Hai All,

I've found little info lately (here) which advises newcomers on what to look for in a pickup coach. This is a work in progress, so feedback is welcome so I can edit out more precarious parts of this.

Cheers,
Z.

UPDATE 2 - Some sentences re-arranged, a few grammar errors fixed and some elaboration on "emotional intelligence."

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Guide to finding Pickup coaches when Socially Challenged

Premise:

Imagine this - you have been striking up conversations with women for a long time, regularly, yet getting nowhere. You see other “normal” guys seemingly put in far less effort into conversations and yet they instantly land dates, even if they’re drinking alcohol or otherwise shy whilst you give off a confident aura. You keep doing this, racking up hundreds of approaches within a year, yet no dates, or even contact details. Meanwhile, your non-game friends are all getting into relationships or married around you, and as time passes on you get nothing and your social skills may even end up worsening. What could be wrong?

A big contrast I like to make is with Rollo Tomassi’s writings on sexual market value from his book, the Rational Male. Rollo says that generally, men get more attractive as they age towards around 38 years. A big exception to this however, is guys who are socially on a different level of development (e.g. have no experience with women later in life, or have major insecurities). These guys actually become less appealing, as their insecurities grow and become more obvious over time. This will otherwise trump the “looks money status” concept, where insecurities bleed thru and otherwise ruin interactions.

This problem is more apparent for those who have been going out doing loads of cold approaches, yet seeing almost no results (dates or lays) from it. In Tom Torero’s “Beginner’s Guide to Daygame” it’s mentioned that it takes around 6 months to get his model solidified, and from there results should start to become consistent. However, what if they don’t? Maybe you’re socially challenged. Certain signs might be that you can’t keep up a conversation with a stranger (not just women, but anyone) for more than a few minutes, or feeling constantly nervous or on-edge around unfamiliar people, even in familiar environments. If you’re in a new social group, do you often find yourself at the bottom of any hierarchy being established? Do you have an inability to even make new friends in person, by yourself?


The Importance of Quality Coaching

A lot of PUAs and dating coaches out there, claim a lot of things that are important to having good game. However, their “techniques” are actually just marketing gimmicks that look impressive to bring in new customers, yet to experienced “daters” are actually rubbish. Thus, as a newbie to PUA, this can be a confusing area. This info I’m putting here with luck, will help with choosing a coach.

Quality coaching is undeniably important. Not just in pickup, but in several areas of life. Say you want to get physically fitter and build muscle. You sure could try some things on your own, but what if it isn’t working or you want more motivation? Best way is to get a competent personal trainer to help. Same with music lessons, sport and loads of things. For most things in life, the best way to learn is to be taught. Pickup is ultimately no exception.

As pickup is a skill, the majority of pickup coaches I have met, have an underlying expectation in order for their students to succeed - that they are reasonably socially adjusted. When you factor in mental health conditions (e.g. social anxiety or depression), or hereditary conditions (autism being mentioned a lot), this expectation is often failed. Thus, it can be important to find a coach who actually specialises in dealing with such low level cases.

Unfortunately with “social skills” or game coaching, there isn’t really a regulatory body out there which people can become qualified coaches for. Thus, finding a decent coach is more hit-and-miss in this field.


A Note on Pricing:

Often high-tier coaches like James Tusk will happily charge £160+ per hour of coaching. Again, this is because they have marketed themselves well and have easy-to-find websites, a well established YouTube presence and social media prowess. However, one can find coaches out there which are nearly as competent for almost a quarter of the hourly fee. Best to look around forums, FaceBook groups etc for comparisons and advertisements. If you can get a “try before you buy” free session, even better.

Skype/Remote coaching or online courses, you should pay even less for. There are a number of dating courses you can get on mainstream sites like Udemy, for far less than 100 pounds.


Things to look out for in a competent coach:

Before going through these points, I’ll point out that I’m yet to meet a truly awful coach that has given no value at all. All that I’ve met or had tuition with has given me at least something of value. As an example, I had one coach who always wore oversized sports-gear and otherwise looked wimpy, and followed loads of social norms. However, he gave me great advice to improve my wardrobe and some online dating photo tips.


In-person coaching - With improving internet connections globally, it’s easier for people to connect, especially via video. Dating tuition is no exception. However, what is a coach supposed to do if they cannot analyse your in-field interactions? Unless they’re seeing recordings of you in some way, there’s very little they can really do. Sure, they might be able to build rapport with you and make it easier for you to communicate with the coach, but go out into the field and interact with others, and will you socialise any better?

