(Music Playing)
Male: Alright ladies, let me show you something with your fork tonight. I will just borrow your fork.
Female: Sure.
Male: Have you heard of a guy called Yuri Gala?
Male 2: Yes.
Male: He used to bend forks, yes, he is really strange. You can bend the fork by doing this, it is an illusion, you know, it is actually an optical illusion, it looks like it is bending but it is not.
This is solid yes? This is interesting to know, if you watch, if you just, see it is just an illusion, you do not really bend it.
Remember, it is all just an illusion, it does not really happen. Just push it on it but it does not really bend, it is just an illusion, you see. It is really strange.
This is the explanation for the mercury fork bend. Now before we get into the mercury fork bend, I always start this effect with a little introductory phase. And it is something you can try yourself, you can do it in the mirror and believe it or not, you will actually fool yourself with this. But this is the technique, it works with pens, rulers, in fact anything that is this kind of shape, it will work with a fork. So you will hold it just at the balance point, right in the center, but you have got kind of like a loose grip on that so it is able to wobble around but you do not turn your hand sideways like this. Very quickly, what you will do, you lift your hand up and down and just as it is going up and down, it will actually create the illusion that the fork just turns to rubber and it just seems to melt in front of their eyes. And then obviously, they will be able to check this immediately afterwards because it is not bending at all.
It really is, just an optical illusion but that is the perfect introduction to actually performing the mercury fork bend.
Just to review, you may remember from the live performance, we took the fork, bashed it on the table to prove it was solid and then bashed it on the table to prove it was solid and then I was able to actually bend the fork and instantly restore it and there is no damage at all.
Let me take you through the moves, the techniques, the slides of hands that is needed for the mercury fork bend.
This is the grip that is important, what I am going to do, I am going to take the left hand out of the equation for now and just show you what it looks like when we are just holding the fork with my right hand. You stop in this grip, now obviously; the left hand is concealing what actually happens to the fork but let me just show you the exposed view.
Now, the important thing with this grip is you actually got eclipsed between the third finger and the little finger. And at the end of the fork is held with the thumb and it is held in place like so. Now it is important when you first put the fork down to create a little bit of pressure, but what you are actually going to do, you are not going to push with your thumb, you are going to leave your thumb in exactly the same position but let the fork just slip past it. The fork handle goes straight past and slips through the palms of your hands but, with the other thumb and the other fingers and the palm concealing that fork, it looks like it just gets pushed forward because they imagined the end of the fork handle to be here where it is in actual fact, it is moved down to the bottom now. But at performance speed, it looks really incredible, it does look like you are actually bending that fork.
And it is also important to actually live in the moment, imagine you are actually bending the fork, it takes a lot of effort, it is not easy. So, if you are talking at the time, change your voice, have bit of strain to it or add a noise, I know it sounds silly but if you just sort of go as you actually bend it, put that force into your voice and it will add to the illusion that you are actually bending that fork.
But at the end of the day, all it is, is just an incredible optical illusion and that is the mercury for bend.
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