Hey guys,
Let me begin by saying that I definitely enjoyed myself during the weekend of the LA Super Conference. And in the end, I’m glad I did it, for many reasons – meeting other PUA-hopefuls, meeting Mystery, Matador, Lovedrop, Discovery et al and generally getting some advice from those guys.
It’s also worth mentioning that I own the Mind of Mystery DVD course and had reviewed it thoroughly before the course, so the CONCEPTS of Mystery-style pickup were familiar to me. It was merely the PRACTICE and PERSONAL GUIDANCE that comes with hands-on instruction that was lacking for me.
This is the PRIMARY reason I signed on for the course.
The SECONDARY (but nearly equally important) reason I’d signed on for the course was the in-field DEMONSTRATIONS. Demonstrations that I somewhat expected to marvel at, but more so, expected to LEARN FROM, as I tend to learn the most through observation, particularly with something that cannot be taught through a book, something as finely tuned as pick-up.
Highly valuable stuff for anyone who’s never seen the art of pick-up live, and had a chance to wrap their brains around it (like me). And based on all the reviews I’d read of previous conferences, laden with comments on how amazing it was to watch the instructors in action in the field and how supportive and useful it was to be instructed through sets by them, I’d come to expect that I would literally be witnessing pick-up in action, AND ALSO, be well in the hands of doting instructors.
So, naturally, I signed on for the Mystery level of instruction – the most expensive level – because, to put it bluntly, I wasn’t f%&king around, and wanted personal guidance from the best – namely Mystery, Matador, Lovedrop et al.
Also worthy of note, I greatly appreciate and somewhat require VISUAL demonstration following an explanation. For me, it just cements a concept perfectly.
SO, CUTTING RIGHT TO THE CHASE for those who will not read a lengthy review, my overall grade for the conference was, disappointingly, a B-minus.
Unfortunately, in the end, I did not feel like I got my money’s worth based on my reasons and expectations for going. It was worth some majority portion of what I paid, but definitely not the full amount.
$3000-plus for a pick-up conference is a LOT of money for me (very hard-earned money!). I’m a very big value-for-dollar kind of guy and also a highly organized type of brain, so I was constantly evaluating my experience based on whether I thought I was getting more for my money than I already had gotten from the disks, books and generally off the Internet.
There were a lot of ways that the instructors and organizers could have delivered more value in this conference. Here’s where the conference experience went great and where it fell short:
DAY ZERO (the very day before day 1)
1) I received the seemingly important prep packet via email. Twenty-two pages of helpful notes, info and some space to evaluate yourself and where you are now with pick-up. Had absolutely NO time to read this before the beginning of the conference. Would have been great if it were sent to me a week before, because I would have been able to prepare and practice some of the material for use in the field. There’s really very little time to do this once the conference is underway, especially if you’re living away from the hotel.
DAY ONE
1) We start the conference 2 hours later than originally planned, which is worrisome for me, because I know that that either means we’re going to go late, making it difficult to get to the clubs in time for all the good stuff, OR it means that we’re going to be MISSING OUT on 2 hours worth of previously promised, valuable material. Somehow, I don’t think we missed any more material, but we definitely DID go late. More on that later.
2) Thankfully, the prep packet is passed out for everyone to read then and there. There is also a section where you’re supposed to fill out your goals and where you are with pick-up at the moment. We were told that this is for the instructors to get a sense of who you are and where you stand at the moment. This notion got me very excited, as in "WOW! We’re going to get such personal attention that instructors will literally take us under their wings and work with us at our level.
We were never asked to hand these in. It did not happen. I soon realized that it would have been logistically impossible, considering how many people were attending the conference. Not possible to read all of our stories. Would have been nice to approach it from that direction though, especially for someone like me, who was hoping for some personal attention.
