Kevin Feng from VH1 Pick Up Artist Season 2

Thoughts on Dance/Phone Game

Kevin Feng — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:00:00 GMT

Thoughts on Dance Game...........

I do get this inquiry a lot and one of my longer term clients brought it up out of bitter frustration. He was out sarging one night with a natural friend (in all fairness, he's of a foreign background and has a bit of a thick accent, so the game has been a bit of a struggle for him.) and he's trying his best to open sets and get #'s/kisses and what have you. His friend doesn't open sets, rather he just goes straight to the dance floor and he's gaming girls by just grinding up on them. Turns out he took one of the girls home that night and it leaves my client bitterly frustrated.

In my opinion, this is definitely a fluke, unless the guy is extremely good looking and he's being very aggressive, this tactic DEFINITELY will not work for the average PUA. This is the same reason Kosmo almost got booted in the first season, he was relying strictly on his break dancing. So anyway, I calm my client down and I graciously ask him to go out with the guy again and see if he can repeat the results because for the record, I've never met a good PUA that only relies on dancing and for some reason, I can't picture Mystery or Matador getting it down on the dance floor.

Anyways, I'm not here to say that dancing is a bad thing. I mean, if you really think about it, it's a socially acceptable way of dry humping a girl you just met in public, doesn't really get much better than that. I'll be the first to admit that my dance game is awful and I rely strictly on my social repertoire, but I do plan on taking some hip hop classes eventually as I do think it'll help my game in the long run.

Long story short, add some dance game and use it a supplement, but not as your primary means of meeting women.

Thoughts on Phone Game.........

I remember when I first got in the game, one of the MOST frustrating things was having girls flake out on me, every time I got a flake, it seriously felt like a hand came out of my handset and backhanded me, total shot to my ego. I would also micromanage the hell out of my texting, I would wait exactly x minutes before I texted back and I put WAYYY more thought than was necessary in each text. It's only human nature to be results oriented and well you always assign fault to the negative emotion at the moment. For the longest time, I was blaming my phone game, I thought there was something wrong with my text messages or there was something wrong with me when I was on the phone that really messed up the interaction.

Luckily, I had some good mentors pushing me forward at the time and at the peak of my frustration of this sticking point, I sat down with Knack (Coach at Venusian Arts) and he clarified two things for me. First off, my phone close tactic was a little too forceful, I won't go over the routine in specific, but it was definitely abrasive. Also, my comfort game was definitely on the weak side and any pick up guru will tell you that the game is won in comfort. So once we had those two things in place, my flakes went down drastically.

In anycase, especially for the newbies out there, in terms of where you're focusing your effort, definitely focus on your in field performance, if you do well there, it really facilitates escalation from there on out.

Keeping Your Head Above Water

Kevin Feng — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:53:00 GMT

Hey Guys,

I've been coaching for a while now at the ABCs of Attraction and I really wanted to share a tip that I think will REALLY transform your game.

No..... it's not a routine, it's not a magic trick, or a line or anything like that, it's actually something WAY better and will ACTUALLY transform your game.

As an athlete, it's always baffled me when I see products like "Carve Abs In Your Bed", or the "New P90X training system" or some magic remedy for being overweight. It's always been so simple to me and there is absolutely NO substitute for going to the gym everyday and just dieting properly. I had a friend who started working out with me as of late and after our workout, he's eating pizza. He's not a dumb guy by any means, he's in med school and academically speaking, probably one of the smartest guys I know. It just amazes me how the typical person can overlook simple details when it comes to their long term development.

Aside from taking a bootcamp and perhaps reading a book or two, there really isn't much you need, just your spare time, perhaps some money for a new wardrobe and active participation in the forums.

So, what will make us good at pick up? I'm a firm believer that a game plan needs to be simple, otherwise it won't work, and well, this is well exemplified in field. When I was on the set of VH1, and I'm sure that it had more to do with the producers than Mystery/Matador, but they taught us tactics for 8 hours straight, objectively speaking, it was just information overload and well, speaking for myself, I did absolutely awful that night and got eliminated.

With a work, if you do X amount of sets at X amount of reps and you gradually increase the weight over time, you'll get bigger, it's as simple as that, there's no magic pill or gimmick, that's all you need to do.

9/10 guys get into the game and very rarely do they gauge their progress, they simply go out 5-6 times, try a few openers, realize that getting rejected sucks and they retreat to the comfort of where they first started.

When I first got started, I realized it was going to suck, and well, it did......... and there were some nights where I really wanted to quit, but I just treated it like a work out.

For the first few weeks in pick up, I did nothing but open 10 sets a night, didn't matter if they went well, as long as I did it and got over my approach anxiety, then I completed my goal.

Over time.... I would "increase the weight", so after a month, once my AA became very manageable, my new goal would be to hook 5 sets in a given night. To keep myself in check, I always went out with a wing and if I didn't hit my goal, he got paid off. So for every set I missed, I paid him $40. It's funny how you won't make an approach for the shear need of passing on your genetics, but as soon as you assign a monetary incentive to it, well, you'll see it through 10/10 times.

I truly believe that if every guy could get out consistently and do 6-8 sets a day in conjunction with a field report, 90% of guys would reach their goals in a timely fashion. So instead of focusing on what opener you're going to use tonight or that new peacocking accessory, really focus on making sure that you hit your desired goal for the night. If you take care of today, tomorrow will take care of itself.

2009 Certified Bootcamp Reviews

Kevin Feng — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 08:18:00 GMT

Well, it's the end of 2009...... damn time flies.....

I want to say thanks to all those that I've had a chance to work with. For all the guys I worked with, it was equally my pleasure in being able to partake in the progression of your journey.

Here's the 2010 and I wish you guys all the luck in achieving your goals in the coming year.

"To people who are thinking of making a difference in their life, I would say ABCs of Attraction has best instructors who have been in your shoes. Having so much variety in their styles but being able to follow the same structure (ABCDEF) is just beyond amazing. Kevin was extremely patient and you can ask him anything and everything. Kevin did give up every ounce of his energy and for that I am so very grateful because I do honestly see myself as more of a man than I have ever been."

Full Review Boston '09

"The whole weekend was a bit surreal. I mean I was hanging with a bunch of PUA's that were on TV and they were normal, fun guys. The in-field portions of the workshop were definitely my favorite. On Sunday night I actually felt kinda weird not being in a bar/club opening sets!"

Full Review L.A 09

To recap, I really recommend Kevin and Greg as coaches and the PUA All-Star Workshop they offered. Given the cost of other bootcamps, this was a bargain. If they offer another one like it, I will definitely take it. Can’t wait to try the material they taught me on my own.... The PUA All-Star Workshop gets a big thumbs up from me!

Full Review Hollywood 09

I gained a lot from Kevin’s ability to read people and share his insights. He could tell when I was nervous and anxious and fixed it (he sent me to open set after set until AA was gone). His feedbacks were really helpful as he knows what goes inside the mind of a beginner.

Full Review Orlando 09

Kevin is an all around Jack of all Trades, able to effectively use different styles and techniques. This allows him to be flexible and accommodate any situation. He is also a master of the fundamentals. In sports, they say that fundamentals wins games. Well, in game, fundamentals get you laid.

Full Review Orlando 09

To anyone who is considering bootcamp, seriously, this is THE transformational experience and something you will look back on and consider it as the turning point in your life.Thank you again for Johnny and Kevin for making the bootcamp filled with fun and excitement and, of course, life-changing.

Full Review San Fran 09

-Kevin Feng

Approaching the 9/10's

Kevin Feng — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:27:00 GMT

Definitely been recurring question for the intermediates and even the beginners that are looking to broaden their horizon.

I forget who says it but the PUA approach for the ridiculously hot chicks is that they're actually easier to approach because they never get approached and therefore they''ll be more lenient. I will definitely have to respectfully disagree with this.

Having 9/10's at the venue is definitely a great thing, just ask your pivots, there's always some level of jealousy going on there because now they're even lower on the totem pole.

