:48they bring in mac so that you know that i
- 37:51did the happy dance after that visit and then
- 37:54like alan eckerman was in the store saturday the friday
- 37:57before that james the mayor was in the store james
- 38:01the mayor what a talent jason byrne
- 38:04joseph gabriel has been a regular he comes in a
- 38:07couple times a month now and mandre it's
- 38:11so nice to be in the thick of it all in the store but
- 38:14yeah that's my gig story i hung out with matt king for a half
- 38:17hour at work pretty cool damn i mean
- 38:20that well living the
- 38:23dream most of the time that's great man.
- 38:26And it's it's a cool store i spent i spent a day in
- 38:29there and again folks were popping in to say hi and it was just it's
- 38:32a really cool place for sure we opened the
- 38:35theater of magic here in melbourne this weekend which went
- 38:38off fantastically yeah buddy yeah so
- 38:42april's if you're not aware we have the theater of magic originated in
- 38:46brisbane there's now two venues in queensland and we've
- 38:49been expanding ever since there's now a total of four venues once here
- 38:52in melbourne where i live and another one's just opened up in boston so it's
- 38:57it's really cool so the amazing nigel flew down and we performed alongside each
- 39:02other which was awesome but it was really fun because after the first set it
- 39:06was great and it was an earlier show full house good fun and he was just like.
- 39:11All right, man, I'm going all out the next show. I felt like I was holding back.
- 39:16So you better bring your A game. And I'm like, love it.
- 39:19And I was like, all out. It goes all out. So there's nothing left.
- 39:22I'm like, let's do it. Let's just, let's just go nuts.
- 39:25And so he went all out and he was killer. And I'm like, and I got to follow
- 39:29his act and his act is phenomenal. Right.
- 39:31So I got to follow it. And so anyway, I'm like, all right, cool.
- 39:33I'm going all out. So I get, I'm, I'm, I'm headlining the show. So I'm doing my set.
- 39:38And I thought I'm going to actually try and make this really personal and like
- 39:41really hit the heartstrings and try and do and i did and i did to the point
- 39:45where so i finished my cups and balls act is a super personal piece which i
- 39:49don't want to say it because i don't want to spoil it but it's really really cute
- 39:52and i finish it up and basically what i do is it's i explained that like okay
- 39:57so the my act is that like when i'm first generation born here in this country
- 40:01and growing up i didn't want to be like we used to work in the family business
- 40:05and we had a fruit shop and which is a very common thing for Greek ethnic folk
- 40:09to be when they first come here.
- 40:11We're all fruiterers of concrete layers was the thing, right?
- 40:13But I didn't want to be a fruiter. I wanted to be a magician.
- 40:16People would come from around to see me perform this act. And I would say to
- 40:18them, hey, this isn't a magic show. It's a fruit shop. My granddad comes because
- 40:22he'll get mad at me and clip me.
- 40:24And they'll be like, cool. So when I do my act, I say that I'm performing it
- 40:28as I did as I was a child. So I perform it and get everyone involved.
- 40:31Good, good fun, childish jokes.
- 40:33And then I produce six pieces of fruit and two coconuts and,
- 40:37and then, so for my hat and so forth.
- 40:39And then I, I, at the end I go, and remember, this isn't a magic show.
- 40:43And I pull a kabuki drop and it rolls up front of my table and it says Nick's fruit shop.
- 40:47On that and so finish the
- 40:50show and i'm like and remember this isn't a magic show and i pull
- 40:53it's a fruit shop and i stand aside and i take a bow and everyone
- 40:56just stood up and gave me a standing o and it was
- 40:59just such a nice moment and i've got video of
- 41:02it and i'm looking at carrie i'm just going like are you seeing this like i
- 41:05was almost brought to tears it was so great because i had a room filled
- 41:08with like some family some friends you know
- 41:11like and some absolute strangers who were just loving that
- 41:14and it was the first it was our first opening show like it
- 41:17was the first show you know what i mean so it was kind of important to make a good
- 41:20impact i know we're doing a good job and so that was so fantastic to
- 41:23to have like a great opening and so carrie who's
- 41:27you know who's started all this like he was super proud and
- 41:30happy that it went so well and for me i was just like
- 41:33good like it all went the way it was supposed to and now
- 41:36josh and i will be doing one for those listening
- 41:39october 4th he's flying down from melbourne to
- 41:43melbourne and we'll be on the show and it
- 41:46is going to be so epic two-thirds of
- 41:49the magic guys it's you know what we're gonna have to talk about this because we
- 41:51have a we do similar styles we have very much different effects obviously but
- 41:57yeah we're both like you know good sleight of hand artists and and so we're
- 42:01gonna have to talk about that we're gonna have to commit to our set lists and
- 42:05yeah do a thing for sure yeah absolutely like you know you see a watch you're
- 42:10like no no it's my turn to use someone's.
