I've done coin magic semi pro and am fortunate to know one of the finest coin magicians in the world, Ponta the Smith. Not known outside the magic community, he is a new 'Underground' magician, appearing out of nowhere from his DVD "SICK" released in 2008. I am his student and he taught he much about magic in 2 years and I've known him 3. He tours the world and gets invited all over the world to lecture about coin magic and gets free flights/meals, etc. A real pro. I worked for his company, French drop, in Osaka Japan on a DVD on one of his friends/partners in his magic shop (He is the manager of the shop) named Mott-sun, doing the voice dubbing and english naturalness/correction/ from Japanese. I also taught myself 1 to 2 years of japanese, reading, writing, speaking, before I started this project that took 8 months out of interest of Japanese culture.
If you watch old videos by O-Sensei, you will see how smooth and flowing he is. He uses something quite amazing, and even though I've only been doing Aikido now for 8 months, and am almost to test for yellow (I'm white) I think he was using his hips in like a funekogi movement to throw the opponet. It looked unreal, like magic. His movements looked unreal, but they were very real obviously.
So real , and it looked so unreal to people unfamiliar with Aikido, so flawless was his master, most of the comments people said who were unfamiliar with aikido said it was all fake, he was fake, the techniques were not real, it was edited, etc.
If you look at any videos by Ponta the Smith, there are countless comments saying his videos are edited. They are not. They are pure sleight of hand. The fact of his flawless timing, perfection of the basics and advanced, and flowing movements make his magic look like REAL magic. Like a river, smooth and flowing. He also loves Aikido and told me about Shino Godo (sp?) one of the founders of Yoshikan I think Aikido.
Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP8I0...44F713&index=8
And one many said it was edited:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Qe7bjgLJE
Osensei old footage, compare!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoDK3XuvZWw