Personally, I don't like approaching these types of sets with a straight dead on direct opener. This is my personal experience, I find that given decent social and passive value, direct openers can be deadly(in the good sense) on 7-8's, just because they're not the hottest chick there and usually they find it flattering because its so far from the ordinary in terms of what guys usually throw at them.

So first thing..... let's not put the pussy on the pedestal here, of course this is a over-generalization or perhaps its just my personal biased that's developed from living in L.A for a year, but for the most part, there's definitely a negative correlation between looks and charm/wit/social intelligence. I know it's difficult/intimidating these sets to begin with, but if you put it all in the proper perspective, it definitely makes it easier. After you've approached enough of these sets, you'll realize that most 9/10's aren't that much different than the fat single child who's been fed a silver spoon his/her entire life. Gorgeous women have that power, they know that they can make men do just about everything for them and of course, most of them exploit this. So instead of lining up and being that next ass-kisser, take a different approach.

That's the key thing to consider, no matter what the set is, you always want to offer something unique, something different, you want to offer them a reason to keep listening; think of it like a sale. For the 10's, the ones that KNOW that they're hot and that they're sh*t, I would make a case that just going plain direct wouldn't be that effective, only because they'll mentally respond with:

"Well no crap, this isn't news to me, 9 guys have already told me that tonight"

Being high energy and fun is EXTREMELY important. This is something unique, a good bulk of guys can't offer (especially AFC's) can't offer this because they're too nervous or whatever. So... not breaking precedence here, you want to offer her something different/unique and that could be your ticket in.

So here's an example of a pick up I did in my last bootcamp

Something I learned from Johnny in one of my first bootcamps was to be very alpha and direct when it comes to conducting yourself at the bar. Back when I was coaching back in Boston, I was trying to order a drink and of course, being the complete ass (of course only in field) that I am, I totally cut in front of everyone including this super gorgeous HB9 brunette.

HB9: Hey, I'm in line here

Me: Yeah, I can see that *give her a giant cheesedick smile and turn back around*

HB9: Well I was in front of you

Me: Umm.... actually, you WERE in front of me, past tense. And now, I'm in FRONT of you. I like being on top

HB9: *laughs with a little bit of frustration*

Me: Seriously, like, what would you do anyway, like throw a box of tampons at my head? I mean, you're a chick, you can't even vote in most countries. (conveyed extremely playfully)

HB9: what??? I would soooo kick your ass

Me: In what? Pilates?

So we banter back forth for a little longer and I actually let her slap me once, which then of course gave me an excuse to smack her in the ass.

So there you go, I gave her something different, I wasn't the 23984039th guy to walk to up to her begging for her attention. I gave her a playful argument and some playful drama instead and for her, it's a splash of variety.

In anycase, I was working with a client that night, so I had to redirect my attention, but that set wouldn't have been to difficult to close out.

Getting Passed Canned Material

Kevin Feng — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:25:00 GMT

I think every PUA goes through the exact same phase in the early/mid stages of their career.

Everyone starts out the same..... you pick up "The Game" and you think to yourself "holy crap, I can't wait to get out and try the best friends test, I can't wait to try this opinion openers" and then when you get out in field and try this stuff out for yourself it doesn't go quite as smoothly as originally anticipated but nonetheless you still find yourself making some progress, getting a kiss/two, and a phone # here and there, the results may not be consistent but at least they're better than they were beforehand.

Now comes the second phase, you're sick of getting spotty results and more importantly, you're SICK of using canned routines and material. What happened to just "being yourself" and genuinely enjoying the process.

So you have two main school's of thought, the canned approach and the natural approach. I'm not going to say that one's better than the other and both methods have gurus to back them.

Canned - Mystery, Cajun, etc

Natural - David D, David Wygant, etc

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of the natural approach, because while I do appreciate pick up as an artform, I also have a life and when Friday rolls around, the last thing I want to do is give yet ANOTHER performance. I just want to unwind, and have some fun.

In developing my "natural" game, the two guys that I would attribute a lot of my inspiration towards would be Gareth Jones, one of our certified coaches, and also Joe D. from Season 1. Both of these guys are just naturally witty and very fun to be around. Nothing they say is premeditated, they're GENUINELY being themselves and enjoying it and their personalities are naturally attractive?

So how do we get to this point? Although it isn't an ABC's product, I do strongly recommend reading "Double Your Dating" by David D, learning to be charming/charistmatic, witty, enthusiastic isn't something you develop overnight and until you've become Dale Carnagie yourself, there's no reason you should stop working upwards.

Where's a good place to start? One important concept is to find a character to mimic. You can waste a lot of time memorizing lines or specific jokes, but it isn't the joke itself, but rather, the character to which the joke is associated to. It's as simple as finding a celebrity, stand up comedian, or character that you like and can see yourself personifying. For me, I really enjoy Louis C.K and find The Colbert Report absolutely hilarious. I may not be good at being inventive or creating my own stuff but I do pride myself in my ability to jack other people's work and make it my own. Why reinvent the wheel? Just take it and use it for yourself. I figure if these guys can make millions laugh, I can re-adapt their content to my own life and all I have to do is impress a 3 set tops.

Try that on for size............... and see out in field.

Getting that X factor

Kevin Feng — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:05:00 GMT

I wanted to bring some light to a topic that I feel is kindof a grey area in pick up and nobody has to ever seem to have a good answer to.

When I first got into pick up, the types of advice that Iwould loathe so much:

“Just be yourself”

“Be confident”

“Be charismatic”

When I hear someone say that, it really makes my blood boil,if they had said nothing it would have been to the efficacy.

Then when I got into the pick up arts, I remember distinctlycoming to the same problem. I remember distinctly overcoming my approachanxiety and I could now finally approach without getting too nervous andpissing my pants. It took me roughly 3 weeks of going out consistently and Ifelt like I was still at square one and I couldn’t hook a set for the life ofme. I mean, what good was getting over approach anxiety If girls still found medry and uninteresting?

This is what pick up REALLY is, learning how to beinteresting, learning how to story tell, learning how to utilize differenttypes of humor at different points in the conversation. This ONLY comes withexperience and IMO is the only place of your game that you cannot expedite withtactics, it’s something you have to experiment with via trial and error totruly form your “style”.

I’ll have guys ask me all the time to give them BT gambitsand ideas for making girls laugh, and while I’m more than happy to lend out mypersonal arsenal, I do it hesitantly, because they’re congruent to ME. Iremember the first couple times going out, I tried telling using the spin moveand telling Mystery’s stripper story and it just came out horribly incongruent,because quite frankly, I just thought the material was trivial and stupid.

Okay…. So enough with the whining, how do we get to the nextlevel. One man’s work shines above the rest here and what do you know, he’salso the most mainstream. If you’re stuck here at this part of the game and youjust can’t seem to be “interesting”, look into David Deangelo’s material.Luckily being on the show, we had access to a ton of material so I perused asmuch of it as I needed. I took notes and I constantly field tested these ideasout. I found about a dozen tips/tricks that I found to my liking and if you’ve studied the materialtoo, you’ll find me spitting it out word for word, but hey, it works. It getsattention, it makes people laugh, and most importantly, it gets me results.

So what’s the magic bullet to becoming interesting andcharismatic? Practice…. Practice and constant re-evaluation. Get used towriting field reports, this is why APB and I stress it so much to write fieldrepots, you’ll remember lines/routines that you used that night that you foundsuccessful and if you just simply write it down, the rate of sticking in yourmemory goes up exponentially. Remember, when you’re running pickup, you’rerunning the exact same interaction over and over again, you’ll see the same obstacles,same patterns, and you’ll find yourself reusing jokes and reusing stories overand over again, and before you know it you’ll have your own rendition of a“Mystery Stripper Story” that you tell over and over again to DHV yourself.

