Thursday, January 24, 2013

Kettlebells: Could Magic Tricks Incorporate Them?

By Rob Sutter


The other night, I sat down with my girlfriend and we viewed "The Prestige" featuring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. For those who don't know, this movie is all about magic tricks and how masters of magic - at least the ones in the movie - would stoop to any lows in order to discover the other's secrets. They wanted to be the ideal magicians, which is something that I'm sure all others in this line of work attempt to be. How much more impressive would their acts be if kettlebells were used?

One of the several magic tricks seen in the movie at great length is the water tank escape, which features the person being brought into a filled glass tank with the task of escaping the binds that tie them. It's a suspenseful trick, to be certain, but I'd have to believe that kettlebells could be made useful here as well in order to heighten the act. The added weight would not only force the person to cope with more leverage against them but make them utilize the versatility of the weight in question. Fitness authorities the likes of Lorna endorse these and there are many reasons for doing so.

Another trick that I'm sure many people have seen before involves the Chinese linking rings. The object behind these is to free them from one another, though it doesn't seem so easy with solid metal. It's possible, though, and I believe that such an act could be brought to kettlebells as well. Illusion is something which is utilized in many tricks - this one included - but I think I'd be lying if I said that there wasn't at least some form of maneuvering that was necessary to make the trick happen.

There is also one other trick shown in the motion picture that I thought was both dazzling and suspenseful. Alfred Borden, who is Bale's character, makes use of the bullet catch trick. The trick goes like this: the bullet is stored into the gun but it never reaches the point where firing it off would be lethal, or even painful. Illusion is also used in order to mimic the sound and appearance of a gun going off so that the viewing audience is left impressed. It's a trick that only sound magicians can pull off.

As someone who was only a little interested in magic at first, "The Prestige" definitely opened my eyes to a world that I knew very little about. Not only did I learn about the secrets of these tricks - at least to some degree - but I saw just how excited these people can become when it comes to their own work. Sometimes they can downright vicious, which is something that I suppose goes for any job where the public eye is present. I still think that these free weights could come into play.




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