- 42:13Hey what about boston though you guys are
- 42:16going international with this thing huh boston is that is
- 42:19that live is there are they selling tickets now christopher wayne is based in
- 42:23boston now with the naked magicians and also made a deal with the hotel they've
- 42:28opened the theater magic they've done their first month and so far it's it's
- 42:32going super well they're doing it i believe they're just doing it monthly right
- 42:36now, test the waters, iron things out.
- 42:39Also, he's got to fit in between his scheduling of the Naked Magicians.
- 42:42But yeah, look at Boston.
- 42:44It's, you know, it's... I'm going to be in Boston.
- 42:48So you are when are you well i'm going
- 42:50to be oh yeah well
- 42:54that may future stuff maybe we don't know when we
- 42:57will but april a whole career's worth of gigs tell
- 43:00us what what's a fun gig story crazy wild what
- 43:03do you have for us we got to hear you've broken more records than i've had
- 43:06girlfriends like that's crazy you've broken
- 43:09more records than i've had girlfriends like it is just nuts
- 43:12yeah but what is that who yeah i'm gonna
- 43:18play off the the sound and delay and the loudest
- 43:21whip one and there's all if
- 43:25you're gonna do a whip show tell the hotel beforehand like you have to call
- 43:29them like the number of times i've had either shots fired call or weird things
- 43:33that happened there's one time i'm doing a gig in chicago and i have a rehearsal
- 43:38time i go there and one of the sections is like i want to, you know,
- 43:42make some really loud whip cracks.
- 43:44So I make the really loud whip cracks. I'm like, okay, I got through my rehearsal time. I'm good.
- 43:48So I walk out of there and I walk by the con ops, the, the, the operations convention center.
- 43:56And I can hear like the police talking to the staff and I'm like,
- 44:01okay, I'm curious what happened. Let me listen in.
- 44:03And they got a call for shots fired in the hotel. Yeah.
- 44:08The united states oh yeah that
- 44:11was a fun thing to then have to be like oh man
- 44:14i have to go explain this to the police
- 44:17to be like okay so i'm not going to start the sentence was that was me i'm like
- 44:21hey just so you know and of course like i try to walk in there to explain this
- 44:25and then the the convention security is like you're not allowed to be here we're
- 44:28having like serious discussion this is something like no i'm trying to help
- 44:32you solve this issue because you're gonna be like Like, where was it?
- 44:35Like, apparently they cleared out a chunk of the hotel to try to figure out
- 44:38where it came from. And they're like, oh, yeah, I was in the ballroom area.
- 44:42And I'm like, huh, I was just there, like, maybe 10 minutes.
- 44:47Oh, I know who that was.
- 44:53I definitely know who that was. So that was a fun story to then have to explain,
- 44:57be like, okay, so whips, make noise.
- 45:03How loud are they in decibels depends on
- 45:06how you measure them there's several different ways there's like decibel a
- 45:09there's decibel b ones denoted specifically for human
- 45:12sound so like in terms of the frequency spectrum you
- 45:15have low frequency here high frequency here humans can
- 45:19generally hear between like i think it's somewhere between 50 and
- 45:2220 000 hertz depending on your age that upper
- 45:25limit moves down as you grow older so we're measuring in
- 45:28like the decibel a range the absolute peak when
- 45:31measured in less than one millisecond is about 150 decibels
- 45:34whoa written impulse which is like what's the
- 45:37average decibel rating over five milliseconds they're about 120 130 that's where
- 45:42i had my record and then there's basically decibel b i can't remember now between
- 45:48the flip there it's an even spectrum all across then it's like okay it's not
- 45:53within the human range still produces a lot of energy.
- 45:56It's like rocket launches. It's primarily infrasonic. You can't hear the amount
- 46:00of acoustic energy that occurs in that range.
- 46:03So it kind of depends on how you're measuring impulse versus peak.
- 46:07What's about as loud as like an ACDC concert?
- 46:10Oh, I feel like they still have to follow OSHA recommendations.
- 46:14So even though they're allowed to blast, there's a, this will make you deaf.