Nobody said you would just “get it” over night, if you goout consistently for a few to several months, I genuinely believe that ANYONEcan fine tune this part of their game and really, this is the bulk of pickup.Once you have a good sense of situational awareness and great delivery andenthusiasm, the rest of the puzzle will fall into place

Staying Alive as a New Guy

Kevin Feng — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:46:00 GMT

I'm making this posts for a few guys that I'm currently working with and just starting out.

I really hated beginners hell, it was so difficult and I really wish there was some way to stagger all emotional downswing to different parts of my game. I remember walking into clubs for the first few weeks of my career and making progress just seemed to hopeless and success was just this remote dream.

Here's how my most typical set would go..... I'd approach, probably give an opinion opener, make awkward conversation for about 2-3 minutes and know that the entire time she wasn't interested, walk out of the set and feel totally wierd seeing her around for the rest of the night. I'd do this with several sets the entire night and I felt like everyone was watching me. What a crappy feeling and it's definitely something I never want to go through ever again. It's kind of like studying for your SAT's or MCAT, it just sucks, but you need to get through it.

But after a few months in when I had my A and B phase game intact, learning the rest was not that difficult.

A former client posted a blog post from Sinn's blog and one of the points he made was so dead on:

"The two biggest sticking points in Pick Up are Social Anxiety (AA) and Sexual Anxiety, Point Blank"

SOOOO True..... and unfortunately, IMO, the social anxiety is probably more difficult to get over because you're starting from scratch, have no foundation and little situational awareness.

So how do we stay alive in the first month or two? Simple..... we need to manage our expectations.

Most guys read "The Game" and they think, oh cool, some magic bullets and routines that will get me in the sack with a hot chick. As we've all experienced, it doesn't work that way and even for Neil Strauss himself, it took him roughly a year and a half to get good at the game.

You're just learning the ropes in the first month or two and there will be a lot of failures. Just picked up snowboarding recently and it's awful the first couple times out, you keep falling on your ass and you go home completely sore and its quite aggravating, but once you figure it out, it becomes fun/exhilarating. Unfortunately with pick up, takes more than a few days to figure out..... closer to a few months given its complexity, but its the same idea.

So in the first few months, just EMBRACE failure, expect it and approach a lot of sets and push them as far as you can, but if you walk home that night empty handed, well then that's okay, because you did gain is experience, one less day in beginners hell. Look at it that way and you'll be out of that zone much quicker and pick up will be more fun, as opposed to a chore like it is for many of you starters out there.

So for you guys that are struggling, keep pushing, keep plowing and I assure you that one of these days it'll just "click" and it's like seeing the matrix as they all say.

Perceived Value

Kevin Feng — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:49:00 GMT

Had a chat with a client today and I thought I've been meaning to get this off my chest but it just keeps slipping my mind for whatever reason.

"Perception is Reality"

-Mystery

People read that quote and while it makes sense to them at face value, very few guys actually heed the advice and many fail to realize how big a detriment low perceived value can be to their game.

Everytime I log onto The Venusian Arts board, I see the exact same post OVER and OVER again.

"I tried Mystery's push/pull tactics and the girl blew me out and thought I was wierd"

"I tried negging and ignoring this girl and she never came back"

"I tried xyz opener and still got blown out"

All of these guys have the EXACT same problem. It has absolutely nothing to do with the verbiage and EVERYTHING to do with their perceived value. Let me explain.....

I'm pretty convinced that girls have eyes in the back of their hands, perhaps on their ears and the top of their heads to. They see just about everything you do. If you've been wallflowering for the past 5 minutes, they make note of that. It's been psychologically proven, if they can sniff out non-verbal cues 4x better than men can. If you've spent the last 10 minutes mustering up the balls and you sound slightly nervous, she'll know and she'll blow you out of set mercilessly. That's the great part of night club game compared to social circle game, the feedback you get is entirely accurate and you'll find out where you stand after you first night out.

Mystery calls it social proof, call it whatever you want, but essentially what I'm getting at is that you need to be VERY aware of your perceived value when you walk in a club.

1. Are you well dressed, do you look like a guy that gets laid or do you look disheveled and like you just got done playing 8 hours of World of Warcraft? Did you take care of your hair? Did you remove any excess hair and keep your nails trim? Is you acne wicked bad?

2. How's your body language? Are you slouching? Are you smiling? What does your current facial expression say about your current mental status?

3. Who did you roll into the club with? Did you roll into the club a bunch of lame guys or did you bring 3 gorgeous women to the venue?

4.Who are you talking to? Are you having a good time? Are you actually ADDING fun/value to other sets?

What kind of picture to paint in the girls mind before you even approach her. Are you a guy that's even worth talking to? If the answer is no, then it's time to take a step back. If you were trying to sell your car, you'd get it cleaned, vacuumed, and waxed would you not? Well this is your body we're talking here, let's get ourselves in the best presentable shape before we try selling ourselves.

So next time a girl doesn't pay attention to you or thinks your weird, don't blame her or call her a bitch for it. Like Neil say's, it's all feedback, don't take it personally. She doesn't despise you as a person, she just didn't like what was presented to her in your approach. Dust yourself off, learn from your mistakes, and try again.

Our Good Little Friend: Plausible Deniability

Kevin Feng — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Okay.... so I've been working with a client lately and i think this is something really important to bring up, it's regarding ethics and pickup since the two definitely will be having some clashes all throughout the game.

So I've been working with a client and right in the very beginning when I'm trying to outfit the man with some training wheels (canned material), he immediately spits it back at me and tell ms, "I can't do this, I can't lie to a girl". And at this point, I think to myself "are you kidding me". We actually spent 30 minutes going over ethics and the way in which we both treat people and by the end we did come to a meeting of minds.

So this client definitely falls under the "Nice Guy" category, he's entirely honest about everything and since he is slightly religious he has the hardest time lying, even if it's small.

I also have another client that has a slight reservation about his age. He's in his early thirties and while he looks like he's 25, he'll still tell younger girls that he's older and the response isn't favorable 9 times out of 10.

So before I dig too deep into the situation, I think its unianimously agreed to that women will lie to you, especially if you just met them. Half the time when they're "going to the bathroom" they're just trying to get away from you because you messed up your approach. Is that a lie? Technically yes. Is it justified? I'd say so, tactically it's a great passive-aggressive way of getting away from creepy guys.

So here, before you prod to deep into my personal ethics. I do believe that when it comes to close family and friends, you should always treat them with dignity and respect and do all those wonderful things that your mother taught you when you were 5. In cold approach pickup, not so much.

I always tell me clients to treat pick up the exact same way they were treat a job interview or a sale. If you've never lied or exaggerated in a job interview before, well then, you're lying right there, that or your currently undercompensated for your efforts. So by all means, when you're running a cold approach set, you owe absolutely nothing to the girl and she owes absolutely nothing to you, so by all means.... embellish and exaggerate all you want as long you have plenty of plausible deniability to provide backing.

Remember (especially if you're just starting out), you're here for one reason, you're here to learn game, not to meet best friends or a girlfriend for that matter. You're here to hone your skills so that when you finally see that cute girl at starbucks or at the gym, you'll know what to do instead of just walk past her.

Anyways, I'm not going to say that I'm jesus or that my ethics are absolutely perfect, but if you're really uptight about what you can and cannot say to a girl, you may want to re-evaluate before you proceed any further because you'll find yourself hitting obstacles that most guys won't and will be making it that much tougher for yourself.

And while I won't name names here, there is a guy from season 2 of the show that fits perfectly into this description and what do you know, he's made NO progress and is still a virgin despite the fact that he's been presented a world of knowledge and opportunity.

How Prepared Are You?

Kevin Feng — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:24:00 GMT

So for every guy out there, no matter where you are in your progression, I think you're bound to gain some insight from this blog post.

Let's be real here, running game is pretty difficult, there's so much going on around you and just thinking of what to say next and just being in the moment consumes pretty much the majority of your entire attention span.

