How to Levitate
Feats of levitation are one staple of many professional and amateur magic shows. If you want to learn how to levitate, there are a couple of different strategies you can attempt in order to put on quite a show.
The Balducci Levitation Method
The most basic method for levitation is the Balducci method. Essentially, this approach relies heavily on proper angles. Choosing a poor angle will blow the trick before you can ever begin.
Stand at an angle facing away from your audience. Turn so your left heel and foot are facing them, as well as the back of your right heel. Make sure your heels are together. Push up on your hidden right toes. What the audience will see is your left foot and right heel seeming to rise off the ground. Don't attempt to do this trick more than a few seconds, as a sharp eyed observer will quickly notice that the front of your right foot is not leaving the ground.
The King Levitation
With some similarities to the Balducci method, this illusion of levitation does have some bells and whistles all its own. In order to perform this trick, stand so you can be viewed from the side. Having a pair of pants with the leg facing away from the audience slit for easy movement will help immensely. Also, attach the shoe to the slit leg. Using a cover round the feet, slip the foot that is away from the audience out of the shoe. Position the foot at a ninety degree angle to the shoe, again with the foot and your leg facing away from the audience and hidden by your body. Have something short and easy to rest your foot on, so that you can plant your free foot in place and appear to levitate.
The illusion if done properly, will appear to be both your legs and shoes side by side, even though you are in fact balancing yourself with one leg during the supposed levitation.
What makes this trick work is that the average spectator will assume there are feet in both of the shoes and not pay a lot of attention to the line of both legs of the slacks. Again, the angle is very important here. Any slip could lead to the trick being revealed in an instant.
Levitation has amazed people for centuries and even today causes people that know there is a trick to speculate on how it is done. With two methods at hand, you can now explain at least in part.