3) AWESOME!! Mystery shows up and introduces himself to everyone, and you immediately feel like you’re in good hands. He speaks about pick up and tells stories and performs routines for about 3 or more hours, which was cool. He hangs around during breaks and answers questions directly, which is also cool and helpful. Lovedrop previews the new Revelation approach to pick-up for a little bit, and that’s somewhat intriguing. Kosmo talks about approaching/opening, and does a little bit of routine performing for us, and generally tries to put us into a relaxed and fun frame of mind about the whole process – and that’s cool.
4) We are encouraged to get up and form groups and practice our openers. Without much more guidance than that, and with none of us really knowing each other, we just sort of meander into these disorganized groups and trepidly practice opening each other. Here’s where it would have been great for the instructors to take control, actually PUT us into groups, and then GUIDE our practice. One instructor per group wouldn’t be difficult to implement. Instead, instructors casually wandered from group to group, and I think Discovery stopped by to give us some general tips based off of one guy’s approach.
5) WHAT WOULD HAVE MADE ALL OF THIS BETTER is if the guys spent more time demonstrating any of these concepts right there, IN CLASS. When you think about it, ALL of the concepts are fairly simple. The nine phases (A1, A2, A3, etc.) and the new model of the Flame, the Ghost and so on, is fairly simple to get your mind around. It’s the BEHAVIOR, the MANNERISMS, and just GETTING IT INTO YOUR BODY that’s the hard part! One thing that always helps me with stuff like this is when I can actually SEE a demonstration of someone skilled doing it.
THUS, what would really help the classes improve in the future is if they actually had female models on hand, brought them up front in class, and had the pick-up artist just demonstrate things like BODY LANGUAGE, NON-VERBAL TIME CONSTRAINTS, APPROACHING and OPENING, KINO ESCALATION and so on and so on. All of this stuff goes down MUCH easier when you can SEE IT. THIS COMMENT, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH!!! It is one simple thing that would have raised my rating of the conference from a B-minus to say, a B-plus.
6) After that, Matador gives a session on the "Way of Being" which really just pushes pick-up to the next level, where you literally BECOME the type of person who naturally attracts women. It’s a Jedi approach to pick-up, which I thoroughly look forward to mastering – over time.
In spite of protests from Freddy, Matador goes over the scheduled wrap time until about 8:30pm (granted, delivering good and useful info all the way). However, the students then have to do the mad dash from class, to dinner, to home to shower and change, and then into Hollywood to the club for the night. Our expected arrival time was supposed to be 10pm, 10:30pm at the latest to avoid paying a cover. I had to go back to my apartment in Inglewood, and at my fastest, I made it to the club at 11:10. Needless to say, I was a little frantic. Hardly the state you want to be in for your first foray into practicing pick-up for the first time.
Beginning and ending the day on time may not seem like a big deal, but when you consider that a huge part of getting the most from this material is to practice it in the field AND get feedback in the field, you realize that it’s important to give every student the absolute most amount of time in the field as possible. Not to mention, just the general logistics of trying to get into a club in Hollywood gets trickier and trickier (and more expensive) as it gets later.
Fortunately, I was able to convince the guy at the door not to make me wait in line or charge me. This night was my night with Mystery and Lovedrop. And naturally, I was really concerned that I’d missed seeing the demonstrations of Mystery and/or Lovedrop do their thing. I arrived to find that the place was relatively empty, and Lovedrop was chatting with another student, so I joined them.
7) I got to chat with Lovedrop and ask him tons of questions, let him know where I stood with pick-up and just basically tell him how nervous I was. Great guy, Lovedrop. He spent a good amount of time explaining concepts to me demonstrating kino all the while he’s talking to me and generally helping me set reasonable goals for the evening. Just what I needed to calm down and get focused. THANKS LOVEDROP!!!