I want to talk about two things here that I think will drastically increase the effectiveness of your game, I'm doing some financial analysis work at the moment here so pardon my metaphor, but let's try and reduce debt and increase equity.

Comparing me to the average guy, in terms of our attention and the amount of information we can process, it's limited and while my situational awareness is much higher than the average guy, that comes with experience. So the question is, where can we still add to our game and where can we eliminate clutter?

Eliminating Mental Clutter

I've definitely mentioned this a plethora times for newbies, but if you're still getting bad AA, then you should focus on that and nothing else. The first time I opened a set, it just seemed to overwhelming.

1. Be sure not to peck

2. Be sure to come in at high energy

3. Go in over the shoulder

4 . Apply Push Pull concepts

5. So on so forth.

The list was absolutely huge and in retrospect, I can definitely see why there was such little progress in my first couple weeks, I was trying to shove too much content down my throat. Again, ELIMINATE attention vampires, tackle each part of your game one piece at a time. It wasn't until Matador had me run that ridiculous opener for over 50 sets that I finally put my AA at ease.

I'm a firm believer in Neil Strauss's 20% rule, with every set that you do, work on pushing the set 20% farther than you're comfortable. On given night, you should be focusing on working on one or two specific sticking points, even if it comes at the expense of other parts of your game.

For example, when I started working on my D (direct interest) phase game, it was very difficult to hone without coming at the expense of my C phase (well, for at least for me personally). Approach Anxiety is pretty easy to chip away at, you can approach 15 sets in less than an hour whereas when you're trying to push your D phase game and you're following your system, you're only going to get to maybe 2-3 TOPS per night and it's very difficult to overcome your sexual anxiety if you don't rush your C phase game in attempts to getting closer to 5-6 sets in and start making those aggressive moves. So when you're still learning, don't be afraid to screw sets up, as long as you're LEARNING from them. If you screw up dozen kisses but gain situational awareness and overcome your sexual anxiety, it was totally worth it. Again, I had to eliminate a little clutter from my C phase game in order to ensure that my D phase game fell into place. Granted, your game won't be as solid in the short term, but in the long run, you're much better off, think of it as an initial investment.

Adding To Your Game

what are you doing to get prepared? Definitely read my previous post on getting into state. I used to play tennis pretty competitively and before every single match, there was at least two hours of preparation beforehand in which I would properly prep my diet, equipment, mental state, etc. A ton of PUAs I see will just roll out of their bed after watching 3 hours of television and start sarging. Your experience in the club is only as effective as you make it out to be. Really ask yourself before you go out:

1. Are you feeling energetic? Did you get proper rest the night before?

2. Did you take steps to get yourself in a good mood beforehand?

3. You got good looking girls and a good entourage rollin up with you?
4. When you got into the club, did you properly do your kickstart(warming up)?

5. Have you been actively increasing your passive value (wardrobe, working out)?

6. Have you been working on proper posture and body language so that it's autopilot infield?

While these things may not seem too important individually, if you've got your ducks lined up beforehand, it makes your job so much easier when you're out in field. Remember, pick up is a competitive sport, you really need to ask yourself what you've done so that you'll be able to exploit your competition.

Coming In Under the Radar

Kevin Feng — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:16:00 GMT

A lot of guys always ask me what my “hit/miss” ratio is when it comes to cold approach pick up and I’ll give them my honest #. Don’t mean to suck my own wang here or anything, but if I’m in state, I can usually hook about 90% of my sets. I’m sure everyone’s had those “in state” moments where it seems like everything can hook which is definitely part of the equation, but the little secret to truly hooking all your sets can be defined by one simple word:

Spontaneity

If you can learn implement in-field spontaneity with a high energy state, most if not all your sets will hook and the straight harsh blow outs are almost next to none.

Let’s take myself when I was a newbie in pickup. I’d have all my openers written down on a little cheat sheet in my back left pocket, I’d see a set and then by the 3 second rule, I’d approach the set, cow-poke, smile, and then deliver my opener to the best of my ability without stuttering.

Girl’s really have a sixth sense when it comes to bar and nightclub settings, there are horny men everywhere and they need to keep their vaginas protected from the unworthy. When you’ve spent the last 45 minutes garnering the balls to approach that girl, they know it, they feel it. It comes across in your demeanor, your voice tonality and they can smell that sh*t from a mile away. It’s a scientific fact, women are several times better than men at picking up sub communication and there are certain microexpressions that you simply cannot control that they will pick up on. The only way to bypass this barrier is to genuinely be spontaneous.

This is Captain Jack’s approach when he goes out into field, he’ll actually approach sets without getting a full look at them and at times he’ll just pray that the girl is cute, because he’ll start walking towards her without getting the full picture.

Mystery says “fake it till you make it” and while it’s a great adage for newbies, for those that are intermediate and beyond, it’s time to take off the training wheels, it’s time to ditch the canned routines and the premeditated responses. If you’re still having trouble getting into state, it’s a sign of weak BT game, you’re having difficulty influencing your own mood and if you can’t do it, then there is NO way you’re going to be able to influence another person’s mood. So if you’re stuck here, take a step back and reread the blog post I made on “getting into state”

Okay, some examples of spontaneous openers….. (remember, spontaneity requires a degree of creativity, which is pretty implicit in the definition of the word itself)

EYE-CONTACT is so underutilized by newbies, when you initially walk into a club (assuming your passive value is intact) scan the club for girls that are giving the visual cue to approach them. If a girl gives you solid contact, that’s an invitation to approach. Don’t forget to mix in some fun BT gambits to loosen up the interaction. Few nights back, this cutie in a blue dress gave me the protocol smile and eye contact. I slightly cocked my head sideways, smiled back at her, and gave her a reverse peace sign. Immediately she giggles, and then I move in for a fist pound. BAM, I’m in set, buying temperature is already warm and her guard is completely down. No hesitation, no approach anxiety, but rather, just capitalizing in the small window of opportunity given to me.

Clubs are pretty crowded places and often times you’ll be bumping into people and when its really cramped, I swear there were times I’ve in inadvertently hit 2^nd base with passerby’s. Again… ALWAYS look for the eye contact. Okay, so this opener definitely requires some ridiculous PLAYFUL calibration and is a bit of a higher investment opener.

I’m in a crowded spot with a girl passing by me to get to the bar. Girl totally rubs up on me.

Me: *Give her a funny smirk*, “Seriously?”

Her: “ What?”

Me: “You need to quit rubbin your boobs on me, it’s seriously inappropriate for someone you haven’t met yet”

Her: “Oh my god, I’m so sorry”

Me: *Delivered in a comedic blunt fashion, think Steve Carrell* “Well, I mean, they’re pretty big so, I’m not terribly pissed, you should get them deflated or like….. a pushDOWN bra if they make them”

Her: *busts out laughing*

Me: “Anyways, not to be rude, I’m Kevin, you are?”

So in the example above, it was very playful and was framed to where she was the “bad guy” or the aggressor and I’m in the victim which definitely plays in my favor since girls are always getting picked up in the lamest ways and they’re on defense. Again…. Same motif, just a playful opener delivered spontaneously. So while, I don’t have a name for this opener (the boob brush up opener?), it’s definitely very unique to a given situation and I hope you guys can at least see some sort of semblance to a pattern in these previous two examples. I’ll use this opener quite often and of course you can swap out the verbiage to fit the context accordingly. Used this opener at least 3 times at our Opera Party, crowded as HELL that night.

Are you the real deal?

Kevin Feng — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:08:00 GMT

Just finished coaching a larger program out in Orlando, probably the BEST bootcamp I've coached at so far and for everyone that helped out and attended, I wanted to say thanks to all of you for making it such a memorable experience. Pardon the awful photoshop, glad you guys had fun this weekend, keep gamin!

I've come across two clients this past week and I wanted to spend some time talking about them. In my pick up career, I've come across a lot of successes and also a lot of failures and plenty of guys will come to me asking "man, will I ever get good at this?". So I wanted to address that pressing question.

