10 tips to perform the perfect Balducci Levitation

1. Wear wide leg pants or slacks that come down just past your ankles. This dramatically helps cover the other foot.
2. Face the right angle - if your audience is at 6 o´clock and you are in the middle of the clock - face to 11 away from them.
3. Only do the trick for 2 or 3 people at a time - more than that create a bigger angle for you to deal with. Evem better is only one person.
   
4. Don´t stand too far away from your audience on the levitation. About 6 feet is good, up to about 10 feet.
5. Never, ever tell them that you are about to levitate. If you do that is will will make them watch harder. You want surprise element to it. Almost as if they don´t quite know what they saw.
6. Tell them you are going to TRY something. It doesn´t always work and you´ve only been able to do it twice before. Then move away to the approximate correct distance and somewhat turn your back to the 11 o´clock angle in order to concentrate. Then put your handa down by your sides and after a few moments slowly start to rise. Going up, hovering for a moment, and coming down should only take about 4 seconds total. Come down, look surprised yourself and say: "Woooow ...... it worked! Did you see that?"
7. If you are turned slightly to the left from them make sure your left foot remains parallel to the floor on LIFT OFF. That´s what gives a big part of the illusion is that foot´s toes being up in the air.
8. Practice rising up and down over and over. Do it a million times, get it smooth and effortless.
9. Do a few smaller trick for them first. Get them used to being affected by magic and the fact that you can do it. Don´t ever just jump into the Balducci Levitation as your first trick. Get them impacted first, and then say "There was something I´ve done a couple of times, maybe I could do it now".
10. Practicing the levitation in a mirror is good, but if you have a video camera and can set it up on a tripod at eye level - exatly where your audience´s would be - is literally ten times better. It will improve your levitation dramatically.

These tips if practiced should make your levitation skills much, much better! ;-)

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Balducci Levitation

The Balducci Levitation is an illusion that can be performed almost anywhere and anythime. It uses no wires, strings, rigs, camera tricks, etc.

Learn how to do the Balducci levitation in this simple tutorial!

This is a highly restrictive, angle sensitive trick. You have to practice your angles over and over to get used on them. One bad angle or position and the illusion is blown!


This picture at the right show you the audience point of view.

This figure shows the start of illusion. Stand about 10 feet away from the audience at a 45° backward angle ...





... you pause, and then slowly start to float (as shown in picture at the left). You rise 3 to 5 inches off of the ground before suddenly "crash" back down to the ground.








When performed corretly this is about as close to REAL MAGIC as you´d ever want to get!

Balducci Levitation - THE SECRET

All you do is pretend to float off of the ground while you tippee-toe on just one foot (the foot furthest from their view) as shown below. Believe it, or not, this looks great!! The small audience can´t see your supporting foot because it´s hidden by three things - your pants, the angle of the trick and your closest shoe (which hides their view of the foot being used to levitate you). You might only rise 3 or 5 inches off of the ground, but it´s all in the presentation! You will want to slowly rise off of the ground, wait just one or two second and then drop fast.
Stay up too long and they will probably figure it out.

This is what the Balducci Levitation looks like during performance. The position on the left is the start of the illusion. Position on the right shows the climax of the levitation.

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