At one point early in the evening, I noticed Mystery chilling in the corner of a private room set up for us with his girlfriend. I remember asking one of the students at one point if I had missed the demonstrations of pick-up from these guys, and he told me that there weren’t really going to be any demonstrations. In fact, throughout the evening, I personally didn’t see Lovedrop or Mystery or Discovery do any pickups (though I heard Discovery worked some magic on some chick in the bathroom). I did not understand why there would be no demos, especially since that was a HUGE reason I’d even taken the course – to see pick-up in action. Again, it’s something that could be thought of as overrated, but hey, seeing is believing, and again, I personally LEARN VERY WELL from observing others.
I’d heard a couple of days later that Mystery and Lovedrop and some of the guys generally weren’t going to perform pick up this night because of having their girlfriends around. To be fair, it’s only a rumor, however, that, ummm…..really PISSED ME THE F&%K OFF. There’s really no other way to say it.
My philosophy is, if you’re teaching a (very expensive!) conference on pick-up, and your girlfriend gets in the way of you demonstrating for your PAYING STUDENTS, then LEAVE YOUR F*%KING GIRLFRIEND AT HOME!!! Matador is the ONLY one who actually addressed this in class, and assured us that his having a girlfriend would not stop him from sarging. I later heard that Matador did some amazing pick-up stuff, but I didn’t go out with the Matador group the first night.
Seriously, guys this is a no-brainer. Otherwise, you’re not delivering on the promise, and that just generally wreaks of LAZINESS and COMPLACENCY. THIS IS, AFTER ALL YOUR JOB. Nuff said on that.
All in all, the night went off pretty well. Again, Lovedrop was a HUGE help, answering ALL of my questions, talking me through concepts all night, and pushing me into the occasional set for practice. THANKS AGAIN LOVEDROP!!!
I spent a good 5 minutes chatting with Mystery and getting some personal guidance from him from a general viewpoint. That was also very helpful. THANKS MYSTERY!!
I think I opened a good 7 or 8 sets, with maybe 2 or 3 of them hooking. For me, it was a good night.
DAY TWO
1) Keeping this section much shorter, the day began with a presentation from Discovery on Profiling. Fantastic. The guy is crazy organized, very articulate and explains his concepts very clearly. He got us up and interacting within the context of the presentation which helped cement the concepts even further. It was a great way to begin the day – and I felt like I was really learning something NEW that I could eventually use in the field. THANKS DISCOVERY!!! Discovery also let us know that he’d started in the game literally only 5 months ago, and now he’s pretty damned good at it. Very encouraging to think that with "perfect practice" anyone can get good at this stuff rather quickly.
2) Lovedrop did a great session on Kino Escalation. And thankfully, at certain points for crucial concepts, he called his girlfriend up to demonstrate on her. It’s just great to see this stuff demonstrated because you really cannot get the concept in its fulness until you see it VISUALLY. Lovedrop covered all aspects of being acceptably touchy feely without coming off as creepy. From handholding, to getting her arms around you to hair pulling to kiss closes. It’s amazing what you can get away with when you do it right. And there were some pretty cool tricks in there that one of the students used to get a kiss close that night.
3) Lovedrop continued with a session on the Revelation concept. Pretty interesting way to condense and re-package the original Mystery Method. Again, the concepts are largely pretty simple, but it’s getting the BEHAVIOR into your skin like second nature that’s the challenge. It’s all in the practice. I would put this into the same category as the Matador "way of being" session, in that it gets a little Jedi for those of us just learning to wield a light-saber (okay, pardon the Star Wars references!).
4) Mystery was scheduled to talk that day, but was rescheduled for the next day. Matador picked up the slack, and talked about the game in general and conveying a perception of oneself. Really useful, deep game stuff. Again, the guy is, well, Jedi so his discussions tend to get pretty advanced. Still he did a fairly good job of bridging the gap from basic game to the advanced stuff conceptually.