- 46:18So I believe we still have limitations at like somewhere around 140 decibels
- 46:24when it's sustained for more than two hours. Otherwise, you will deafen people.
- 46:28So there's OSHA requirements, at least in the United States, on concert limits.
- 46:34Yep. Same thing here. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
- 46:38Big on looking after people's hearing, not so big on guns. Anyway.
- 46:46So what I'm curious about is that I assumed that working for NASA would be an
- 46:51almost all-encompassing, very important role, like this type of thing that would
- 46:56consume you for like 16 hours a day.
- 46:58Yet you still have an amazing ability to not only maintain your performance
- 47:03life and your work life and your family life as well.
- 47:06You know what I mean? Like, how do you juggle that?
- 47:10Is it just all about time slicing or, you know, do you sort of have to prioritize
- 47:15certain things and neglect others?
- 47:17Yeah, I just ignore all of my girlfriends. Okay.
- 47:22Yeah, it's time blocking. I think Harvard Business Review said time boxing is
- 47:28the most useful productivity tool you'll ever have.
- 47:30You could just Google like 100 most useful productivity tools,
- 47:34like number one. And so it's like, OK, this is the time I need to allocate here.
- 47:38This is what I'm going to dedicate to work.
- 47:40When I was working operations, like that would change around for a second,
- 47:43third shift, like 16 hour days, especially when you're on launch support.
- 47:47CCP is Commercial Crew Program. When they do launches, like you just have to be there.
- 47:52Otherwise, like I try my best to hold my boundaries when it's like one of my
- 47:56partners was getting married.
- 47:57So I said, hey, I know this is a launch weekend. I think that was the second
- 48:02attempt for Artemis 2, which was like, that's my, that was my biggest passion
- 48:06project at the time was like putting the first woman in person of color on the moon.
- 48:10Like I was not going to miss that, that opportunity until one of my partners,
- 48:15like I'm getting married that weekend.
- 48:16I'm like, okay, so guys, I'm going to miss work because I need to go be at this
- 48:22wedding because that's family is more important to me than work.
- 48:26So, and it came down to, I wanted to be part of, I don't know, like,
- 48:31mystify or something. It's like, I'm taking this time off. I don't care how
- 48:35important of a thing is coming here.
- 48:37I'm setting this boundary of like, I'm going to be here for this.
- 48:40I'm going to set at least an hour for a video call each week with my family,
- 48:44with my partners, a date night here.
- 48:47But I'm also going to say, hey, I need to write a show.
- 48:50I'm going to spend at least two hours this time block, sit down writing.
- 48:57And then I just, I try my best to commit to it.
- 48:59Doesn't happen all the time, but I try my best to commit to it and it seemed to work out for me so far.
- 49:05Now, speaking of weddings, you actually had a viral photograph from your wedding
- 49:09where you designed, you designed this yourself. Is that correct?
- 49:12Yeah, we made the wedding dresses. I mean, we came up with the concept.
- 49:15We set the lighting conditions and like the giant fire Django,
- 49:19which we didn't plan exposure there.
- 49:21We did a bunch of test shoots. So it's our dresses on
- 49:24fire so i already did a number of fire dresses
- 49:27photo shoots we had the photographers that we
- 49:30wanted to shoot our wedding we decided hey why don't
- 49:33we light ourselves on fire for our
- 49:36wedding photos so like the i think it was 120 news stories in 40 countries is
- 49:43when it went you can if you just google flaming lesbians for the first line
- 49:47uh oh thank you that made that so much easier to find. 69 search results.
- 49:55That's a lot of nudity in these results. If you Google it, it's like the first
- 49:59church is me and Bethany on fire for our wedding photo.
- 50:05I'm going to have to delete my search history now before I forget mine.
- 50:08Most recently you were designing It's a lot more safe for work when you just do vice vans.
- 50:15I saw recently you were designing some carbon fiber clothing,
- 50:19like some corsets and so forth. Is that a thing?
- 50:22Right in my I'm work I was working
- 50:25on one of them like 6am this morning too is
- 50:28I thought it would be fun and now I I have an idea
- 50:31I don't know how I'm gonna pull it off of quick change but with
- 50:34like gear not like you know sleek dresses which is our suits like I want solid
- 50:43like carbon fiber like bullet stopping capabilities but then instant change
- 50:49right so like re-rigging some of the
- 50:53tie such that you can change from like carbon fire, carbon fiber.
