Demo Camp Report
This last Saturday I ran my first demo camp. This is about that day from my personal viewpoint. The conversations are not verbatim but as best as I remember. ****
I woke up in a San Francisco hotel room after a night out teaching private instruction clients there. I dug my phone out of the covers. Looking at the time I realized I had to be at the airport for my flight back to LA in an hour. I threw the covers off and popped off the bed. I decided that showers are for losers, packed my things into my backpack and ran out of the room.
A couple minutes later I ran back into the room to grab my phone.
Checking in at the airport, it turned out my flight was delayed. I texted Gerard, who runs the logistics for Charisma Arts, to get ahold of my first two Demo Camp clients and push their times back a half hour. I hoped that wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience.
Hanging about the airport gate, I was feeling suave. I took the opportunity to practice my seductive skills. I sat across from a hot girl. I guessed she was an actress heading back home to LA after filming a fragrance spot in SF. I proceeded to dump the contents of my coffee cup over the front of my clothes when the lid came loose.
I feel guilty when I get upgraded to first class. This only happens on short flights, never international, and only then because I fly every week. A guy standing in the boarding line huffed as the boarding agent reached out past him for my boarding pass as I’m coming from the priority line. I almost turned to him and pointed out the window and said, “I paid for that wing.” But instead I just winked at the agent. I don’t think she noticed.
When the flight attendant on the plane asked me what I would like to drink I said, “I’d love a Pina Colada.” This joke never fails to get a laugh. Airplanes aren’t equipped with blenders. I watched her walk up the aisle. She had nice legs. But not as good as Erika’s legs of course. No one has as good legs as she. Later the flight attendant tried her jokes on me. They weren’t funny but I smiled and encouraged her to keep trying. She was about 40. Too old for me to be compelled to flirt with seriously. But she was hot for her age. Anyone out there want to meet a hot forty year old flight attendant? Text me.
Arriving in Los Angeles I walked out and swung my leg over my Vespa. Free motorbike parking at LAX y’all! Just weave around the gate (per official LAX website instructions) This free parking can not be beaten. I waved at a guy who was loading bags into a Mercedes.
Because my flight was delayed I had no time to go home to change or shower. I would have to demonstrate picking up girls as a scrub. I lane-splitted my way to the Grove in West Hollywood. I love lane-splitting. That is the process of driving between cars, right down the lines - sort of sharing lanes. In the US, it’s only legal in Texas and California. I arrive at the Grove in 20 minutes.
I took on three clients for the Demonstration Camp. The first one had taken the Conversation Camp with me a couple weeks before. He was there with his wife. I like him. I feel as if we share good rapport. Some clients are just clients. I help them and I’m on their side but I would never hang out with them outside of work. But this guy I’d play a set of tennis with. So it was cool to start off with someone I enjoy being with. However, he didn’t really want to see demonstration. He wanted to talk about threesomes. How does he pick up a girl walking down the street for a threesome? Hey, I love threesomes. I think they’re the wave of the future and my major preoccupation. But I don’t know if I gave much insight into his questions besides what he already knew. But maybe confirmation is a destination itself.
My next client was also a returning client. Well, actually, that was part of the qualifications I set forth for attending the Demo Camp. I may open the camp up later to new people but for the first run I wanted people who already knew some of my ideas.
My client said he’s having problems opening conversations with women during the day. He said, “I’ve been doing ‘night game’ too long.” Funny, he looked tan to me. “I want to see YOU approach,” he says.
As we walk, I spot some guys from a competing ‘pick up’ company hanging out with their clients, one of which I recognize from having come to my Conversation Camp. I feel betrayed and wonder what he’s doing with those numbskulls. They seemed to be having fun though, giggling about something. But there are no girls. I saw them later as well - no girls. I feel this is typical. Most of the time when I see these companies out ‘in the field’ they are never talking to girls. They seem to spend their training time practicing routines on each. I just don’t get that.
The reason I created the Demo Camp is to cut through all the crap. Too many instructors in the pick up business don’t know how to get girls themselves. It’s the blind leading the blind. A lot of talk. A lot of smoke and mirrors. I think people need to see some courage and action. In Demo Camp I do it. There is no hiding behind the clients. Its proof that the techniques I write and talk about really work.
I stop at a jewelry kiosk as there is a leggy woman browsing there. I think I saw her in a movie. “Good choice,” I say, as she reaches out for a bracelet. “Bracelets are the new earrings.” This makes no sense, I know. But she laughs. We talk. I let my voice follow her around. I hit her with funny statements, tease myself, tease her.
She adjusted her skirt, asked me where I’m from.
