Apollo Robbins Demonstrates the Technique of a Master Pickpocket | The New Yorker

One of the most common things I steal are watches. I tell people that in three minutes I'll be running and looking, he'll try to catch me again and that would be the game if you were to steal my watch, but how would you do it for this? it's more of an exposition of it, but if I can see your hand so that yours doesn't go over the end of the wrist, but if you close your hand a little tight, it creates a little bit of tension, so your risk is more wide at the same time while you're focusing your watch you lost the cell phone that's in your front pocket j/q front pocket let's see if it's still there this is what it looks like that's amazing when it's still on the watch I think it's a lot like hunting rabbits yes Have you ever tried to think of a rabbit when you were a child?

You see it a lot in the grass. You get closer. His ears perk up and you wait until he steps back into the grass and moves forward again. Same with the watch. in small steps I do it I see if you let me know I take another step I do another step that was a very fast process to see doing something that is slower than what you do it's like I'm shaking someone's hand and I'm holding here I can open your wash with a handshake, the watch is practically loose, the reason I can't feel it is because with these three fingers I keep the watch closed so that they perceive that the watch is even faster, what I can also do is now, in this period, they are in control and that is very important, they have the illusion that they are in control, so if I am at this point, I say your watch is safe, do you have something in your pocket, but now, when I cross?

You see, my arm hits here, but I took the watch out so I could put it in the outside pocket of my jacket when I got back. Oh you? You wore a watch a long time ago. They never let go of my hand. My other hand was. around here, so it seems like he would have had a third hand to be able to steal that watch and they think they have control, so Paul, let's talk about the difference between how you work as a

pickpocket

and how you work as a street

pickpocket

. It works, I think it looks a lot like a magician, but it has a different flavor and comes from street crimes.

I think the type of relationship, they both focus on sleight of hand and misdirection, generally on the street they don't want you to remember it. in your face they don't want to talk to you too much, but this is more geared towards focusing attention, playing with attention on your show, what it allows you to do is show the audience behind the scenes of how the process works, which normally you do. I can't see in magic, you know, I imagine one of your most common thefts is a wallet from the inside pocket of your jacket on the street, that would be a more difficult theft because, again, you would have to see.

My face acting is something I do, so do you have a wallet in this Pacquiao outer jacket and do you have anything in your jacket pocket here? Okay, could you check your front pocket like this, which is steel, so I? I'm taking out my wallet and then I'd have your check. Is this your wallet? You feel it's there. I hold it with my pinky. I grab your lapels, but it's actually out of your pocket now, but when you see my hand come out, you feel. like you totally have it as this hand goes up to touch here let go of the wallets the wallet falls down your jacket and this hand catches it so when I go here I grab it but now you're not there your line of sight is blocked by this arm that I pull out from here I go to your shoulder I talk to you for a moment while I walk in I pass it around the back of your neck then I can do this line and add something blooming in you you have a lot of physical strategies and incredible movements to steal, but what brings it all together it's your ability to follow the wanderings of my attention or, as you say, navigate my attention, yes, because everyone is different and how their attention operates and how engaged they are because their priority system is different. so I have to decide if they are with me or their attention has shifted to something else, so the important part is trust, it's like a force field or a small safety zone and you activate it when I enter your space in which I'm.

Right now, yes, but you know, even for a year now we've been at sort of a 45-degree angle, so as I get into this, as long as I maintain eye contact with you, it allows me to raise your level of suspicion. The same thing happens if I come here and keep eye contact with you all the time so that you become suspicious and you stay very focused on me, but if I want to hide, I can break you, I contact you when I enter this base and share a common vision with you is like a confluence of looking at something and now I am very close within your space.

If I don't want you to focus on this anymore, I can just look at you and that draws your attention to this triangle and you're less interested in what's happening here but you allow me to do things here while your focus is here you have this focus this just moves to back and forth if you think about where the spotlight is there is a dark space around that spotlight is where I dance so basically I play in the dark where you get your attention. I think the hardest thing is to get something out of someone's front pants pocket, that's an urban myth, well, here in the United States it's very common, there are two things, one saves it. your front pocket to put an elastic band around it, both of those things don't help much because it seems to me that you know I can.

I have a cell phone in my pocket. I can feel it. It's against my thigh. I can see it and. If someone goes if someone goes, you know, poking around I'm going to know, yeah, that's why you probably don't know, so what I can do is reach under your arm and grab something I said, do you have? something inside here you could there's something inside here and a lot of times people will naturally grab their jacket for me because they don't necessarily want to hold it, but what that does is it now opens up this frame to steal from me, so when I go to look inside your jacket too, many times people open up and look inside what I am now a down jacket, inside your pants pocket, you don't realize that my fingers are in your pocket. but if I want to cross over and say you can also take a step here for me and just with your foot that allows me to take the cell phone out of your pocket you would think that what you are feeling is the side of my leg, but in reality it is your phone going down your pocket and when I step back I didn't feel it, I really didn't feel it, yeah, you know, I have some packets of sugar or money or SATA might have the family fortune.