|
I recently did the day game workshop with Toronto instructor Ed Dantes. It was a few hundred bucks, which honestly was very expensive for someone in my position with a not ton of money at my disposal. Luckily I also have few living costs and had made some money recently so I was just able to afford it. And it was probably the cheapest bootcamp I have seen advertised.
Ed was an interesting guy in many ways. He was an Asian engineer in his mid 30s, but when I met him I would have probably pegged him at 27, if that (though despite his age, he often dates girls ten years or more his junior). He greeted me with a few of his friends and we did the lecture in one of their apartments on Ed's macbook. I thought the lecture portions were succinct and straight forward. It was only an hour each day. I didn't bother taking notes but ed later emailed me things that I requested more info on. One of his friends even wrote an opener for me, which I ended up using throughout my first day opening sets. Ed taught me how to approach moving sets from the front and from the back. A skill we would later implore constantly throughout the workshop.
When we hit the streets I started practicing the approaches with just erroneous situational questions ("Where is...). We just did this on like one set for each approach because honestly this is not productive unless you feel really socially introverted and not comfortable asking people these things. Ed also did demonstration approaches (which he would do throughout the workshop), including an impressively quick number close on a pretty blonde girl walking on the street in a rush to get to an interview. After a couple "practice" sets, I moved on to indirectly opening. I used the opener his friend had written me but I thought it ended up coming off bad, probably more because I felt incongruent with it. I wrote my own opener and started doing a little better. But the sets were generally short and there was always the occasional blowout, but I found the girls became easier and easier to talk to as the day progressed. I also opened a few with direct. It came off a little rocky, but a few girls had a sparkle in their eyes. And even during the blowouts, when everyone in the store just heard you deliver a direct opener to a girl and watched her refuse to even acknowledge your presence and awkwardly eject, you just shake it off and walk of khan your way out of the store. And Ed gives you a little debrief on the things you did wrong and some personal reassurance that there is nothing wrong with what you just did. Shit happens, deal with it.
By the second day it was declared we would scrap indirect opening. There's not really much point in stopping a girl walking in the mall without telling her what you want. You aren't fooling anyone by asking about whether your sideburns look cool. That's alright though, I still often stacked to my opener because I didn't always have a lot to say in set (we could have worked more on writing a routine, but I think that doing this would actually been counter productive and might made me come off like a salesman). Anyways the first few sets were a little rocky, but often the girls were nice mentioning the fiances they had or the husband that was sitting across from her. There were a still a few girls that would blow me out, but a lot of it had to with the approach and no one is being deliberately mean; some girls honestly might just not want to deal with your approach and might brush you off. Shit happens, deal with.
By the end of the day sets were opening well. It felt like I was ejecting quite often in sets that were sticking without even trying to instadate or ask for a phone number, or try to do anything really except to banter with them. While this is a sticking point, Ed can hardly be blamed for this. And he and his friend both encouraged me to try for more. Finally on my last set of the day, I went after a ridiculously pretty blonde girl who Ed, his friend, and I all noticed simultaneously. I direct opened (as I did all day for day 2) and it seemed to be going pretty well after a few minutes. I asked her to take a walk with me, but she said she had to wait for her sister and could not. We exchanged numbers and ten minutes later she was texting me. I ended up trying to take her out on a casual outing later, but lives like 2 and a half hours away from Toronto (...and apparently has a boyfriend anyways...). And honestly, I only met her for like four minutes anyways.
Ed helped a lot. He gave body language advice and actively observed me in set and explained things about me that I shouldn't be doing. He helped give me body language tips and showed technical things about approaching that actually had a big impact on how well the girls opened.
Five days after the workshop, I realize I have not really been as adamant about implementing this stuff as I could be, but this is hardly Ed's fault and the workshop really did make it seem like direct approaching random pretty girls during the day was not the most difficult of feats. The bootcamp, however, is not a magic pill. It won't just instantly fix your women problems if they exist. It is you that has to start actively implementing the skills they teach you into your life. They can only show you the door, you have to walk through it.
|
