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

[Music] one of the most common things that I steal was watches I tell people I in three minutes of um be running and watch try to catch me again and that would be the game if you were gonna steal my watch but how would you do that so this is more of an expose of it but if I may see your hand so yours doesn't come over the end of the wrist but if you close your hand kinda tight it creates little bit tension so your risk is wider 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 it is so that's what it looks like that's awesome when still in the watch I think is a lot like hunting rabbits if you've ever tried to just think upon rabbit as a kid you see it much in the grass you come close its ears perk up and you wait so it goes back a bunch in the grass and come forward again same thing with the watch you do in small steps I do it I see if you alert to it I do another step I do another step that was a very fast process for watch to do something that's slower that you do is as I'm shaking someone's hand and I'm holding here I can open their wash with in a handshake the watch is virtually loose the reason why I can't feel it is cuz with these three fingers I hold the watch closed so they perceive that the watch is still faster what I can also do is now at this point they have control and that's a big thing is them having the illusion that they're in control so if I'm at this point I say your watch is safe do you have anything in his pocket but now when I come across you see my arm hits here but I flipped out the watch so that I can drop in this outside jacket pocket when I come back is it oh you you were wearing a watch long ago they've never let go of my hand my other hand was over here so it seems like I would have had a third hand in order to be able to steal that watch and they think that they're in control so Paul let's talk about the difference between how you work as a pickpocket and how a street pickpocket works I think a lot like a magician but it has a different flavor and that it comes from street crimes I think the kind of related they're both focused on sleight of hand and misdirection generally on the street they don't want you to remember their face they don't want to talk to you too much but this is more heavily geared towards focusing attention playing with attention in his show what it allows you to do is show the audience the behind the scenes of how the process works which you normally don't get to see in magic you know I would imagine that one of your bread-and-butter steals is the is a wallet from the inside jacket pocket on the street that would be a harder steal because again you'd have to see my face in performance it is something that I do so you've got a wallet in this outside jacket Pacquiao and do you have anything on your jacket pocket over here okay you would would you check your front pocket over this way that's steel so I'm extracting the wallet out and then I'd have your check is this your wallet you feel it sits there I hold it with my pinky I grab your lapels but it's actually outside of your pocket now but when you see my hand come out you feel like you have it totally as this hand goes up to touch here it lets go the wallets the wallet falls down your jacket and this hand catches it so as I go here I grab it but now your aren't your sight line is blocked by this arm [Music] I extract from here go to your shoulder talk to you for a moment as I come in I hand it across the back of your neck then I can do this row and add some flourished in you have a lot of incredible physical strategies and moves to to steal but what ties it all together is your ability to follow the wanderings of my attention or as you put it to surf my attention yes because each person is different and how they operate their attention and how engaged they are because their priority system is different so I have to decide are they with me or has their attention shifted to something else so the important part is the trust it's kinda like a force field or a little security zone and you set that off when I step into your space I'm at it right now yeah but you know it's even a year we're kind of a 45-degree angle so as I'm coming into it but as long as I'm keeping an eye contact with you it allows me to raise your suspicion level same thing if I go here and keep eye contact with you all the way so they're suspicious and you keep very focused on me but if I want to get underneath that I can break you I contact as I go into this base and share a common view with you like a confluence of looking at something and now I'm very close inside your space now if I don't want you to focus on this anymore I can just look at you and that draws your attention up into this triangle and you're less interested in what's happening here but allows me to do things here while your focus is here you've got this spotlight this just moves back and forth if you think about where the spotlight is there's a dark space around that spotlight is where I dance so basically I just play in the dark around where your attention I would think that the most difficult steel is taking something out of someone's front pants pocket that's an urban myth well here in the states it's very common there's two things one keep it in your front pocket to put a rubber band around it both of those don't really help well because it seems to me that you know I can I 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 rummaging around in there I'm gonna I'm gonna know this it yeah that's why you don't probably yeah so what I may do is reach underneath your arm and grab something I said do you have anything inside of here could you is there anything inside of here and a lot of times people will naturally grab pull their jacket for me because they don't want to mean to necessarily hold it but what that does is it now opens up this frame for me to steal so as I go to look inside your jacket too a lot of times people will open up and they're looking inside what I'm now a down inside your pants pocket you're not aware that my fingers are in your pocket but if I want to step across and say can also can you step one step over this way for me and just with your foot that allows me to extract the cell phone out of your pocket you'd think that the what you're feeling is the side of my leg but it's actually your phone coming down your pocket and as I step back I did not feel it I really didn't feel it yeah you know I got some sugar packets or money or SATA might have the family fortune [Music] you

Channel: The New Yorker

Views: 6,629,272

Keywords: apollo pickpocket, apollo robbins, apollo robbins brain games, apollo robbins magic, apollo robbins misdirection, apollo robbins pickpocket, apollo robbins ted, best pickpocket, brain games, how to pickpocket, master pickpocket, misdirection, pick pocket, pick pocketing, pickpocket, pickpocket apollo robbins, pickpocket master, pickpocket tutorial, pickpocketing, ted apollo robbins, the new yorker, wallet pickpocket, watch pickpocket

Id: LoUSO_Mj1TQ

Length: 6min 52sec (412 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 08 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/NotTrying2Hard]

I am now a master pickpocket.

[u/dmy986]

Great video. It's amazing how qui.... wait, where's my mouse?

[u/goes_coloured]

not sure if its the choice of music or the sound of the guys voice but it was very enjoyable to listen to.

[u/jacobchapman]

It really did feel more like a string of magic tricks rather than theft. Very neat video.

[u/[deleted]]

Hearing that the front pocket is actually very easy to steal from breaks my heart a little bit. Still, my wallet's staying there, as I can't go back to sitting on it.

[u/Echo104b]

"It Says Gullible on the Ceiling"

"Oh! So it d... Aah you stole my lungs."

[u/YourFriendInTime]

The alliance is not going to like this at all

[u/inxanetheory]

For those of you interested he had a cameo in the tv show Leverage episode "The Two Live Crew Job." One of my favorite scenes from that series.

[u/some_random_kaluna]

1. Wear a velcro watch strap.

2. Put the wallet on a chain.

3. Treat any unwanted attempt to invade my personal space as an attack on my life, and respond to touches of my clothing with sudden and overwhelming physical force.

Got it.