Our absolutes should always be hypothesis. They should never be confirmed as fact because everything that we construct through our perceptions, through our memories, is so corruptible. The skills that I have can really display that.
The mechanisms inside me tick like a criminal. My mind works like theirs, and criminals can smell it when they're around me - but I choose not to use it in a bad way. I just choose to do good things.
When I became a teen, I ran into a friend at a magic shop who took me under his wing. I started reading up on magical theory and immediately blended that with what my brothers had shown me.
When we think of misdirection, we think of something as looking off to the side when, actually, the things right in front of us are often the hardest to see: the things that you look at every day that you're blinded to.
In the same way that a film director would use a film lens to blur out a certain item or use a spotlight, I use certain movements that draw the eye instinctually.
If I need to steal from a difficult spot, I like to use a 'bottom-up' attention strategy to direct the focus.
I had physical disabilities as a kid. I had fine gross motor problems, so I didn't have natural dexterity in my hands. I also wore corrective braces on my legs, like in 'Forrest Gump.'
I've taken a tenacious bulldog approach to learning new skills throughout my life.
There are two kinds of magic. If you think of it like martial arts, there's sparring, where you are doing it with a partner, and the other is kata, where you're doing an exposition for the audience.
Many times, illusions or magic sets are designed as an exposition for the audience to watch, but the the style I do with the pickpocketing is directly interactive.
I think that's kind of my forte is that I tell people beforehand that I'm going to steal from them. And a lot of people think that that makes them safe, and hopefully I wake them up a little bit.
When I was around 13 or 14, and I was in a private school, I had a Frisbee that had the name Apollo on it. And I'd walk around with it. People would say, 'Hey, there's that Apollo kid.' That's where the name generated from.
Attention is what steers your perceptions; it's what controls your reality. It's the gateway to the mind.
At the zoo, people would gather around the railway to see the snakes being fed, and my brothers would walk around the group, taking from purses or bags or using a razor to cut pockets and take wallets.
I was doing all these hand exercises, trying to move things like other kids, catch things like other kids, and change my reflexes, and I guess I just didn't stop. That's why if somebody says to me, 'Can I learn this?' I will say, 'Probably, if you can get the psychology right.'
Normally, when I'm not performing or stealing, I second-guess myself; I have doubts.
Usually, when people watch magic, there are two levels: the people who walk away accepting that there are things they don't know, and the other group, who wants to know, 'How did it work? How did that happen?' They want to unravel the puzzle.