Also wanted to give some quick feedback on the clients, I'll address you guys by your first Initial

J - nice job this weekend, you've definitely made HUGE strides with your approach anxiety. STOP being so nice, you can be quite physically intimidating, and I need you to represent that. Girls love guys that can protect them, convey that to them! Don't lose your fun side either, I can tell you had fun this weekend, carry that on forward.

L - Your AA is almost non existant, keep it that way and keep going out, the odds WILL work in your favor sooner or later just by the law of large numbers. Keep it up, you're one of the strongest fighters I've seen and I admire that.

L(Alumnus) - You're getting super close buddy, I commend you for your commitment and your ability to show a good example to our other students, keep it real bro, mad respect and made kudos, few guys will make it as far as you did.

M - you rocked this weekend, given our convo before the bootcamp, I didn't think you'd make it that far, I was horribly mistaken. You've proven over the weekend that you've acquired the tools and I can tell that you will be a force to be reckoned with in no time.

Anyway, moving onwards, I want you to take client x and client y (both real clients) and if you're the clients reading this, I want you to pay even closer attention. So client x came in EXTREMELY reluctant, he's been relying on escorts to fulfill his sexual needs for quite some time and has a genuine bitterness towards women. Even before his bootcamp, he comes in thinking "well, I'm going to just TRY this bootcamp and hopefully it works". I'm sure you can already guess his outcome.

Now take client Y, before coming into the bootcamp, he was already an avid follower of self help programs and actually is a part time life coach and understands the work and attitude necessary

I want to discuss their results which I think you'll find to be a bit of a shock. I just saw a post from client X, "9 months and 400 approaches later, I still haven't gotten anywhere" and well I think the conclusion is pretty evident.

Client Y I just coached this past weekend in Orlando. The first night, I see him pull two 8's back to our table and run textbook game on them, a little shaky at times, but he's learning at a pretty fast rate. I thought that first night was a fluke only to be disproved as his brought his guns out again on the second night and went even farther.

Both of these men had paralyzing approach anxiety and both had a blank slate coming in. It really blows my mind that something as simple as attitude will make ALL the difference. I'm not going to break down the sets for both clients, but the results are enough to make the point.

Here's a simple thought for the guys that are still on the fence, try not to come into pick up with any expectation, try to REALLY adopt the "fun/fake" approach in developing your game. Honestly, while I do have my active game down, I'm constantly working on my passive value, I'm constantly upgrading myself and quite frankly, the girls, all they are is an indicator of my improvement. In other words, don't get into pickup for the women, get into pick up for yourself. Make yourself a better man, don't demonstrate higher value. BE higher value.

I want to make a small reading list recommendation for any guys wanting to not only improve their game, but just improve their life:

1. Unlimited Power - Anthony Robbins

2. Way of the Superior Male - David Deida

3. Rich Dad Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki

Excellent books that will change your perspectives on a LOT of things in life and more importantly will motivate you in the right direction on whatever it is that you're pursuing in life.

If you become what you need to become, you will receive what you need to receive.

Beginners Hell

Kevin Feng — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:55:00 GMT

I need to discuss something really important here with regards to beginner/intermediate PUAs. I actually have been participating on a # of forums lately, some pick up related, some not, and a lot of people keep telling me.

1. Game doesn't work, it makes you robotic
2. You should learn how to be natural, etc etc
3. Just be confident and you'll be successful

Essentially all the same crap advice that I would get before I into pick up to begin with. I came across this guy lately who told me the game doesn't work and that he tried some of the routines and it made him feel robotic and then he quit shortly after and now he's blaming the entire system. Literally, all I see is a fat guy that goes to the gym, does a rep here and there, goes home and says that the gym doesn't work.

Quite frankly, I'm not here to prove anyone wrong, but the only person you're cheating is yourself if you're blaming others for your endeavors being unsuccessful.

I make it extremely clear to anyone I'm working with the amount of work it takes to get consistent good results with pickup, and realistically, you need to at the very least bit be getting out 2 nights a week, that's bare minimum, if you're not getting out that much, you shouldn't even take up the endeavor to begin with because you're just wasting your 1 night of time.

When I first started, I went out just about every single day for 3 months straight and by the end of those 3 months I started to "see the matrix". It's like the first time you drive a car, everything out of whack and you have to concentrate on everything, whereas nowadays, you're eating taco bell, talking on the cell phone, playing with your GPS and driving all at the same time and it just seems like second nature.

For the average person, DO EXPECT the first few months to suck, it's part of the process, you're piecing everything together and trying to make sense of it, so if you're not getting laid out the gate, don't sweat it, it'll come with time.

Trust me, I know the feeling, it does NOT feel good to pay 20$ for parking, 20$ for club cover, go inside of a club, stand around for a bit, finally summon the courage to approach a girl with a canned opener and then she calls you a social robot, THAT sucks. That was me for the first couple weeks, but I made strides, I wrote field reports everyday and slowly but surely, I got to my destination.

Remember, competence, NOT confidence, is what you're ultimately striving for here.

Everybody has humble beginnings!

Gettin Some Nice Garb

Kevin Feng — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:37:00 GMT

Lookin and Dressin good!

Okay, not looking to sound like Sarah Jessica Parker in this entry, but I do want to address fashion and just dressing well in general.

So let’s analyze the average chump at a bar or night club….. chances are, he’s wearing an old pair of black dress shoes, some relatively baggy jeans and some wrinkly ass American Eagle dress shirt that he bought a few years back at some clearance sale in an outlet store.

That guy above, that’s me =), well, three years back before I was on the show. I was just like every guy, just “doing what I needed to get by”.

Dressing well will do a lot for you. First off it conveys a lot about you as a person. If your outfit fits you well, not only will you look spectacular, but it demonstrates to the opposite sex that you ACTUALLY spend the time to take care of yourself and groom yourself properly. In my personal opinion, girls spend way too much time getting ready. The girl I dated back in L.A, before we’d go to parties, I’d have to drop her off back at the pad around 6:00 P.M so that she could get doll’d up. Three and a half hours later, she went from a 7.5 to a dime. So if girls spend so much time getting ready, imagine how much they judge YOU on the way you dress.

For all you Asians out there, yes, I’m cheap, actually, I’m EXTREMELY cheap, borderline jewish, and initially it took me a LOT of convincing to invest in some nice outfits. Granted, VH1 gave me some nice stuff for being on set, I did spend a healthy wad buying some additional garb after the show. If you’re serious about pick up, get serious about your fashion, you don’t need to become a fashion columnist, but get at least 4-5 cool outfits you can wear out and be sure to groom yourself beforehand and make sure you’re smellin nice. Seriously, spend the few bucks now, it’ll save you from unnecessary female rejection.

Some general guidelines when you’re building your “avatar”.

Make sure your clothes are form fitting.

Baggy jeans were cool in the 90’s, if you were baggy jeans to a club, you better be black or have thug like qualities, otherwise you probably won’t pull them off and just come across as trashy. For me, I work out consistently and my chest is significantly larger, so every single outfit I get, I get tailored. It’s an extra 10 dollars and it’ll make your clothing fit your body seamlessly. Spend the extra 10 dollars, better you spend it there then at Popeyes after a brutal night of getting blown out of sets.

Adapt to your environment

Mystery is mystery, and through his television fame and his wicked game, he’s able to pull off what he has, a lot of people give him sass for the way he dresses and for good reason, it’s a LOT. I honestly dare you to walk into a club with a cowboy hat, boa, aviators, and 7 inch platform boots and make it out alive. Now, most of my outfits are adapted to the Hollywood nightlife scene, I would consider myself to be “fashionably edgy”. If I walk by a girl, she’ll look twice, but I’m careful not to cross the barrier to which she’ll perceive me as a clown. Now that I live in Orlando, I don’t wear the same outfits and my avatar is a little diluted. I’ll still rock the same jeans but I’ll replace the top with a nice shirt or polo and cut out the accessories. The key point I’m getting across here is to dress just one notch above what’s considered the “norm”

Make sure you feel good yet don’t be afraid to break out of your comfort zone.

