Day 14: Rockstars of Glory

The Day
Two weeks into Project Rockstar, and it is all starting to come together.

The day kicked off with some minor work on our ongoing projects and then the second day of Mr M’s Munich bootcamp.

All the students were given a debrief and specific feedback for what they needed to focus on for later tonight. Mr M then covered his theory of attraction, and a number of related techniques and concepts that allow you to build attraction easily and naturally.

The bootcamp felt long. Maybe it was lack of sleep from the previous night, but I found myself having to nip out for some fresh air in lieu of having a proper power nap. The rest of the Rockstars (having been on a Love Systems bootcamp before) went out for daygame at Oktoberfest with Soul, Keychain and Vercetti.

Post-bootcamp we all had dinner at a nearby Fujian place (I still find it cool that Asian people here speak German), then bounced back to our various accommodations to rest up for bootcamp. I took a 20 minute power nap, downed some green drink (thanks LondonHunk!) and got ready to head out. I also had the chance to spend some time talking with Soul (http://www.lifewithsoul.com) about escalation anxiety, pulling the trigger and sexual intent. He gave me some advice about trying out different things, and finding different sexual elements to play with – quantity, quality or challenge.

Bootcamp
In field was pretty gruelling. After an absolutely incredible night yesterday, the combination of a different venue and the wear of less sleep and seminar time was showing in the students. Nonetheless, each and every student was able to push forward in their game, and work on in throughout the night.

The club we were at was huge. Something of an industrial warehouse converted into a nightclub. A ton of rooms, huge circular central area and an insane number of people. The demographics of the people there was definitely different from the first night of bootcamp – girls were younger and more middle-class, but also a lot more fun.

I observed students in a number of sets and gave them feedback (plus some for tomorrow’s seminar), and also did a couple of demo sets that involved me getting blown out haha.

For example-
Boring girl: she is dancing by herself. Her friend and her friend’s boyfriend are making out behind her. I open, pull her down and begin to rapidly escalate. We get face-to-face. I test for a kiss – no-go. I talk more. Test again – no-go. Her friend’s boyfriend sees this, and pulls her up and whispers something in German in her ear. She freaks. He then tells me that we should go together, presumably to hook up. The girl is freaking out at this point, so I talk with her friend for a bit then leave.

Vietnamese girls: ran up, stopped them, talked for a bit, then proceeded to pick one up, spin hug her and carry her off. Her friend understandably freaked a bit and they ran off giggling.

More Asian girls: Opened 3 of them who had just entered the nightclub… they jumped a foot backwards when I opened and ran off.

Random girls walking by: I was just grabbing them and going direct. Most of them either blew me off, or said thanks and disappeared.

Bringing Down The House
Once 2am rolled around, the Rockstars went nuts. I gathered up Josh and Vishal and Micha and we decided to play veto extreme – it’s kind of like veto, but you have to veto someone every ten seconds.

We open a ton of sets. From what I remember…
Girl outside ladies room
I walk up to her, say “hey” loudly, she jumps a bit, and looks super nervous. She looks like she is about to bolt then I spot her boyfriend. He says something in German, and I say “you’re a very lucky man”. He says thanks and they both leave.

Birthday Party
This was a 6 set of girls the Vishal vetoed me on. Despite not really wanting to do it, I went in with “Hi, my name’s Aaron.” I then looked for the reactions. Two of the girl went green, the other four were red or yellow. I engaged the ones that went green, sat down on the edge of a table nearby and started talking.

It turned out to be a birthday party, and before I knew it Vishal and Josh were there in set with me. After chatting with the less attractive girl for a bit, I started to talking to the more attracted one (freckles, redhead, hmmmmmm). I locked in next to her, so she was facing away from her friends and talked and began to escalate.

At one point Mr M stopped by and gave me some feedback: when escalating physically, instead of using larger smiles to ease tension, I should look away instead, and smile less. A subtle difference, but one that will undoubtedly pay dividends over the upcoming weeks.

About ten minutes in I noticed that Josh had left, and Vishal was engaging two of the girls on the other side of the bench. Their less-attractive seventh friend had also made an appearance with champagne, and they were getting ready to toast. Josh motioned me to join him elsewhere so I left. In the quick debrief Mr M mentioned that I could have isolated and made out with the girl. Grrrr…

More random girls walking by
Lots of grabbing and going direct. Some nice interactions, but nothing spectacular.

30-second makeout with pictures
This set was pure awesomeness and a logistical nightmare. After playing veto extreme with the other Rockstars, I spot four girls making their way into one of the rooms of the club. I sprint, against the advice of my still-sprained ankle, after them. Mr M does a double take as I rush past him. I miss the first three but I open the last one.

I swing her around in a more aggressive sort of daygame-style spin, and tell her that her dierndl makes her look absolutely adorable. She lights up. We exchange names. I tell her she is crazy. I give her a hug, and spin her around. I then pull her in close, and I stare into her soft blue eyes. I stroke her face, and brush her hair away, and without further words, we kiss. She grabs me in and we make out. I stare back at her and we exchange a moment, then she takes my hand and pulls me towards her friends. I meet them, briefly.

