Page 372 - Brion Toss - The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice

Figure 11-4. Instant Figure-Eight. Hold the end between the thumb and forefinger of your right hand and
grasp the standing part with your left hand so that a long bight hangs between the hands. Drape the rest of the
standing part over your left arm or shoulder to keep it out of the way. Move your right hand sharply to the left,
causing the bight to twist around into a loop (A). The loop will be held in place by momentum for an instant;
throw the end through it with your right hand (B), and a Figure-Eight Knot will appear (C).

on King of Knots plays tricks with us, too! Or seen You demonstrate this laying the ring on the
another way, the speed and freshness of magic can string, in the gap between thumb and forefinger,
breathe life and a range of usefulness into the sim- and slowly pushing the ring down (Figure 11-5A).
plest forms of knotting. Ahh, practical magic. Sure enough, the middle goes down and the ends
come up. Repeat this self-evident procedure a cou-
THREADING A RING ple more times, slowly, with lots of inane, self-evi-
dent commentary; you are accustoming your audi-
But then, lest your audience begin to feel that rope ence to reality.
tricks are Logical and Useful, tell them (a) that “So it looks,” you say as you begin to press the
it is absolutely, positively impossible to thread a ring down once more, “as though sometimes the
solid ring onto a string without passing either end impossible really is impossible, and you’ll never get
through the ring. a ring threaded onto the middle of a string. Like
“Impossible? Of course it’s impossible,” you this.” And with that you take your hand away, and
tell your audience, as you drape your string over the ring is threaded on to the string (Figure 11-5B).
your hand. As you spoke, it turns out, you let the string slip
“The trouble,” you continue, picking up a wide, off your thumb, which was hidden by the rest of your
thin ring or bracelet, “is that when you try to put the hand, which was up near eye level and tilted slightly
ring on in the middle, the middle is at the top and toward you (Figure 11-5C). Practice in the mirror
the ends are at the bottom. And if I push the middle to get just the right non-suspicion-inducing minimal
down to the bottom, the ends just go to the top.” attitude and amount of tilt. As you passed the ring

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