The Vanishing Bird Cage is one of the hardest tricks I’ve ever worked on. It seems like every problem I solve, another problem pops up. In the recent past when I did the cage, the plan wasn’t for it to stay in the show for very long. Because of this, I didn’t put a ton of time into it.


Now that I think this is something that’s going to be in the show for a little while, I’m putting more time into it. I want to do the vanish of the bird cage faster than the “slow motion” vanish. I’m having a frequent problem with the cage hanging up on my sleeve at the exact same spot. I think it has to do with the coat more than the cage. Material seems to bunch about 3 inches inside my sleeve and the cage gets stuck about 20% of the time.


My solution was to have it not run up the sleeve. I’m having it run across my hand. This gives me a more unusual grip of the cage, the cage sits on the palm of my hand. It’s similar to the one handed grip that John Carney uses in the CARNEY 2013 video on the Vanishing Bird Cage.

The main difference Carney’s grip and mine is that my hand is completely palm up. The cage can be displayed with no support from either hand, aside from my right palm as a base.

Adjusting my grip has reduced the cage hanging up to less than 5%. This is good, but still a long way to go!