WEEHU 2 is behind us now, and what a weekend it was! There were challenges, both logistical and other. There were also awesome moments, and over the whole weekend the scales tip toward awesome pretty decisively.
For the second year in a row, travel to WEEHU was made way more difficult than it had to be by forces outside of anyone's control. Last year it was the shooting at, and subsequent closure of, LAX airport; this time it was the fire in the radar control tower outside Chicago, which caused ripples across North America with flight connections. Dani and I were stuck in San Diego for 3 extra hours (which wouldn't have been so bad if we weren't confined to Terminal 1 of the airport there), which caused me to miss both of my scheduled Friday afternoon classes. Fortunately Hypnoguru stepped into the void and ran "The Art of Teaching Hypnosis" and "Kinky Human Tricks" for me so there was no need to disrupt the schedule.
We did make it to San Francisco in time for the Friday night play party at The Citadel. The party's theme was "A Taste of Kink." There were experts there in a number of kinky disciplines: knife play, caning, single-tails, flogging, needle play. Professor X and I were there representing erotic hypnosis. People circulated through the space getting 5-minutes "tastes" of whatever they desired. There was a good mixture of people new and curious, experienced, and enthusiastic about erotic hypnosis and I had a ball doing 5-minute scenes with them. By the end of the tasting Dani and I had been up for 22 hours straight and were fading fast; we caught the WEEHU-provided shuttle back to the hotel and crashed.
Saturday morning proved hectic thanks to a busload of French tourists who had also stopped at the convention hotel for the night. The hotel restaurant was packed and the staff were clearly not prepared for it; breakfast took a little more time than anyone expected. The restaurant also wasn't really set up for large groups, so there was no real chance to commune with our fellow attendees over breakfast. We got onto the first shuttle and headed over to the Citadel to help open up.
The first class of the day for me was Erotic Hypnosis 101, and as usual I got a nice crowd of new and curious people. For the demo scene we did some voodoo doll play, with my Dani as the voodoo doll and troublethewater (her Fetlife name) as the volunteer. Both of them were delightful and we had a great time with it.
Next up, immediately following, was Subtle Suggestion, my NLP-and-hypnosis class that I added to my roster for MEEHU. I'd added material to the outline because I finished way early at MEEHU, and I still ended up with about 10 minutes extra. We spent it talking about other applications of NLP, working hard to stay out of therapy territory. I'm going to have to add some more material to this for NEEHU 6.
One thing I enjoyed about WEEHU 2 was that I did have more downtime than usual. It was good to have the chance to sit in on Hypnomaster_D's class on Global Suggestion, a technique he has developed for speaking directly with the subconscious and getting cooperation from it even without a formal induction. I'd heard about it and read some on Fetlife, but seeing it actually used and established with someone was fascinating.
After lunch with Lady Ru'etha and some friends at a place called Show Dogs (which was extraordinarily tasty!), I taught Hypnotizing the Analytical Mind, an expanded version of the Live Learning class I did on Hypbook in August. Rather than just teaching confusion inductions, this class takes a holistic view of working or playing with an analytical-minded person with emphasis on getting the basics right -- rapport, setting expectations -- before lunging into a complex confusion induction that may not be necessary or the best approach.
Another free period followed, and then it was time for Deeper, Faster, Easier, my hypnotee-oriented class on getting better at going into trance. There was a lot of interest in this one and we used the time well, teaching the audience self-hypnosis and doing some fractionation with them to help break down any barriers.
To close out the class day Dani and I sat in on LeeAllure's class on doing hypnoplay in public places. There are few things I enjoy more than watching Lee teach; her mischievous brand of hypno-sadism was fully on display in that class and it was a great cap on the day.
Dani and I had a mission for the Saturday night play party: to practice our dual inductions on as many volunteers as we could muster. It's one thing to practice at home with an empty chair; to make sure our timing and nonverbal cues were right we needed some live volunteers. As you might imagine, it was not difficult at WEEHU to find people willing to be tranced by us. Even with LeeAllure and DJ Pynchon offering dual inductions too, we had plenty of eager hypnotees to work with and it helped Dani's confidence tremendously. We also got a chance for some social time with the always-busy Mephki, which was a treat.
Breakfast was less hectic Sunday as the French tourists were gone. We got to talk with some of our fellow WEEHUers in the restaurant and rode the early shuttle with panavatar and Fleur, who was still limping from a serious ankle sprain on Saturday (one great thing about an EEHU is that Doctor Mephki is always in the house). We helped set up chairs for the final day of classes.
Dani and I indulged ourselves in another LeeAllure class, this one on hypnotic amnesia. Then it was time for what is usually the highlight of my EEHU, Kinky Human Tricks. The audience turned out to be small, which made it hard to develop the room energy that I usually get for KHT, but we had some great demos of sensation play and freeze play and of course the Five-Point Palm Exploding Orgasm Technique. I felt a little bad because my volunteer for the 5-point technique was building to it slowly and we ran out of time before she could get all the way to orgasm. Things like that happen sometimes because I don't generally pre-select my volunteers. It's worth the risk because even when I "fail" it helps people to understand that not everything works the way you want it to the first time out. I'd rather someone think, "Well, it didn't always work for Wiseguy either" rather than "How did I screw this up?" when faced with a similar situation on their own.
After lunch (we went to the food court at the nearby mall), it was time for the class I'd been looking forward to most: Dual Inductions, presented by myself and my wife Dani. This was Dani's debut as a presenter, and she was everything I knew she could be. Our timing was good, her voice work was exceptional, and we dropped our volunteers with no difficulty at all. I'm unspeakably proud of Dani for showing the EEHU community that she has skills in her own right.
Our last class of the day, in the last timeslot, was All the Way Down, my class on really deep trance states. We were in the very comfortable upper lounge, which suited the topic nicely because this is the one in which I take someone into the Esdaile state to demonstrate how it can be done and why you would want to do it. I used Dani, as her reward for doing so well in the dual inductions class, and she enjoyed it quite a bit. I was also honored to meet Dossie Easton, who taught the shadowplay class on Saturday, and to have her sitting in for All the Way Down.
There was no formal plan for after-con dinner -- or, rather, there was a chaotic mix of partially-formed plans -- but Professor X took the initiative and got us a reservation for a large group at a kink-friendly restaurant she knew nearby. That gave us a chance to dine and chat with people we hadn't been able to get much time with, like Professor X herself and Hypnomaestro and SweetGasp (among many others). There were hugs, there were goodbyes, and there were see-you-at-NEEHUs.
It was a great time once again. Next year, I'm flying on Thursday instead of Friday!
-wg
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