A major critique I have of remote coaching, is that they don’t truly see how you interact in set. You are often unaware of your own eccentricities, and would otherwise never be aware of them in the first place, without a competent individual analysing your interactions. Also be wary of coaches who just teach you ideas to improve your “authenticity” and “inner game” without having any way of verifying your progress. If you want someone who specialises in inner game - see a therapist. They’re usually better value for money, and unlike game coaches are actually qualified.

Dress sense and appearance - Ideally a dating coach will look the part, as well as behave the part. I would expect a half-decent dating coach to turn up wearing well-fitted casual clean clothes, with matching casual shoes to match (like brogues or boots, not sportswear). Status is the most important thing to convey in sets, and good clothes sure help, especially when your game isn’t up to par. I like to use yad as an example, who is a chubby guy with a sub-par dress sense. His narcissism and arrogance probably makes up for his appearance, but he doesn’t represent a great example for beginners.

Emotional Intelligence & Maturity (and respectfulness, even in blowouts) - Someone with good game would generally be unreactive to something they don’t like or want, and act pretty chill in all situations. If he gets blown out in a set, he wouldn’t act butt-hurt about it. One example I recall with a coach was a set he opened with a strange cold read (“Hey, I noticed you from over there and had to say Hi. You both look Iranian.”). 5 seconds after leaving them, he called them bitches behind their back and expressed his dislike of such self-entitled girls (likely with them within earshot).

How does he talk about previous clients as well, is he overtly negative of them? I’ve not had this with a coach, but I recall one wingman who mentioned a number of ex-wingmen in a strongly negative tone.

There are then coaches who like to upload long videos where they slander other coaches, or talk crap about students they have. A great example is John Anthony (JMULV) who has this almost 2 hour video ripping on RSD Tyler/Owen Cook:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzPkDmqfr6s

Given his negative outlook and outright attacks, would you really want coaching with this guy?

Evidence - In recent times this is more difficult due to generally requiring permission for uploading videos and material. In fields are of course helpful, though of course, these can be cherry picked. It is not unreasonable to ask a coach to open one/some sets and see how he behaves. Is he unreactive, relaxed, able to tease/banter? Also important is that he’s not just like this with girls, but TBH, anyone. Coaches which only interact with targets and not anyone (not even shop assistants and cashiers) are somewhat suspect.

Holisticity and tailored feedback - Coaches who focus only on one thing have very little to learn from. As an example, having a coach who says “just do more approaches and you’ll naturally get better” to everyone. Imagine giving that advice to someone like first person approacher, where exposure therapy just ended up getting him in trouble. An especial note on approach anxiety and social anxiety, is that you ultimately need positive reference experiences to overcome them. Anxious individuals however, often get a lot of negative feedback from approaches, and too much of this will ironically worsen their pickup skills.

Game has many facets, and a competent coach would give feedback directed towards your problems, as opposed to generic advice regurgitated as spam. An especially good coach will tell you the cold hard truth, even if it hurts. Obviously, if a student turns up with dirty clothes, unshaven and smelling like Harvey Weinstein’s court cases, then yes; the obvious needs to be pointed out.


Bending social rules - Pickup is alternative; it’s obviously not mainstream and skirts the edge of risk, with regards to social normals. Social normals are not necessarily for the better: slavery used to be normal, and homophobia was rife in the UK.

I wrote this passage at a time when we’re in (another) coronavirus-related lockdown, which was established by the government under the guise of coronavirus. Due to this, I immediately have more respect for coaches who flout the lockdown, ignore social distancing rules (kino is necessary to seduce) and otherwise carry on as if everything is fine (yet are still socially aware). Besides, if pickup/going out and interacting with others is improving your mental health, that ironically could actually help in resisting pathogens.

Bootcamps - Companies such as RSD have a habit of charging over a thousand pounds for a 3 day bootcamp where a group of students are intensively taught by one instructor. Some companies however charge far more for the same thing. Such intensive learning of say, 5-6 plus hours a day, is not the most efficient method of making progress.

Here’s an analogy - would you make more progress going to the gym for 5 hours per day in 3 days, or 1 hour a day over 15 days? Same time spent, but the latter is spread out. Same goes with learning things - you need time to process (or even literally sleep on) the knowledge gained. It’s under the same logic that at school, you don’t just do your maths lessons all on the same day, and then language classes on the next. Nope - they’re all intermixed to deliberately vary what you’re learning.

Considering all of that, some companies will allow you to buy the bootcamp but actually spread it out over a longer period of time to make it less intensive, which is arguably a better use of your time and money.

Online courses - by similar analogy to remote/video coaching, I wouldn’t bother shelling out a lot of money for these. As I’ve mentioned previously; you don’t always know what you’re doing wrong. The Mystery Method can be bought as a hardback book for around 10 pounds (January 2021, Amazon), and a number of pickup courses exist online on sites like Udemy for similar prices. More expensive courses rarely have anything extra to add, in my experience.