When I was introduced to the concept of tighter jeans, I cringed, I couldn’t help be feel like a complete homo when I was out and about and the I honestly had to have a drink or two just to feel normal again. After a while, I grew to like them, and the tight pair of jeans I bought on Melrose are now my favorite jeans to wear out period. Matador also gave me a wrist band after the show which I was reluctant to wear when I first went out, I couldn’t help but to feel like a Mortal Kombat character, but after getting a few compliments and adding a DHV story to the item, it’s now part of my nightly attire.

So now that you’re done reading this, you’re thinking “wow, you haven’t told me sh*t”, I still have no idea what to buy. That’s the feeling I was left with when I got kicked off the show, wasn’t sure how to proceed. Every body has different tastes in clothing and fashion. I dress differently and am distinct from any other PUA, remember, you’re a “pick up artist”, to some degree, your tastes/preferences and discretion will dictate your development and that applies to your fashion sense as well. Understand that there will be a degree of trial and error and you will have those thoughts of “jesus, I spent $50 on that shirt and I totally hate it”. That’s the price you pay for a TRULY nice wardrobe, it will take some money and even more important, some time. But pay attention to the part of pick up and I guarantee you, this investment will be one that pays off in huge dividends.

I also want to address hair, I didn’t really realize how many important my hair was until I actually got a cool haircut and realized how much easier it was to pick up. I was the same guy with the same game, and with a cool haircut, both girls and guys were a lot more receptive to me. If you look at my last blog post, I had the generic asian buzz cut. You take your clippers, put the #2 length setting on and go all the way around. If you’re currently doing this, STOP. Please, for the love of god, spend the $20, go to a professional salon and get a half decent haircut and if you’re not an expert, ask your hair stylist for advice. Right now, I currently rock the fohawk, with some highlights occasionally depending on my mood. It’s not crazy, but what it accomplishes is that it conveys the fact that I’m not the next cookie cutter generic asian guy. I’ve pasted some examples below, I think the guy in the middle and DJ Fuji’s hair (right) are a little too extreme for my tastes (remember, we’re in L.A), but I think JT(Left) pulls off the bloodhawk pretty well.

In regards to accessories, the guys at VA are pretty adamant about them, but again, always adapt to your environment. When I’m in L.A, I’ll rock the entire outfit, vest, dogtags, wrist bands, funky belt buckle, and its all good, because its L.A and people dress crazy already. In other major cities, I’ll definitely tone it down a notch, as described in the first paragraphs. Have some fun with it, you can start on ebay, random accessories aren’t expensive items, people will often ask you about them, and if you have a DHV story ready to back it up, that buys you more game time.

Keeping the Big Picture in Perspective

Kevin Feng — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:58:00 GMT

As of late, I’ve just undertaken a few addtional guys undermy wing for 1 on 1 training. If you are one of those guys, I deplore you to heed this advice. Tyler Durden from the book just joined up with Tony Robbins,a giant self-help advocate; I want to share something with the rest of you thatI feel is of utmost importance in your game development, and oddly enough, it’snot so much a trick or a tactic, but rather a fundamental principle that you probably have already use in other parts of your life. If you've arleady heard me rant on this I do apologize, but just take it as reinforcement because quite frankly, it IS that important.

Pick up is really cool when you first get into it. You have all these tips, tricks and tactics and the novelty overhwelms you in a good way. Let's really keep things in perspective. While you are striving to become a better pick up artist, in the process, ultimately, you are TRYING TO BECOME A BETTER MAN. Think of it this way, pick up is nothing more than an interview, the 4-5 hours where you interact w/ the girl before you do your thang is the equivalent to an interview in the job world. Just because you've aced the interview doensn't mean you can do your job. We've all done interviews before, we've all lied, exaggerated and bullshitted our way to success, but when it came down to it, we still performed at the job at hand. So the question is, can you really provide that value to the girl or are you just a good bull shit artist?

I’m not sure if any of you are Tony Robbins’ fans, if you are, awesome, if you aren’t, I highly recommend you to check his stuff out (no,I don’t work for him). What he preaches are success principles that would apply to any sort of endeavor. He’s helped people ranging anywhere from professionaltennis players to billionaires achieve more success in their field. So if you’reinterested in becoming better at anything, google him.

The real big seller for me in the ABC’s model is that it incorporates the “F” phase, as in fun/fake. It really emphasizes the fact that having a healthy lifestyle and TRULY being a cool high value guy is important.While solid game will grant you decent one night stands, if you want a girl to stick around, you can’t just be some loser with a cool outfit and a few routines. Why have to go out of your way to DEMONSTRATE HIGHER VALUE, when you can just be high value. When I met Neil Strauss at the airing of the show, he told me something that truly stuck with me.

“A rich man never has to say he’s rich”

For all you starting/intermediate PUAs, I want to make it very clear to your that building your passive value in conjunction with your active value is extremely important. I had a wing back in Michigan who I used to bitch to all the time to fix his acne and to create himself a decent avatar, he just looked like a mess. Seriously, for the well being of the human race, while I wanted his game to get better, I couldn’t help but feel bad for the eventual girl that would inseminate. Every single night, it was an uphill battle for him, I mean, there’s no other way around it, he was piss ugly, and even worse, he did NOTHING to alleviate the problem. Point is this, everybody has problems, it's whether or not you choose to deal with them properly

So where’s the first place I can start in building mypassive value? Easiest place:

The Gym:

Start there, if you succeed at that, then by all means, there is a giant laundry list out there of other things you can work on.

Three PUAs that really stand out here in this example:

-David Wygant

-Matador

-Man Cannon

All three of these guys are in hella good shape, and as a result of that, they don’t need to game as hard, Matador, while he does have extremely solid verbal game, he doesn’t really need to say much, half his sets,he’ll walk up to a girl and just start making out with her, because he has thepassive value to get away with it.

Personally, I can care less about how I get there, just get me to point A to point B in the most efficient way possible.

So let’s start there, if you want rockstar results, start by looking rockstar. Get to the gym, fix your diet. I actually sat down with Matador when I first moved to Los Angeles and he actually gave me a template of his workout which I’ve adapted to my build, It’s actually available on the ABC’sforums here if you’re interested:

http://www.abcofattraction.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=2663&p=15566&hilit=the+complete+work+out#p15566

Anyways, I think I’ve conveyed my point here, while pick up is all about improving your skills with women, don’t lose sight of your ultimate objective: your personal betterment.

Here’s a before and after of me, they were seriously taken 1 year apart, while I wasn’t “piss ugly” beforehand, in retrospect, I don’t think any sober or even drunk women with any dignity would have bothered hooking up with me. This is one of the many pieces I worked on in my pick up journey and I can confidently say that I'm a better man today as a result.

Close that K, Kissing!

Kevin Feng — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:27:00 GMT

So I've been doing my usual perusing of the various forums and, I've actually spent some decent time on the Asian Fanatics website per my boss's request, anyway, no discredit to people in specific, but there are some REALLY messed up people there. I read this one post on the forums, where this guy was "dating" this girl for 5 months and they haven't even kissed yet. Anyway, doesn't take a genius to see the paradox in that, and no, I'm not here to indirectly threadcrap on that guy, but let's face it, something is wrong here.

The Important thing is not to get caught up in what you haven't accomplished or how far behind you are on something, no point in sitting around feeling bad about something, when you could be using that time to actively accomplish a goal.

So I finally came across a post that was noteworthy, this guy had been a few dates (day 2's for the pua's), and he still hadn't kissed the girl and actually his question was "how do I have that fairy tale amazing first kiss".

So let's address the specifics in his question first. The word "fairy tale", I think the Disney Corporation has done a magnificent job in skewing people's perceptions in life, giving every girl the expectation that she'll meet her prince and shining armor and live happily ever after. Not sure about you but the national census 47% divorce rate in the first 5 years as of 2009 doesn't seem so fairy tale to me. I don't mean to be a complete debbie downer here, because I, like the rest of you are searching for happiness, solace, and positive thinking on a daily basis, but not at the expense of having unrealistic expectations.

