On occasions, you will come up against someone who intentionally resists you trying to transform a handshake into a hand up in front of their face. There are a couple of reasons why this may be.

Firstly, you are opposing their natural movement. Once again, this comes down to avoiding direct oppositional movements in favour of circular blending ones.

Additionally, someone trained in martial arts – particularly Aikido, Ju-Jitsu, Wing Chun or Tai Chi – may be highly sensitive to variations in touch, particularly around their wrist and forearm. In that case, the Bandler Handshake is not the most appropriate induction to use, unless you opt for the focused hand variation, or have a high pain threshold!

If your partner is resisting, it may be because they sense something unusual is happening – which, from your perspective, is the whole point! – and they do not realise that it is part of the hypnosis.

I see absolutely no reason to hypnotise someone without at least some level of agreement. So, a useful pre-talk can eradicate multitudes of problems that unexpected or impromptu hypnosis can cause. Part of your pre-talk can even include something like, “I may touch your hand, arm or shoulder at different points and in different ways, that’s all part of the magic. [Smile] Okay?”

You then have consent to touch them, as well as an expectation from them that if you go on to touch them on the hand/arm in strange ways, it is all part of the process.

When they agree, you can say, “Thanks, I appreciate that…” as you go to shake their hand.