Head Hacking giro per l'Italia

Ciao!

Head Hacking in Italia this weekend. I am sat at the back of the room (rather than on the stage at the front), with Marcus Lewis and Alex Hendrick, watching Anthony present. Why? Why are we at the back instead of presenting all together at the front? Because Anthony is being translated on-the-fly from urban Kentish to perfect Italiano by professional translator, Roberta, and it would just be too confusing and complicated for us all to talk together. Plus Anthony rarely leaves an opportunity for anyone to get a word in edgeways (must be something about being a hypnotist and talking relentlessly) but when there is a translator involved and Anthony gets 5 seconds to think between each sentence, there is absolutely no way anyone else would get a shot without first sticking Ant's mouth shut!

Milano was good to us last night and even though it sporadically rained heavily, many of the students found ways to get people interested and performed. In Italy many people seem to be scared of the word hypnosis, and more so about the word Sleep. This is clearly just superstition but it can be a major barrier to street hypnosis. Yes, fear is emotion and can be worked with, but if the subject won't even give you the time of day and is scared to be in your presence then it's much harder to get them to clasp their hands together and make a desperate prayer.

To get around this the students generally did not mention hypnosis with anyone over the age of 20. They just offered to show some mind tricks or to show how the subjects could use their mind to make interesting things happen. It was an exercise in reframing that paid off; once the students got over the fear of approaching random people, and their subjects weren't scared off by the word hypnosis, they found that people were interested and would follow their instructions. Just as in the UK, the majority of the public were having their usual Saturday evening and jumped at the chance to experience something amazing and different. Any question whether this would be more difficult in Italy was mute and we all had a wonderful time.

Many thanks to Dialogica, Alex Hendrick and all the students for making this such a great course.

Kev