Basehor resident Judy Whitcraft began tapping on the hand of one of her workshop attendees, David Matthews, during a break Saturday afternoon.

A pinched nerve in Matthews' right shoulder prevented him from sitting comfortably in his chair at the front of the classroom. He then opted to stand in the back to try to ease the pain and explained his situation to Whitcraft.

"Can I tap on you?" Whitcraft asked.

Once Matthews agreed, Whitcraft began the tapping an "affirmation routine" of the Emotional Freedom Technique. She began with short, light taps with the fingertips halfway between the wrist and the pinkie finger, called the karate chop. As Whitcraft tapped she said phrases such as, "Even though I have this pain in my shoulder, I deeply and completely accept myself" and "I love my body."

Matthews repeated the phrases.

Moving on, Whitcraft tapped in three different areas around Matthews' eye, underneath his nose, chin, collarbone, one arm, then finally the top of the head repeating, "pinched nerve, pinched nerve, pinched nerve," in each tapping spot.

"How do you feel now?" Whitcraft asked. "Do you feel any different?"

While the pain in Matthews' shoulder had not completely gone away, he said that it had subsided enough for him to take his seat at the front of the classroom again.

EFT was developed by Stanford University engineering graduate and ordained minister Gary Craig in the mid 1990s. The acupressure tapping combined with affirmations of EFT are said to gradually cure what ails you from physical pain and stress to anxiety and phobias.

"It silences that inner critic that argues with you when you want to do something," Whitcraft said. "It eliminates the negativity in our body, which blocks what we want."

An e-mail from her chiropractor introduced Whitcraft to the technique more than two years ago. She first practiced on the parents and students at her local dance and tumbling studio, Judy's Studio. After becoming more comfortable with it and studying Craig's Web site, she became a certified EFT practitioner through an online test.

"Since I have this captive audience here (the studio), I would just sit in the parents' room and teach them," she said. "But since then I've done workshops in my home and many of them have taken it into their lives."

Whitcraft also offers one on one EFT sessions in her home and does sessions over the phone for a fee.

The popularity of the technique was evident when Whitcraft lured several people from a beautiful afternoon on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo., into the Unity Temple on the Plaza for an EFT workshop Saturday. The classroom filled quickly with mostly women and a few men eager to find out how to release negativity in their lives and ultimately get what they want.

Whitcraft said everybody has something they want in their lives, but it is often blocked by doubt and negativity, or what she calls the "yes, buts." She told stories about how EFT has changed her clients' lives. People from all walks of life have relieved pain in their joints, ceased nightmares and let go of anger and resentment for family members using EFT, which Whitcraft said allows them to obtain what they want.

"It will erase and replace," Whitcraft said to the class. "It can make the things you want believable to you. Once it's believable to you, you can manifest it. And, it's easy. You always have your tools with you because you always have your fingertips."

By the end of the workshop, a volunteer from the audience, Wendy Reimann, offered up one of her desires along with the "yes, buts" of that desire. As Whitcraft went through the tapping routine on Reimann, the rest of the group tapped along on themselves.

Reimann said EFT seemed to help her achieve her desire to have peace of mind and less worry for her troubled sister.

"When the tapping first started I sort of had a sad, emotional feeling," she said. "Then this sort of chill feeling went through my body. I just have so many issues I'm dealing with and I just need all the help I can get. I think this will help me to quit focusing on the issues and start focusing on solutions."