“All over,” I say. “Life is like that these days.”
“You have an unusual accent.”
I let my eyes drift over her. “Thanks.”
She was into me. But I’m not going to escalate it any further. She’s just not right for that. She pays for her purchase. I whisper to my client. “If she walks this way or she smiles, that will be her way of giving the our conversation a chance to continue. It will mean she is creating an opportunity for us to continue the interaction.”
But she walked the other way - no look, no smile. I could have read her wrong or maybe she is protecting her relationship. Oh well. I didn’t want to take it further with her anyway. So it’s a wash. Good example of an approach I suppose. We move on.
Upstairs at the bookstore I checked out the film and photography section. This is a good place to find actor chicks and creative-minded women. Sure enough, a tall, modelesque woman is standing there. I swoop around the shelf so I can approach her on the other side. Her eyes are gorgeous. I’m a little stunned. This girl must be a fashion model. Makes me nervous. But the tens of this world are actually easy to approach so long as you don’t act weird. Everyone acts weird around them. They are dying for normal.
She pulled a book from the shelf.
“That’s the one I was going to pick,” I said.
She laughed.
“I think you should read this one.” I choose a random book. Something about French Cinema.
She took it and said, “Well I AM making a documentary about French Culture.”
Blind luck there.
“I love France. I’m actually going back there in a couple of weeks.” This is true by the way. Meet me for lunch if you’re around Paris in August. Although my French is subpar, so expect me to stick to ‘un thé s’il vous plait’.
She smiled. We talked about her artistic vision. I said, “I like that about you.”
Then she notices my client standing behind us but trying to look inconspicuous. Oh, snap. I should have told him to act like he knows me. It feel weird otherwise.
“Uh, this is my fiend,” I gesture towards him.
She nodded.
That was the the moment. Escalation windows appear and if you don’t climb through, they disappear. In her mind she was wondering where our conversation was going. We had a good vibe. She’s completely hot. (you have to trust me there) The next step would be to say, “I’m enjoying this. I don’t know what you have going on but I’d like to sit down upstairs for fifteen minutes and continue the conversation. I could try my other three jokes on you.”
But my client wanted to see approaches and opening, not instant-dating. And… let’s face it. I’ve had my left hand in my pocket the entire conversation. Once she’s sees my wedding ring I have to mention that I’m married and mention threesomes if I want to continue. This would probably be fascinating to my client but not in his purview right now. I tell her it was nice to meet her and I’ll see her around. She looks disappointed. I hear music playing from that movie Amelie.
I described to my client the nuances of the conversation, trying to make him understand the decisions I made at a conversational level.
“You probably notice that I keep my statement/question ratio around 80/20. That makes her feel I’m not applying force to the conversation. I’m not making her talk to me. I’m creating opportunities for her to talk to me with crafted statements that say something about my character.”
He said he asks too many questions. I nodded. That’s a common problem.
My client pointed out another girl, an Asian girl in front of the shelf. He told me he likes Asian girls.
I thought I would just do the same sort of opener to her as the last girl. That was an error. Interacting with strange women is a reactive as well as an active art. Most guys don’t get this. They’re too attached to the idea of saying something witty or clever. They want to prove themselves. This is an ego-trap. It’s more important to react to what’s going on with her than saying something that you’ve made up ahead of time. Being reactive lets her feel invested in the conversation.
I momentarily forgot this rule. It was only when I walked up to her that I noticed that she was looking at books in the sex section. That threw me off. I chucked my pre-planned opener. She might have been too embarrassed about looking at sex books. Looking back I doubt she had any such limitation. But that was my worry in the moment.
I was there standing next to her. The floor squeaked. Her fingers paged the book in her hand. I glimpsed couples having sex in various positions: doggie, crossbow, new missionary…
I stepped closer. She noticed this. I noticed her noticing me, gave her a fractional smile. “I have a recommendation for you,” I said. “The Daily Illustrated Calendar here is good.”
“Yeah, I was thinking about that one actually.”
The conversation picked up but I never seized the moment at the beginning so never created the zesty sort of interaction that I’m usually more capable of.
She told me the book will be a wedding gift. That may or may not have been true. I told her good luck and walked away.
“That’s a good example of what to be careful of,” I told my client. "
We did a couple more openings with girls. Most of them went well. But to tell the truth I’m writing this a couple days later and I don’t remember the details too well with those girls.
Next client was a guy in his forties. But he looked young to me. I would guess 35 years old. He wanted to work on day time approaching. So off we went.
I sat him down with an older woman from New Orleans to keep him company and walked over and talked to two 18 year old girls sitting at another table.