A useful reference (especially if you don’t like reading much) is a clip by an online dating coach, Playing with Fire - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GlI0omliKc

Yours
Z

Right from the first sentence...

"The majority of pickup coaches have an underlying expectation of their students to succeed - that they are reasonably socially adjusted."

How do you know that?
FYI: coaching is a scam industry like supplements and clairvoyance.


Peace,

kowalski

Most coaches I've met ultimately have good intentions. However, in the same way that BP has had an environmental disaster, or universities charge masses of money for courses that don't always guarantee a decent career path (though they sure help), coaches are ultimately out there to get money, and will generally charge and do what they think they can get away with.

It can seem like a scam, but like I said - I've never had a truly negative experience from coaches. Though, at least one I've had sure didn't help with game aspects. I do get the impression that "social skills" or pickup coaching can only help so much. If one's got severe mental health issues then it's clearly better to address those first, for example. Many coaches won't admit this though. If anyone feels like they've been truly scammed from pick-up coaching then I'd sure like to hear (*cough* yad *cough*)

Have you been coached?

Z

That's cool. Then open with "Most coaches I've met..." and not "The majority of coaches..."

There's some weird grammar wrongness in the second sentence.

"For guys, particularly older ones (25 years and above) who have been scarce or absent with women, and may not even have any friends..."

To say someone is absent with women is to say they are with women but absent from some place or that they are absent minded when they are with women. It's a mess.

"For guys, particularly older ones (25 years and above) who have had scarce or no experiences with women, and may not even have any friends..."

Why state 25 and above? What research have you done? It would be fair to say that "as you get older it gets harder", there's obvious reasons for that which do not need to be broken down. However, your strong specific claim regarding the age 25 does require a string and specific breakdown.


It is a scam because human understanding in this area has not been sufficiently developed for it not to be a scam. Expert medical professionals can't even identify which people who present themselves for diagnosis have any specific psychological condition with a useful degree of accuracy. In fact they can't even demonstrate what mental illnesses even exist. So, the idea that some socially inept kid who never got laid till he was 23 and now does, that based on his personal experience and whatever lies he's been slurping up from other geeky, virgin till they were 25 losers on owner forums... that guy, he knows not only everything about your psychology after meeting you in Starbucks for 15 minutes but also the psychology of all girls and all details of how interactions leading to fucking work and how to hack them... go ahead and believe that if you want, being wrong can be your reality.

All good advice in this area can be boiled down to a few short sentences.


Peace,

kowalski

Fair point, and fixed. Cheers for the feedback


Yup that was hard to read, and the 25 years thing... I can't verify it (forgot where I got that from), so adjusted.

Copy-pasting from a Word document also screws up the formatting, making this harder to read than I intended... With enough edits I'll see about just uploading the file instead.



Given that dating coaches aren't regulated as of such, I'd be inclined to agree with you. Not helped is that there isn't really any formal literature, but anecdotal evidences and "guides" written by people like Mystery and Surgical Method. However, from personal experience as well as the number of testimonials I've seen (including from folks I've met), I wouldn't say it's 100% scammy. That's my perspective.




Z

James Marshall in principle with TNL seems great, though I found it odd that he announced he was leaving... only to return later. I fear he'll be doing the same thing that some RSD members (Derek?) do where they pretend to leave and then return a little later to cash in on Fear-of-missing-out.

Didn't realise it was that expensive too. I don't think it's worth that much either.

What's Hayley Quinn like? I don't know much about her other than that she sometimes gets women to approach guys.

Z

15k for a 10 day bootcamp. That's not overpriced, that's blatantly preying on vulnerable, awkward fools.

Except, after the 10 days they're even worse off because they're now broke.

The cunts charging these stupid prices need a good kicking.

Does it matter what the price is when the product is snake oil? Do clairvoyants do no damage if they don't charge people but still convince them that they can talk to their deceased loved ones?

Believing the con artist is more damaging to the individual than the money lost.


Peace,

kowalski

Definitely the damage is worse, but throwing away 15k ain't nothing either.

Personally I'd be happier blowing the 15k on a big 10 day party full of hookers.

Fair play man. I winged with a dude who knew Hayley Quinn as a school friend in Maidenhead of all places (or was it Didcot?)! Showed me a picture of him with her.

However, she does strike me as being "too mainstream" so I'd be reluctant personally to coach with her, owing to being in too high demand anyway. Too bad, I'm sure a woman's perspective on daygame would be useful to some. I've had a female coach before.

Nick Krauser seems like a negative and highly neurotic guy. He regularly slags off other coaches and from what I understand, some clients too. Then again, he's fairly realistic.