- 50:57I read fire because of Eric typing in there in the chat, carbon fiber that will
- 51:03change from like Kevlar to carbon fiber to something else. And like,
- 51:08that would be cool. Cause I don't think I've seen that anywhere.
- 51:11Like how cool would it be to switch from like armor, like a suit of steel into
- 51:17like a sexy nightgown or something else like that. That's what I thought. Love it. Love it.
- 51:22Now, look, I have dozens of more questions, but I'm going to ask one more as
- 51:26we slowly come to a close of the episode.
- 51:28And as we're talking about fire, you created the fire eating trictionary. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- 51:35Let's explore that. Tell us about it. Oh, this was I want to say I think it
- 51:39started that early 2014, finished the project 2016. I really wanted we.
- 51:45There wasn't a good amount of nomenclature because we had like 20 names for the same trick.
- 51:50So I wanted to bring the community nomenclature together. So I'm like,
- 51:53okay, this is a trick. Let's name it as a community.
- 51:55And then at that point, I was adminning the fire eating Facebook group,
- 52:00like one of the largest social media groups for fire eating.
- 52:03And then I was also like doing a bunch of fire eating content at the time.
- 52:07So I wanted to bring it together by saying, hey, let's take the tricks we know
- 52:10and put it together at a single resource.
- 52:12So it was, I think I'm going to say somewhere between 120 and 140 fire eating
- 52:17tricks that I got mastered, wrote down the names of, performed it,
- 52:23and then said, hey, this is the trick. This is the name for it.
- 52:26So then therefore, a fire eating community, I think it's, I don't know if it
- 52:30still is, but it was the largest fire eating resource, like trick resource online at the time.
- 52:37And therefore, like, Like you don't have to reference like Cassandra,
- 52:41Cassandra, right. Carissa Hendricks.
- 52:43She had a fire eating DVD long, long time ago. And like, that's where we like started the basis off.
- 52:48And then like Brian Bushwood did the Bible of fire eating. I forgot what it's
- 52:52called, like how to eat fire or something like that.
- 52:54They're like, okay, let's take all these names, put it together.
- 52:56And then release that as like a series of videos and eventually the whole thing together.
- 53:00So we had like a common language we could speak as fire eaters. Cool.
- 53:06And it's available at trick supply.com.
- 53:13Can people access this online you can just
- 53:16google like fire trickionary and like april jennifer choi will show up and it's
- 53:21all right you love i really love that heck yeah and april's website is linked
- 53:26in this description wherever you're listening to this scope it out i believe
- 53:30i'm sure there's there's a bit more info on that book on your website, I'm guessing?
- 53:35AprilGenzoy.com. The Fire Eating Trish Canary is now just a YouTube link.
- 53:39Gotcha. Got it. And are you working on another book? Is that something Nick,
- 53:44did I hear Nick mentioning that?
- 53:46I did not. But let's start a rumor.
- 53:49I heard you were shadowing. I heard you were shadowing. A clocking April Jennifer
- 53:53clocking Troy book coming out.
- 53:55People are asking for resources on clocking, and I think that we should just
- 53:59try and promote you writing a book about it.
- 54:01Oh, yeah. All the different methods of counting and clocking a deck.
- 54:04Here's a marketing ploy. 20 card tricks you can do in space.
- 54:11I got one. I was aware of this through Harry Lorraine and his epitome location.
- 54:16And he kind of simplifies that by restricting the choice or focusing on just reds or blacks.
- 54:21Yeah. When you're clocking the deck, you only have to do half of the work.
- 54:25So there's a reference. And let me also mention Paul Cummins has a trick called
- 54:29Apalak, which is probably the best clocking deck trick there is.
- 54:34Essentially, it gives the impression that your spectator is able to find your card.
- 54:39So you each pick card. Your spectator takes one out unknown to you.
- 54:43As you're taking the card out you know belongs to them, you clock the deck,
- 54:47and then you name the card that they have removed as your selection.
- 54:50So it's a killer clocking trick.
- 54:53Tapalak by Paul Cummins. That's such a good use for clocking.
- 54:57It really is. I mean, it's a spectator finding your card from a shuffled deck
- 55:03in use. Shuffled, borrowed deck, essentially.
- 55:05It was published in Magic Magazine, so if you have access to that file through
- 55:09a Genie subscription, you can find it there.
- 55:12Yeah. I also think that we should probably acknowledge that some of the things
- 55:15that you are doing are very dangerous art form, like the throwing knives and so forth.