We all head to the dance floor, and while everyone dances away to the high-energy beat of the music I am simply slow-waltzing and rocking back and forth with my girl. We kiss, her friends see this and two of them disappear. The remaining friend wants to dance more, and we end up on a platform.

Hilarity ensues. Some random German guy spills beer on the girl’s friend. She is freaked, and pissed. We move slightly away from him, but he is persistent. Next thing I know, he is grinding with me girl’s friend and trying to kiss her. He does not succeed initially, but he keeps going. This is perfect for me – an instant and impromptu wing. We move again to the main dance floor and towards a quieter area of the club as I want to isolate. Unfortunate my new-found wingman is being overly aggressive and groping the girl while forcing a makeout. He loses the girl, and I find myself being dragged away by my girl and her girlfriend to get away from him.

As we wander around the quieter parts of the club I found out more about them. They are au pairs visiting from different parts of Europe, having just arrived for Oktoberfest. None of them use facebook or have German cell numbers. This is unfortunate. Perhaps I should have taken my girl’s Italian cell number, but this felt like more of a this-night-only kind of thing.

We wind up back in the main club room, on the dance floor, rejoined by the rest of the girlfriends. I propose we head to the bar for a drink. On the way there, I spot Soul and MunichHawk standing nearby, and motion them to come wing. They smile, and I soon see why. At the bar, the navy seals team is there: Josh, Vishal, Micha and Alex. I introduce my girl to Micha and Josh, and they are introduced to her friends. Vishal joins us. Vercetti and Mr M are standing nearby, smiling like proud parents. Some bootcamp students meander over and watch, as we all mini-isolate each of the girls and proceed to make out with them… I bit my girl on the neck too, just for fun

The girls’ buying temperatures must have been sky-high, as some of them became very giggly and they all rushed off the dance floor, never to be seen again. It was a bittersweet ending to an otherwise awesome interaction. Perhaps we could have seeded and created a bounce back to our place for an afterparty, but perhaps not.

Takeaways

• Easing tension while physically escalating – smile less, and takeaway by looking away rather than smiling more.
• Sexual intent and escalation anxiety – experiment, try everything and stretch the imagination. Challenge myself. During the final mini-isolation I had my hand on the girl’s lower back. Soul walked over and repositioned it to her behind… he later told me that I should have gave it a nice squeeze and proceeded to escalate further, just to see where things would go.
• Comfort point – there was a moment during the final set/interaction where the girl went “ohhhh” and was pressed up comfortably against me. Soul tells me that this was the point where she felt comfortable to take things physically to the next level, and that next time it happens I should watch for it and continue things forward.
• English – speaking English in Europe is fun. When in doubt, open with “do you speak English?”
• Closing – yes, things are improving, but I feel that I can still be closing more. Numbers or facebook as contingencies, and pushing even faster physical escalation as the main aim.

Highlights of the Day

• The mystery of the petite Polish blonde and the Beast. I think every student and instructor hit on this set at some point… how an adorable, cute and sexy Polish girl was paired with an absolute beast of a woman is beyond all of us.
• Standing outside the apartment building next to where we were staying trying to work out why the key didn’t fit before realising that we were trying to open the door to the building next door.
• Mr M: “After teaching bootcamp, I kind of understand how strippers feel when they’ve been dancing all night.”
• Soul: “Gaming is like being a duck. On the surface, you are smoothly gliding across the water… but underneath, you’re furiously kicking your feet away.”
• Shout out to Mr Wong from Australia – thanks for reading mate!

- Aaron P

Day 13: Storming Munich

The What
Absolutely awesome day.

Woke up in the morning and had the time to get ready properly, do some shopping and even to start reviewing some of the notes that I’ve taken over the past 12 days.

I then headed out with Mr M & Soul to the first day of the Munich bootcamp (http://www.lovesystems.com), and met up with the rest of the Rockstars there.

We sat in on the bootcamp seminar as both students and approach coaches. For me, this was my first Love Systems bootcamp, so it was pretty enlightening. The material presented was very different from what I’ve seen taught by other companies, and is definitely more geared towards people who like to think things out logically and structurally.

After 5 hours of seminar, we headed for dinner at this awesome German “fast food” place called Ocui. You take a swipe card, get your food freshly prepared, grab a glass of wine and then sit down in an urban-chic restaurant and have healthy and awesome food.

Following dinner we all rushed back to prepare for field time. Soul, Mr M and myself also met up with a journalist who wanted to cover the bootcamp for a local paper.

But onto infield…

This was a HUGE bootcamp. 4 instructors, 6 rockstars and our tour manager Conor approach coaching, as well as locals Frame and MunichHawk and ubermentor Jeff approach-coaching too. We hit up 2 clubs in central Munich.

I only did about 5-6 sets over the course of the night, most of the time was spent making sure the students were being pushed into sets, that they were opening properly and getting into interactions. It’s kind of reflective to see what the past 10 or so days of being pushed ourselves into sets that we don’t want to do has done to our game and calibration.

All the students were phenomenal, approaching, opening, going direct, getting numbers, kiss closes and all sorts of other chaos. Congratulations to all!