I squatted down at their table. “I noticed you two and I want to say that like the way you put your style together…”
“Thanks…” they began.
“…and I like the way you carry yourselves,” I continued. “That’s very cool. I like it a lot. Most people can’t pull that off.”
I was pacing, giving them time to warm up to me. At the beginning pacing is way more important than saying something witty.
“That’s nice. No one has said that to us before. What’s your name? Would you like to sit down?”
I felt impressed with their maturity. Most girls their age fall over their words talking to an ‘adult’. I declined a seat. If I had more time and no client I would have hung out with them longer. They were cool girls.
I next walked my client to the hat kiosk. This is a fun place. It’s where I bought my hat. “First step is to make the clerk like you,” I tell him and proceed to joke around with the girl working there. Then I spotted a young couple sitting nearby on the edge of the fountain.
“I want a hat like yours.,” I said to the guy, “I just don’t know if I could wear it at an angle like that. I might not be hip enough. Maybe there’s a class I can take.”
These two smiled.
I talked with them for 10 minutes. Hit them with a joke, desire, real f-ing honesty. They opened up. They turned out to be nineteen years old, dating for a couple years and from Sydney Australia. I love nineteen year old girls. And from what I’ve experienced most love older guys. Blame internet porn.
The guy wanted to hang out with me. The girl wanted to sleep with me - her eyes said that. I knew where this could go. I took her camera off her shoulder and snapped their picture.
“I usually take an accidental picture of myself when I do this,” I said.
I regretfully left them stunned where I found them.
When my client and I eventually walked away I told him how I would handle moving forward. “I’d ask them for coffee. We’d hang out. I’d keep supporting the relationship. Eventually sex would become a topic. It would come around to him saying he would like to watch me have sex with her. Crazy, I know but that’s how it would go.”
“That girl was hot,” he said.
“I know.”
We then met some more women that I don’t really remember so let’s skip those. Saw the guys from the competition. They were still not talking to girls. WTF?
We walked across the street to Whole Foods.
“I come here a lot,” my client said, “There are always hot girls at Whole Foods but I don’t know how to talk to them.”
I led the way. “Easy as peas.”
I talked to a blonde woman near the salad bar. She was opening the soup pots one by one, peering down. But she chose none.
“A soup snob,” I said to her, “I like that.”
She smiled and responded. “The mushroom looked okay.”
“Yeah, I thought the same thing. But we’re too good for that. Well you are. I would have eaten it. You saved me.”
She smiled. “That’s true. Now you owe me.”
“I’m wondering how to make a good salad here”
“You just have to put the hard stuff on the bottom.”
We walked over to the salad area together. I joked around, she touched my arm, we exchanged names.
I pulled my client aside. “See, it’s easy. Now the thing to do is engage her friends.”
She was there with another girl and a guy. I began talking to them. “You’re the most popular guy carrying that beer around.”
They leaned against the olive bar and engaged in conversation. I felt on a roll. I hit them with statements mostly. They shared themselves. Then the girl came back to our group and we all talked for a bit. It would be an easy instant date or at least phone number. However, that’s not the goal. Not for me and not for you and not for my client. The goal is to create desire. That is the fuel that carries our relationships forward.
Later I told my client, “It would be easy to tell her you like the conversation with her and suggest you see her again. Though, since her friends are there I’d flush out her relationship situation first. Makes sense or not?”
“Yeah, makes sense.”
The next girl was at the hummus section. I used be addicted to hummus. But have replaced that with a coffee addiction.
“What’s a good hummus?” I asked.
Ugh. Crappy opener. I like to open with statements. Don’t know what I was thinking. My only defense was that it was a long day and I was tired. I caked over my error somewhat by throwing out some tight statements but it was not enough and she walked away, not completely hooked. However I crossed her path later and she gave me a warm smile. But we were over time and ready to call it a day.
I learned a lot about teaching the Demo Camp. First thing is that I need to bring a camera and take pictures. This blog post would be way better with pictures. The second thing is that the Demo Camp works. I want to teach it again. I enjoyed demonstrating and I think the clients were able to learn more without pressure on them to approach girls themselves. I’m confident they will be able to reproduce a slice of the same effects.
I talked to maybe 10-12 attractive women that day and I feel confident that over half of them I could have instant-dated if I chose. Which brings up a question. Should I instant-date women on the Demo Camp, taking along my clients? I have done this before with Private Instruction but since most people want to see approaching, is this an effective use of out time together? Can an instant date even be real with a client tagging along? I have to think about all this. Would love to hear your ideas as well.