The Handwriting Sensei: PART ONE

Let’s just say this: I
have too many books in the works. The photography book. The Media Memoirs book.
The English Diplomat Book. And…the Crazy Experiences book.

For the Crazy Experiences
book, I wanted sent this query around the industry:

Have you ever been on a
talk show? How about a game show? Do you have a behind-the-scenes story that
will excite? If you have a great story, I want to hear from you. The best ones
will be published in some form in an upcoming book.

My new bestie Theresa
Ortega, a certified handwriting analyst at The Handwriting Sensei (www.handwritingsensei.com), was
among the seventy-five responders—and definitely the most fun. Her story is pretty
entertaining and definitely book worthy…here goes…

I was invited to do a live radio show
where I analyzed handwriting of the listeners. They had me analyze the staff
first and all agreed that it was very accurate. The listeners had a great time
as they faxed in their samples and I analyzed them live on the air. The Program
Director was very interested in a personal analysis, as he wasn’t on air with
us. So, we sat in his office and I took a look at his handwriting. I noticed
some, ahem, peculiar things about his physical appetites that were manifested
in his writing. I was trying to come up with how I was going to tactfully tell
this man that I saw some, well, kinkiness in his writing…it came to me quickly,
and I’ve used it numerous times since. I gave him a few details about his
personality traits, and then waited with the juicy revelation at the end, and I
said, “It seems you have a certain, shall we say, penchant for sexual
activity outside the norm.” HIS EYES LIT UP LIKE A CANNON, he smiled a
huge toothy grin, grabbed the paper and exclaimed, “REALLY?? Where do you
see THAT??” So I proceeded to show him where I saw the strokes that
indicated the traits…..he hooted and hollered, and yelled, “FUCKING
A!!” and ran down the hall with the paper in hand, telling all who would
listen, “Can you believe it?? SHE CAN TELL I’M A PERVERT!!! THAT IS
AWESOME!!” He ran from office to office with his newly gleaned
information…

Wouldn’t it be great to know about
someone just by the way they write? I know the Media Guy could definitely get a
leg up if he could understand all of this. So when I spoke with Theresa I
wanted to know if she could analyze MY handwriting?

Theresa
Ortega: You lead a pretty
exciting and interesting life. The hotel key card, AWESOME!!! Aaaargggh, I
relate!  “….in the middle of Timbuktu”………heh heh
heh….but the Abercrombie couple…….classic. Your life may not be all
princesses and Miss Universes, but, it sounds rousing, so yes, I can analyze
anyone’s handwriting. It would be fun to analyze your handwriting.

Media
Guy: Was the guy
baiting you? Did he want you to respond like this and ask you out? I have a
colleague who does crazy stuff like this to get clients and dates…

        

TO:
Nope, no interest in me at all……he
just ran around the studio like a crazy man, shouting, “CAN YOU BELIEVE
IT?? FUCKING A!! She can see I’m INTO THE KINK by my handwriting!!!!” and
so on…….

MG:
What do you charge for one of your
sessions? Do you testify in court as an expert?

        

TO:
It depends on what type of analysis it
is. No, I am not a FDE (Forensic Document Examiner); that is a totally
different certification. My work is mostly with relationship issues (personal
and employment related), compatibility, self-esteem and self-improvement. 

MG: Tell me more about the rumor and
the actor that wanted you off the set. Anyone famous? Did he/she have a
reputation for doing this? What kid of show was it? What was the timeframe?

          

TO:
No rumor, no actor. The guy was a
Program Director for a local AOR radio station. No one famous. No reputation
for doing this that I was aware of. Of course, I wasn’t familiar with him, I
only knew a few of the DJ’s, and they had asked me to come on the show to
analyze handwriting live as something fun and unique for their listeners. The
show was a morning drive radio show, their demographic was probably males
16-25, maybe 16-40. It happened around 2000. And no, I would not have
dated this guy after analyzing his handwriting!!

MG: Back to my handwriting analysis, should I be
nervous? I’m on pins and needles!

TO: PINS AND NEEDLES??? Aww, c’mon, Michael, it
won’t be THAT bad!

A person such as yourself who is interested in self-discovery and
self-improvement, believe me, I’ve rarely seen the psycho-killer traits in the
handwriting…………as I said, I won’t be telling you anything about
yourself that you don’t already know, but most people are surprised at what can
actually be gleaned from handwriting. (I will, hopefully, make you think about
a few of the things I can see and mention, but don’t know exactly what the full
story may be. You will see what I mean. I always tell people that while I can
see many things, in the end, I have no super powers, ESP, or crystal ball. It’s
all about stroke patterns and a very methodical examination of traits. I’m just
a technician). 

MG: Tell me what kind of training
you took to become an analyst.

TO:
I studied via online/live classes for
many years. We would do the audio part as a teleconference, and then the
instructor would use a website to show the samples we were talking about before
the webinar concept was perfected. Then attended our International Conference
every year, where we got a chance to hear analysts from other disciplines (yes,
there are several schools of thought on analysis/graphology), and I took the
oral and written certification exam in 2007. This was through Bart Baggett’s
Handwriting University International. I passed, woohooo!!

Now I continue to attend trainings with other recognized analysts I’ve met across the country, such as Beverley East, Iris Hatfield, Sheila Lowe, Kathi McKnight, Treyce Montoya, Joseph Zarek, and so on…plus I’ve gotten to know several AMAZING graphologists in South America such as Evelyn Aguilera Arce and Mercedes Lapietra, who send me information in Spanish that I can’t get here.

MG: Also who comes to you?

TO:
Corporate event planners, trade show
organizers, HR managers, charities, individuals. I’ve done everything from a
16-year-old boy’s birthday party here in Terre Haute, to analyzing handwriting
at the annual SHRM (Society for Human Resource Managers) Conference of 15,000
attendees in Atlanta, Georgia this past May!! Private events such as
bachelorette parties, corporate fundraisers, corporate teambuildings,
professional associations, art shows, college sports conferences, and much
more.

MG: What’s the average fee?

TO: Average fee? Well, I have a non-profit rate and a corporate rate, and I give a discount to the corporate group if they book me for 4 hours or more to analyze. Strictly analyzing, it’s $125/hour non-profit, $300/hour corporate. My average personal analysis is around $200. Workshops and keynotes are $3,000-5,000.

MG: When my daughter brings a boy home
should I do a handwriting analysis on him to make sure he’s not a psychopath?

TO: Analyze boyfriends?? ABSOLUTELY!!! I can go
more in depth on this later, but suffice it to say that I get a lot of college
handwriting gigs due to my day job (I work at a student rec center at a
university), and see a lot of young guys’ handwriting. I’ve become alarmed at
much of what I see lately, and one sample I was analyzing perturbed me quite a
bit…so I sent it to my friend at the FBI. I told him all the stuff that
bothered me and made me uneasy, and wanted him to verify if it was as bad as I
thought. He came back to say that it was much WORSE than I thought…….and
the sample ended up in his book as a perfect example of “red flag”
behaviors that should be avoided in relationships. Yep, sexual aggressiveness,
manipulation, anger, physical aggressiveness, short temper, etc, etc, ad
nauseum. The kind of guy that, in his opinion, would forcefully take something
he thought he wanted and wasn’t getting. You know what I mean.

I joke to people that I would not go out on a second date with a guy unless he
gave me a sample of his handwriting. But it’s not a joke. I wish I had learned
this stuff 20 years ago.