5) Once again, we went a bit later than the scheduled wrap time. Same results. I got to the club much later than I’d hoped and after getting the usual brush-off by the security at the door, I actually thought that they weren’t going to let me in this time. This was my night to roll with Matador, Kosmo and Joe D. Fortunately, Matador showed up just moments after me with his friends, and I was able to go in with them.
Kosmo and Joe D were awesome, each with their own kind of crazy, inclusive, can-do kind of energy. And they were determined to shove us into sets this night. Great, but I was still convinced that I needed to see these guys do it first.
Kosmo ran me into several sets at first, encouraging me to just blow them out to get over the fear of doing it perfectly. I opened a good number of sets this way, and it’s kind of cool the way your brain shuts off when you just plow from set to set. THANKS KOSMO!!! After awhile though, I needed a break, I couldn’t keep up!
Joe D, to put it simply, was my kind of PUA – old school, smooth, fun, and with a great level of energy. With his girlfriend on his arm, he simply went into sets, opened, demonstrated value, locked-in, kino-escalated, etc. It was textbook stuff, demonstrated successfully, right there in there in the field. POW! A great learning experience, especially since I got to watch things like his body language, hear his delivery, etc. THANKS JOE D!!!!
More of this type of demonstration and from other instructors (especially on the first night) would have pushed my overall grade for the bootcamp up to an A-minus.
Matador was working the rock star magic, pulling girl after girl and sending them back to our table. At one point, he grabbed me and put no fewer than THREE girls on my arm. He told me to take them somewhere (I couldn’t really hear him – this club was way loud), so I literally sort of walked them around for a minute, then pawned them off to another set. Admittedly, I was on sensory overload by then and couldn’t think straight.
All in all, an okay night.
DAY THREE
1) Ross Jeffries, the grandfather (?) of the PUA community spoke on seduction routines that could be used in the Comfort phase of the model. Great, great stuff from an old-old-school master. Don’t think it would be useful in the club setting though – it’s just too loud for that. However, anytime you’re sarging a woman at your local Border’s or Starbucks, it should work great. He was a great speaker and a great addition to the bootcamp.
And guess what else he did that was super helpful? He called up a woman and he DEMONSTRATED ON HER in front of the class. Priceless. THANKS ROSS!!!
2) Discovery followed up with a session on delivery. Even he admitted that this might have been more useful on Day One. I agreed.
Very good presentation, again. Discovery really breaks it down and makes it easily digestable. He demonstrates the concepts vocally too, complete with the proper intonation and rhythm, which is helpful.
3) Mystery wrapped up the day with a discussion on microcalibration and taking some Q&A from the group. Again, always insightful to hear what Mystery has to say on sticking points, how to handle various situations that come up, etc. He made special mention of having a stacked routine ready to go and creating cheat sheets for use in the field, two things I plan to absolutely implement going forward.
We broke out into a session where we were to come up with some DHV stories and practice them with each other, and the day just generally ended.
All in all, a good day.
It seemed like some of the instructors were planning to go out again that night, but I was exhausted, so I passed. It turned out to be much to my misfortune, as I found out later, because THAT night, Mystery and the other guys DID actually demonstrate some game – apparently his girlfriend wasn’t there that night.
DAY FOUR (The Breakout Sessions)
I was going to go to the Strippers and Hired Guns session with Mystery, but he was seriously sick so he couldn’t do it. Instead, Matador stepped up and spoke on any and every topic that we could think of and he laid out all of his PUA knowledge as per our requests. He did this until 4am. Dedicated. Devoted. THANKS MATADOR!!!!
So overall, again, I gave the bootcamp a b-minus, largely because of the lack of visually aided demos from the instructors both in-class and in-field, followed by the less-than-desired amount of personal guidance. I say less than desired, because I DID get discussion of the concepts in field and loads of encouragement, but not a lot of feedback from set to set on how to improve.
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. One girl was so blown away…. the guy she was with, I guess her boyfriend, came over and said to one of the students ‘Who is this guy? The girl is going crazy’ (..something like that). 
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