I did do a couple of demo sets~

The first was an attempt to show a student what a blow out looked like, and that it doesn’t matter if a girl “rejects” you. It didn’t quite work. Some tall, hot German girls walks past. I grab her, pull her in. I tell her she is adorable. We talk. We exchange names. We get up close. We talk more. I realise that I’m supposed to be coaching the student. We talk more, and exchange flirtatious eye contact. She promises me a dance later.

The second that I remember was showing a student how to go in “semi-direct”, or basically walking up to a girl and just introducing yourself. This was in the outside area. This girl was cute. Sexy cute. She had a small piercing just below her lower-right lip and a tongue piercing. After talking with the student for a few minutes, encouraging him to approach I decide to do it instead. Normally this would be perceived as awkward, having hovered around the girl for five minutes. But what is more awkward is less awkward, but what is less awkward is more awkward (credit: TD). I open, sit down and we exchange names. She has an American accent. I ask her about it. She says that she has been to Australia. That is perfect for me, and we connect, and talk, and talk, and talk. All throughout I am doing social touching (touching her on her arm, her upper arm, her elbow, her shoulder), and “clawing” her in on emotional high points for a sideways hug (credit: Tim). I glance up at the student, and decided that the point has been made – you can open, and talk to a girl, just by going up and saying hi. I leave the set. In retrospect, I should have number-closed or facebook-closed this girl, as all the signs of interest were there. More in this below.

The third I remember was towards the end of the night. I spotted a girl standing by herself looking bored on the fringes of her group. I go up. I say hi. I pull her in towards me, introduce myself, and ask for her name. It is something German. At this point there are 5cm between our faces. We talk. And dance. I spin her around, push her away, grab her in. Soon we are locking fingers, and we are waltzing. Her arms go around my neck. I go to kiss her – no go. I spin her away, and back. We talk in what is known as “vibing” – where the content of the conversation is less important than the emotional message conveyed behind it. I go to kiss her again. She turns her head away. Spin away, pull her back in, and then I look deeply into her eyes. The tension builds as she gets the message… she is the first to break the tension, saying “no, no, not tonight…” I pull her in, arm around her waist and we just rock on the spot for a bit. At this point, I am somewhat bored, I whisper something to her, and bid her farewell…

The rest of my sets pretty much involved me grabbing girls as they walked past, whispering sweet nothings into their ears, watching them smile… and exchanging some flirtatious eye contact while their less attractive friends dragged them away

I also had the opportunity to watch Mr M & Vercetti in set. They are phenomenal. It is both awesome and worrying that as they walked around the venue… they were checked out and ogled over by both German women… and men

It is starting to dawn on me the progress we have made and are making in Rockstar. I know some of us were worried, that we wouldn’t be ready or have made enough progress as last year’s Rockstars because of less field time… but after tonight, everything is starting to come together.

Takeaways

• Teaching pickup totally changes the nature of the game and your inner game. There is something very, very different about walking into a venue and then directing the social interactions that happen in there. It’s almost like you become master of the venue and are able to influence or even manipulate the social variables there – and when you can do that, there’s no need to be anxious or even a real need for state.
• Sexual intent: this is still my main sticking point. For example, getting bored with the set towards the end of the night, or not automatically going for some sort of contact close in every set past hook point (where the girl has been engaged). Mr M says that this is pretty much a “you need to pull the trigger” problem, and is a habit to break and reform. Soul says that it’s a matter of finding hotter girls or making each set more challenging to myself. Mr M also mentioned the notion of “ohhhh”… where you see a girl, and she just does all the right things for you and you can picture yourself doing all sorts of dirty and sexy things to her.
• Escalation: I am going to structure my physical escalation more- same basic structure in the beginning, but a smoother escalation towards a kiss… touching her face, brushing away her hair, pulling her hair first… before kissing. I am also going to add in a basic two-step qualification to all the sets I run.
• Framing – friendly frame. Almost everyone I talk to I mention that the people in XYZ country are really friendly. It sets the right frame, and subsequently makes them friendlier!
• Nonsensical vibing. Something that describes how Braddock games and teases. I don’t really understand it yet, but have heard it and it’s both funny and effective, and something that I should add to my game.

Highlights of the Day

• Konichiwa opener: For probably the third time in my life I was opened my a girl. A HOT girl. She was walking past with her less attractive friend, and we made eye contact. She says: “Konichiwa! Are you Japanese?” My mind went: “No, but IT’S ON!!” I grabbed her while her friend vanished outside. We talk, we get up close, we talk… I tease her, touch her, grab her, pull her in… the words are meaningless, the meaning is in what we are doing with our gestures, our touching, and our eye contact. And then the friend reappears. And grabs her, apologises, and takes her away. As she is being dragged away, she is looking back, with a “I really want to spend more time with you” look in her eyes. I mentioned what had happened to Mr M and the Konichiwa opener is to be field tested tonight- whether the girl looks Japanese or not.
• Straight German guys offering to buy us drinks – told you people here are friendly.
• Quote of the day from Mr M: “Fuck, I never win that game” (in reference to who gets to use the bathroom first).

- Aaron P