So wasn't the title of this post on kissing? Oh yeah.... sorry for the digression. So yes, let's take the word fairy tale out of the kissing the equation, if you haven't kissed a girl yet, don't expect your first time to be very fairy tale like, it's NOT, you haven't done it before, you don't know what you're doing and its going to be pretty mechanical and not good.

Okay, so let's put this in the context of cold approach pick up. There's NOTHING special about kissing a girl for the first time, remember, you're in the night club to practice your game, that's it, if you're just starting, you shouldn't even be thinking about dating or anything "special" or "romantic".

When I first got into pick up, I had this impression that kissing was this huge paramount milestone in the pick up process. That there was supposed to be this big lead up and it was the climax of the interaction (well, the portion that remained in public). And well low and behold, my #'s were terrible, I got 1 kiss maybe once every couple weeks. It wasn't efficient.

So I worked with my trusty friend Matador who was more than gracious in providing me coaching. Watching the man game is almost like watching an art form in action. After seeing a few sets demonstrated, i realized, kissing really isn't a big deal, the way he conducted himself, kissing was just about on par with kissing.

So what's the secret to the perfect K-close? I love Nike (minus my cousins working in their sweat shop)

JUST DO IT

There's nothing more to it, don't worry about advanced tactics or advanced leadups, JUST DO IT, simple as that, If you have proper comfort game and kino escalation, the kiss should be absolutely seamless. So in other words you shouldn't actively be working towards a kiss, but rather, its just a reward you receive for solid kino and C phase game. So for you guys out there trying to implement convoluted K-close tactics, STOP, you don't need acrobatics to have a seamless(not fairy tale) kiss. Read my previous post on Kino Escalation. Not to suck my own wang here, but take the girl above. You think I need any sort of kiss close 2.0 pure kino tactical military strike to make a kiss happen?

Kino!

Kevin Feng — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:53:00 GMT

Physical Escalation,

This is by and far one of the most difficult part in pick up for the vast majority of men out there. I find that there are plenty of guys out there that can socialize/open well and even get pretty deep into the interaction, but when it comes to the “rubber meeting the road”, when it comes to making that transition and stating your intentions that you are no longer just that “cool guy” and that you are more than that, that’s where most PUAs fall apart and are unsure of what to do.

I like Mystery’s idea of the kino escalation ladder and throwing in compliance tests to gauage her interest along the way, it definitely does well in setting up a template for what to do, but I during my learning stage, I didn’t get too many concrete examples on EXACTLY what I had to do to properly run his “kino escalation”.

One thing that I absolutely hate about pick up is the all round debate and inconcsistencies with teachings from various companies. It’s kind of like soybeans in the health industry. If you google it, you’ll get articles on why its amazing and can probably cure cancer and then you’ll read articles about it being satan’s bean. Quite frankly, as a “consumer”, I really don’t care, I just want what works, plain and simple. With kino escalation, if you look at various teaching systems, you’ll often find different advice and often times it contradicts one another.

Let me give you an example, on the last episodes of Pick Up Artist Season two, Simeon got a lot of fire from Mystery because he would try to kino a girl by touching her shoulder and he would just leave his hand there, just lingering creepily, yet in Keys to the VIP, Cajun does the EXACT same thing, by touching a girl and leaving his hand there and one of the “board members” calls it a compliance test. The point I’m trying to get at here, is EXERCISE SOME COMMON SENSE. In this specific instance, it IS creepy when you just meet a girl and you’re leaving your hands all over her. It’s weird, you know it, she knows it and it’s going to get you blown out. So next time you’re trying to kino, just ask yourself, does it feel creepy? Chances are if it does, it probably is, your emotive system is the product of millions of years of evolution, USE IT. Touching/holding/embracing should be a natural thing that you should assign little thought or effort to (once you properly implement the steps obviously). Once you hit the C phase in the Attraction, it just becomes natural, seamless. Me & Greg working some magic at Opera out in Hollywood.

So what are some specific things you can do to ease it in the kino? I found Lovedrop’s kino breakout session extremely helpful with kino escalation in terms of applying general kino and gradually making the transition towards more sexual kino. One of the core concepts he covers is that having good banter(social) game is absolutely key in having proper kino escalation.

For those of you that have taken a VA bootcamp before, you’re aware of the “stripper name” routine that he demonstrates. He walks in, BT spikes the set and in that small window of opportunity where everyone’s laughing, he goes applies his kino move, in this case, hugging the girl and playfully biting her neck. So understand that if you can’t approach or banter well, don’t bother trying to kino, take a step back and re-evaluate.

Something I’m surprised that isn’t mentioned more often are socially acceptable ways of just touching people. I see all the top PUAs do them and they were as an EXCELLENT primer for larger investment moves (k closes), and the best part is, they’re socially acceptable, they’re NOT weird and society has done the work for you in “breaking them in” and as a matter of fact, you may already do them in your daily routine.

Remember, when it comes to pick up, I’m a heavy advocate of keeping things simple, it’s tough enough dealing with your emotions/anxiety as is, trying to micromanage a situation on top of it will cause you to short circuit. Three basic ways to break that physical barrier if you’re struggling to physically escalate:

Hugging
Kisssing on the cheek
Holding Hands while leading (later on in interaction)

Hugging is the easiest one, I hug just about every girl and pretty much ( no homo ) every guy I come across (works as a good amog tool too). Girls are so used to getting hugged, it’s almost second nature to them, if you so as much as put yourself in something with a remote semblance of hugging a girl automatically knows. Again, EVERY top PUA I know hugs. Again, I know this isn’t some fancy Annihilation BT sparkplug purekino patented technology kino tactic, it’s a simple basic pick up 101 tool that everyone should have in every interaction. So get used to hugging, hug every girl you comes across.

Kissing on the cheek is actually a lot easier and a lot less weird than you actually think. I remember doing it the first time and I thought to myself (oh, that wasn’t too bad) and after you do it a few times and the girl reacts positively, you’ll start to incorporate this “move” more often in your interactions. I got this idea from Matador and he gave a great breakdown of what this one simple move conveys and I give him immense credit for it. First, it conveys that you’re NOT just a friend, not through words, but by your actions, and especially early on the interaction if you apply it, it’s an indirect “preselection” switch hitter. She knows that she’s not the first girl that you’ve kissed on the cheek and knows there have been plenty before her and probably plenty more to come. Most importantly, it conveys that you’re confident with your sexuality, if you can apply this right after opening, you’re exploiting this “socially acceptable” move and showing her that you have the balls to take it further. Try it out sometime, again, this is something I use on pretty much every set.

Holding hands (as cliché, lame and middlechool as it sounds) is something you can apply later on in the set, once you’ve hit the comfort stage and she’s “cool” with you, feel free to hold hands or rather, feel free to LEAD her. When you’re walking around the venue with her, take charge, hold our hand out, apply some social pressure, if she passes this compliance test, it REALLY means she’s cool with you, and for the most part if I have a girl pass this compliance test, kissing or making out isn’t hat big of a deal. It also gives that boyfriend/girlfriend dynamic to the interaction, makes you feel closer to one another even though you just met.

All in all, I apply these three simple moves to all my sets, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, society has already made these socially acceptable, so why fight the current, ride it. Of course I have different variations with how I escalate in every set, but that type of situational awareness comes with practice and time, but if you’re just starting out, just follow those simple steps, and they’ll help you form a foundation for “fancier” game later on.

Just Getting Started, Keep it simple!

Kevin Feng — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:41:00 GMT

When men typically tackle a problem, in a very simplified model, they’ll assess it, and take a strategic approach and solving the solution. This is where a lot of guys run into problems in the pick up community, is that they’re too methodical about it. I remember a client last week asking me: “So, where in the m3 model, do I start implementing kino tactics”. For a second there I paused and I was like “okay, stop right there”.

