by Dave C

Unlearning your mistakes (And how not to make them in the first place)

For many of you out there practicing, you may head out several times a week and for a while you get better, numbers, kiss closes and then the occasional full close. Then your success seems more stilted, it seems harder to work out where you are and even what to work on next.

I’ve met many of you guys in my last 2 years in the community both practicing and more recently, teaching. The one thing that stands out the most are guys that never learnt the correct habits, they never learnt the fundamentals that were necessary for their success and whilst they can get to a limited and in some cases, good level, it’s ultimately their bad practices that are holding them back.

What makes this even harder to fix is that if you’ve been going out, week in and week out sarging, then you’ve most likely engrained these bad habits, they are part of how you present yourself and consequently they can be very difficult to fix or even notice without conscious persistence.

The worst part of all is that without feedback from a good wing or an instructor at a decent level you may never realise the mistakes you are making. This is why we have to use all the feedback mechanisms available to us when we learn PU.

There are several feedback mechanisms, such as the way girls respond to you, forums and your wings. The problem is that each of these by themselves is never enough to give you a complete picture but rather pieces of feedback that you may be ignoring.

It’s also important to cultivate a mentality shift, a lot of guys learn this and go: “Oh… I got a blow out, next!” This is helpful when you have just started out approaching but not useful for getting you the skill set.

Instead we want to ask, ‘How can I improve this?” If she got dragged away by her girlfriend how can you stop that from happening next time? Now not everything set will be winnable, if a girl gets dragged away by her boyfriend then pretty much no one can solve that interrupt but you get the idea.

If there is a fix available you should learn it and implement it. Your mentality become “How can I do this better / faster / more consistently?”

The steps we can take right now:

Step 1: Recognize the pattern

There is simply no substitute for going out infield and clocking up usable field time either alone or with a coach / good wing or solo. However we can take steps to minimise the mistakes being made. The most simple way is through drills and exercises you can do today to help you maximise everything from body language to contingencies.

Solving Body Language: Walk up to a mirror (or a good wing) and get a critique on just your opener. Did you smile when you walked up? Were you loud enough? Did you lean in? Did you kino on the open? Any weird or extraneous body movement? There are a couple 100 mistakes you can make just on the walk up. Fix them before you even go out to meet women.

Vocal Projection: Go somewhere private, put on some music, turn it up loud and practice projecting your voice.

Learning to move Forward: Write FR’s, after every night you get back and note down what you did write and what you did wrong and where your sticking points are. Then when you go out next, make sure you go out with the goal to work on the issues you need to solve.

Infield Reactions: You need to always observe why the girls are blowing you out, and never leave a set unless the girl walks away or verbally tells you to leave. This is the test of your verbals and subcomms. Ideally on a night out. To really push yourself you want to be in set 90% of the time.

If something goes wrong infield then work out if it was something you were putting out there or just a product of the environment you were sarging in. In essence be analytical and work on yourself.

Step 2: Break it

Once you’ve acquired real feedback on what patterns and mistakes are repeating themselves, it’s time to break that habit. This is simply having two things:

1) A plan of what you are going to work on

2) Conscious effort and a few sets.

Remember it takes time for a new habit to become engrained over the old one, just like anything else, much like when you try to stop holding a glass in front of your chest you’ll have to be ever present to stop yourself from flicking back into your old habits.

More Basics To Unlearning your Mistakes or Rules:

1) Choosing a method and sticking to it.

If you are anything like me when I first started I would read all the methods, all the forums and take in all the advice. The problem was it caused a never ending loop of information overload. I had a head full of advice, often completely contradictory, and I’d always be working on trying a new idea out every week when I was still having trouble opening and getting attraction completely. As you can imagine this was an instant fail.

2) Get a stack

You need a good stack that will complete the attraction stage, get a GTG stack because it alleviates 90% of approach anxiety when you know what you’re doing, all I have to do is say “Yo, what’s up!” and I’m in. It also helps you sort out where mistakes are and contingencies. Even naturals have something like “Hi, my name is…”. Ideally create a stack that puts you in a good state and makes you laugh.

3) Know how to handle contingencies and interrupts.

I used to roll with two naturals and an MM gamer and none of them could handle interrupts or shit tests at all. They would consistently lose the set because of this and 99% of the time it could be avoided. The best resource for this is the contingencies section of the GTG book because it is just all there and relevant.

4) Expand your comfort zone.

I started going out in-field in June 07, I spent the first 9 months opening and ejecting, and I needed to, my comfort zone was so small that it made me feel good just to talk to a woman back then. I also dramatically changed my look in that time. Realize that if you aren’t pushing yourself you won’t get results but if you push yourself a little even if it takes a full year, you will grow.

5) Have set days

You need to set days or times to go out  and not allow yourself to stay home. These are sarge night, no excuses, no I feel tired or out of state. These are full on hardcore 90% of time in set nights and you don’t take AFC friends who you’ll end up talking to all night.

6) Self-correct and evaluate.

Never getting past attraction? Why? Read the appropriate resources, study it, seriously make notes on it. It’s amazing what you will miss on a simple read through. Always work out why attraction died, or comfort failed. Sometimes there is nothing you can do, but make sure that it’s not on your part. This is best done in FR’s or when you get home. NOT THE NEXT DAY.

7) Don’t over-browse resources

Once you’ve picked your resource don’t read every technique or forum because you’ll get sucked into other peoples thinking style and get stuck questioning what you are doing. Information overload is a very real problem in the community today. Remember once you get your basic game down you can start adding in new pieces from anywhere.

So, what this all boils down to is fundamentals, whether we are learning PU or basketball these are what make or break our results. Take any professional sport, the top guys all have there fundamentals down, it’s what separates them from the guys that look good until you get them in a competitive environment, the guys with the fundamentals always win.

Expect a period of failing before you get good.

Start building yours now.

- Dave C

P.S. Check out my next workshops in London and Oslo .

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 at 10:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.