Before the prison performance Jerry always had been astonished by the success of his program. Whether he faced a crowd of college students, business executives or older adults, his program seemed to have something for everyone. Maybe an audience full of convicts was stretching his luck just a little too far. And then the prisoners' performance evaluation forms were turned over to him. To his surprise, the prisoners had written that they believed shiatsu and meditation would help them in their lives.

Subsequent feedback from prison staff members further boosted Jerry's spirits. "The monetary system of the prisoners is cigarettes," relates Jerry. "A staff member told me that one prisoner earned two packs of cigarettes by doing shiatsu for another one's headache. And the toughest guy in the prison is a Muslim who carries a file folder with all of his prayers in it. Tucked within that folder is the shiatsu headache diagram I left with them," Jerry says. "It was the toughest audience I ever went through, but there, too, it worked."

In Jerry's program, audiences learn by doing different finger pressure techniques used to relieve headaches, migraines, sore throats, sinus colds, eyestrain and neck fatigue. "It's a seed planting profession," says Jerry. "I'm planting the seed for people that they can heal themselves in a whole variety of ways. They've got more power and potential than they probably ever thought they had."

Actually, Jerry admits he isn't anyone to quibble over skepticism, since he was the biggest skeptic of all when first introduced to what he does now. A graduate of Northwestern University Law School, Jerry was a lawyer with the Environmental Protection Agency in Illinois before he abandoned law for a more unorthodox lifestyle. 

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