you could use thick leather gloves until your confidence comes back
do you feed him in his viv? If you do that could be your problem he may assoicate your hand being in his home as food, there for biting/striking out thinking your lunch. We have the same problem with our king snake we now feed all of ours in boxes to save our hands we also use a snake hook (mainly for the boas tho) which saves mistakes they know the difference as snake hook+box=food were as snake hook+hands= playtime