In all fairness, I had the EXACT same approach when I first started the game. While Mystery has done a great job of breaking down the pickup process, I don’t think that his model is all encompassing and applies to all situations. Just like in poker, while the game is inherently the same, there are so many different types of game styles: heads up, cash games, etc. There are so many ways to approach pickup as well: indirect, direct, what have you.

So while I give a lot of credit to Mystery for pioneering the indirect approach, I believe it to be toxic to have too much tunnel vision.

One of the “ah-ha” moments I had with regards to pickup in the early phases was when I was going out with a friend named Christian, and he would what we call “natural game”, one of his first critiques to me was that I wasn’t having any fun and that I was using wayyyyyyyy too much strategy.

Now, I’m not condoning getting drunk on a nightly basis, but for a week, I dropped everything, just went out as a normal guy and worked on being fun cool and social. My results were MUCH better.

Again, while I do credit Mystery’s work a lot, I feel that a lot of men take everything in his book for gospel, there really needs to be a balance and more importantly, it’s important to realize that much of the generic advice you got before the game still applies, such as being in the moment.

Okay, so at this point, I’ve probably left you a little confused, but don’t sweat it, I think I have something that can help you curb your problems.

There are many models in pickup and just for intensive purposes we’ll take the ABC’s of Attraction and the Mystery Method.

Both models, while they are different on paper, are very similar in the steps and progression as they do follow the same principles.

The part where I’ll see most guys screw up is getting to the D phase in the ABC’s and the kino escalation with the Mystery Method.

The problem is that most guys will go into the interaction verbally and not convey and dominance nor will they implement any general kino tactics.

Back when I was first beginning to learn, I really found Lovedrop’s lecture on Kino tactics to be extremely helpful. For the beginning to middle portion of the pickup, keeping things simple, all a PUA really needs to do well is apply general kino tactics and BT spikes ( buying temperature ). And really, if you can do these two things well, it’ll take care of 80% of the pickup.

So for example, lovedrop will go into set and run the stripper name routine and when the girls respond with laughter, he’ll kino escalate and it it’s absolute clock work.

So for all the newbies out there, try not to overcomplicate things, instead, SIMPLIFY. For the time being, if you’re just starting out, I would highly encourage you to keep things simple and use the basic template below:

BT Spike
Kino
Continue conversation

If you can rinse and repeat that process, it’ll set up a real solid foundation for the rest of the pick up. Again, just using some common sense and advice you received before you got into pickup, realize that humor is an absolute must for a PUA, if you can’t make a girl laugh, there is no way in hell she’ll be attracted to you and that especially applies to cold approach pickup in clubbing environments.

One of the best educational experiences I had in my PUA journey was working a bit with Joe D and he got my started with improv comedy. It really teaches you timing, tonality, and more importantly it teaches you how to think on your feet (ergo, you can ditch the canned material, and truly be in the moment). I spent a lot of time with this in unison with watching plenty of stand up comedy and over time I integrated this a lot into my personality.

Not only was it extremely helpful with my pickup life, but it truly added a new dimension of fun and happiness to my existence. Being able to create and share laughter with others is truly something you cannot put a price on.

Anyway, back to the pickup, when you can effectively BT spike, that gives you a lot of power and more importantly, it creates that small window for you to physically escalate.

So for those that have participated in VA bootcamp, you’ve seen Lovedrop demo his stripper name routine and right afterwards, he’ll hug the girl and bite her softly on the neck and that conveys so many things. It conveys that he’s playful, fun, dominant, and not hesitant of physically escalating.

So for those guys that are struggling out there and are having a tough time getting to the next level, hone your BT game, without it, you’ll sink, trust me. Don’t overcomplicate the entire pick up model, having solid BT game, IMO, is 50% of the work you’ll do and if you watch all of the top PUA’s in their infield videos, you’ll notice it yourself.

Holistic Pick Up

Kevin Feng — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:22:00 GMT

Looking at the big picture.

So I had a 1 on 1 coaching program this past weekend and it was very enjoyable as they all are. He was a real young guy and quite frankly, he was definitely one of the cooler asian guys that I’ve met in my life, he’s got his head on straight and I can definitely tell that he’ll go far in life. If you’re reading this now, as long as you stay consistent and persistent, success will be inevitable for you.

So I coached a little different this past weekend, instead of bombarding the client with theory and what have you, I gave him a lot more exercises and more of a “principles” approach to pick up, which I found was much more beneficial for myself and is something that Matador teaches in his bootcamps and found very useful during my progression early on my career.

This weekend, I realized that something isn’t really given too much attention at bootcamps and should REALLY be addressed. One reason I do like the ABC’s is because it features the holistic point of view in approaching the subject as opposed to narrow tunnel vision. Also, if you’re going to do something, commit to it, do it right, otherwise don’t do it at all. You might as well not go to the gym period if you just go 3 times and quit afterwards.

I feel that with most programs that I’ve taken in the past, none of them take enough time to really pay attention to other areas in life that affect your pick up abilities. While I do understand that the point of the bootcamp isn’t supposed to teach good exercise/diet, I would most certainly make the argument that if the goal of the bootcamp is to most efficiently help the client acquire women efficiently, other areas (which I will discuss) should be included in the curriculum.

For all you economic heads out there, I think the concept of decreasing marginal utility really applies to pickup. So for those that are not familiar with the concept, here’s an example. When you’re learning a skill, the effort put in to the amount learned is much higher than say 6 years own the road, when you’ve mastered a skill, its difficult to improve on it.

Similarly to pickup, there’s only so much you can truly micromanage in pickup. Now theoretically, you could be the ultimate master PUA, you could be the ugliest dude on the planet and still get the hottest girls because you’ve mastered and honed your skills down to the dime. Is this what you really want? Do you REALLY want to be a master PUA? Probably not, most guys get into this to just improve their dating life, that’s it, they’re not here to impress anyone or prove anything and this includes me. I want the most efficient way to from point A to point B and no bullshit.

1. Most bootcamps don’t really address fitness, I’ll see fat guy try and run pickup all the time and while I won’t say they don’t any results period, in terms of efficiency I don’t understand why they aren’t actively trying to lose weight. Everytime they go out, it’s an uphill battle for them. Why make it so difficult on yourself? Action Step : Get cut, put on some muscle weight.

2. Something else I see is people that go out alone, and YES, you can run good pickup out on your own, but again, why are you making it so hard on yourself? Being a good pick up artist is also being a good social artist, if you cannot make friends and be that fun cool guy, not only are you making it hard on yourself but I’d make an argument that ANY girl of substantial value would never be attracted to you. Action Step : Build the Entourage.

3. When I first got into pick up, I won’t say his name, but he just refused to dress or groom himself well and he had wicked terrible acne. His rationale was, if he gets his pickup skills to a great level, he shouldn’t need to address these problems. This is terribly wrong. Again, he was making this so difficult on himself. Action Step: Start formulating a style that’s congruent with your personality

4. Last but not least, I don’t see a lot of guys that really just put the time and effort into this period. The only reason I got to where I am was because I went out 5-6 nights a week and though it sucked the first two months, after a while it becomes fun and actually addicting. Plenty of guys out there have jobs that only permit them to go out 2 nights a week if that. Let’s be real here, if you went to the gym twice a week, how much would that actually do? Pick up is similar, it takes consistent practice to build momentum. There’s a great quote by John C. Maxwell that fits perfectly here: “If you want to see change in your life, you must change something you do daily”. Don’t expect change until you’ve taken consistent and ideally: daily practice.

I hope you see the recurring theme here, if you’re going to do this, put a decent amount of effort here and make sure all your pieces are lined up, otherwise you’re just putting yourself in an extremely difficult situation.

The biggest problem most guys have is that they don’t make the right initial investment, if you think you can just half ass this and make it work, save your time and don’t do it at all.