- 55:20As we come to a close, I think it would be nice to sort of what sort of things
- 55:23should we keep in mind with regards to the safety involved with them doing things
- 55:27of fire and so forth. Yeah.
- 55:29Double check everything. Be as safe as possible. Wear your safety glasses.
- 55:34Wear a respirator. Be working on carbon fiber.
- 55:36I mean, I feel like we all know the safe thing. It's just we don't do the thing.
- 55:41Number one thing for safety is complacency. The number one thing that prevents
- 55:46safety actions is complacency.
- 55:49So try your best not to be complacent when you're doing dangerous stunts.
- 55:53Or just do it just you know you'll probably be you know it'll probably.
- 55:5922 year old 22 year old doug used
- 56:02to do fire eating in his act until he did it
- 56:05badly and burned his lip and yeah a lot of people
- 56:08think the because there's this weird overlap between like
- 56:11magic and danger acts that like when you
- 56:13do this act like is it legitimate i think john goodwin
- 56:17just did this talk because i was at his lecture for magic
- 56:20live and he talked about an arrow you know
- 56:22archery stunt with banachek
- 56:26as well because anna just did one i think currently
- 56:29she's working on agt so it's like oh they're doing
- 56:32it but some of them did it in a magical manner which
- 56:35was very very very safe and then some people do a
- 56:38mix and then like for a lot of my arrow catching stunts that's
- 56:41100 straight up real like it is
- 56:44cutting an arrow that is flying at
- 56:47me and sharp like that that's just a
- 56:50lot of people like oh you what's the method of doing that like how
- 56:52did you get that so that no i just it's straight up real so like there's that
- 56:57area where it's like okay i know you know that i'm a magician these are the
- 57:01dangerous parts please don't do it i think i just saw a video on your instagram
- 57:05where you whipped the trigger of an arrow and it so the whip went that way then
- 57:10the arrow fired this way and then you caught it.
- 57:13Yeah, that's one out there. There's I have a lot of arrow catching videos now.
- 57:17My my one that I'm working up toward is trying to whip a bow,
- 57:23shoots an arrow at me and then blindfolded.
- 57:26I cut it with a sword and it breaks.
- 57:29Eventually, I want to be able to get that tight enough that I can put it on
- 57:33a stage and not destroy a multimillion dollar screen.
- 57:37Because I did try, I have tried to film that on stages, but I didn't realize
- 57:42a lot of places, like if you look at the background of like AGT,
- 57:46it's a display screen. That's how they get all the animations on there.
- 57:49It's a multi-million dollar screen. It's not just if I miss, they exit.
- 57:55If I miss, I destroy a multi-million dollar screen that I will never be able to afford to replace.
- 58:01They're like, we can't have this in a way that you're aiming
- 58:04the bow at the people at the stagehands or
- 58:08at the screen so i'm like okay i need to rework this so
- 58:11it's a little bit more consistent but if you tell them you'll
- 58:14also do a quick change in it like while that's
- 58:17happening they'll be sold they'll be sold like the
- 58:19arrow the arrow pulls the end of your
- 58:22dress or your your suit the samurai you know
- 58:25and it changes it oh yeah i could have like armor
- 58:28and be like shoot it at me and then at the very very end
- 58:31and see me like catch it quick change turn
- 58:34into a white dress yeah this is great
- 58:37i like this is going maybe the arrow is once i do
- 58:40this absolutely so this is good everyone just don't listen to this this is our
- 58:45idea so you've got the let's say it's a silver armor suit fluoro green arrow
- 58:50the arrow gets shot at you hits you boom turns into a fluoro green outfit come
- 58:56on that's you know i'm just Usain.
- 58:59Remember us when you run earth, it sounds like that's where we're heading.
- 59:08Look, we're out of time already, but I encourage everyone to go in and look at all of these videos.
- 59:14They're amazing, either on April's YouTube or on Instagram. All those links
- 59:19are below in the socials.
- 59:21But we want to end our episode in the way that we do with all our guests,
- 59:24which is to give our guest the final word.
- 59:32Hey everyone thanks for listening i'm april jennifer choy
- 59:35you can find me magic events and circus events
- 59:38around the world the one that i'm helping will produce is mystified magic festival
- 59:43it's going to be in and we're doing it supports women and minorities in the
- 59:50magical arts so please google it find their social medias give us a follow and i hope to see you there,
- 59:59Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now.
- 1:00:04But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.