THE FORUMS

Day 1

It's Friday morning at 4am, and I roll out of bed leaving this one girl I've been hanging out with on and off for the past 6 months. She's one of the cuter I've met in the past few years but I find myself wondering if I'd even care if she didn't call back. I've become so comfortable with my situation, I'm apathetic. I feel like this area of my life is so incongruent with every other adventurous element in my life. I have an 11 hour drive ahead to bootcamp, I need to get ready. She gets out of bed, gives me a kiss and wishes me luck on the adventure. I find the more direct I am with people in my life the more they're willing to accept it.

It's 7:30pm, and I meet up with 2 of Nathan's assistants Dave at the Hilton. Both guys are extremely chill and we start to shoot the shit a bit. They are down to earth and just funny as hell. (I have a little time distortion here, it went by so fast) The second student Mike arrives. He seems really quiet, soft spoken and even a bit uncomfortable with being there. I had a nervous energy as well, so I can appreciate it. It's bootcamp, even with this being my 2nd, I knew there's so many crazy directions this could take. Looking back, the Mike that entered from bootcamp (anyone that's taken a bootcamp with Nathan knows it's not 'attended' it's 'graduation') is not the same guy approaching the hotties at the end. Nathan appears and we go upstairs to start the bootcamp.

I got a pretty good initial read off Nathan. He seemed like the type of dude that could approach a set and have the boyfriend cheer him on with the girl. It's like a positive dominance that's not threatening just intense. We spent a good amount of time talking about our backgrounds and what is expected from us in bootcamp. I was a surprised at how fast he picked up some of my subtle mannerisms. For example, from Brad's bootcamp, I broke the habit of keeping closed body language and taking up little space. Now, I'm sit comfortable and try to keep my hands to the side when approaching. What I didn't realize is when I'm talking, I tend to put my hands in my pockets. We worked on one opener... 'Hey, you're adorable and I had to meet you... I'm John'. I've been saying this (or some combination for the last year). What I didn't realize it didn't sound like it was coming from the heart. This is an observation I picked up after watching Nathan demo it for us. It's like just a series of subtle changes in voice and movement really make a different effect. Awesome, noted and corrected. Nathan noticed I also cocked my head after the opener. Watching him mimick it made me kinda sick to my stomach. I wanted to punch myself in the face. haha Ok, not that bad, but wow, it was so inconsistent with what I was trying to get across. That one took a while to break, I think it's fixed.

Subtle corrections was the overall theme of Day 1. Things that would seem like nothing if you read it in a forum or book, but just looks so out of place watching it demo'd. We run into a little trouble with a security guard (apparantly he keeps a picture of Nathan above his locker dreaming of the day Nathan returns) and we leave. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the third assistant (sorrry bro), Matt. Man, it's hard to describe Matt.. he reminds me of one of my good friends in NY. I can picture ending in up in some weird ass situation thinking 'freaking Matt'. ha Cool speaks cool is one of the concepts I really picked up on at bootcamp. I can see why Nathan has such good people in his circle. Each of the 4 guys has a very distinct style/personality. I learned a lot by watching their mannerisms and interactions with girls. I've been around guys that have a very obvious player attitude about that, I'm starting to pickup on the fact the guys that are really good and the ones that are insane with women (Nathan) come off as just completely normal.

We end up on the street practicing our opener. I'm already noticing progress on my body language and the reflection in my voice. This is incredibly hard to explain. It's one of those things that it's painfully obvious if you see/hear it but writing it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. As an aside, I was talking to this cute Italian girl at the college today. She seemed really flattered that I approached. I feel so much more genuine and I think girls pick up on that vibe immediately. Ok, off to the club we go. The first venue was still getting going when we get in. I expected Nathan and the assistants to do a few demos, especially for Mike who was brand new. Nope. We're basically told to just be social. Talk to guys, talk to girls... just get talking. I open a number of 'sets' (man, I hate that word), Mike starts opening as well. Nothing really going at first, but it's social. I'll tell you one of my highlights that got the fire started. I watched Mike approach 2 of the hottest girls at the club at the time.. get shutdown and reapproach not once but twice. That takes some balls. He's come back to me and tells me something like 'yeah, they're still sharing a story'. I'd crack up and it'd feel my state start rising again.

There were a lot of lessons that night, but I'll tell you one that messed with my reality. I've never really been a physical guy. I'm really comfortable after we hookup, but not before.. Over the last year, I've worked on adding more physicality in my approach. For example, up until bootcamp, I've worked on finding ways to 'slip in' highfives and hugs. I'm not saying it was completely mechanical but it certainly WAS a very conscious thing. So anyway, before we enter the club, Nathan tells us something about signals. For example, something like if he shines a light, it means to lead or maybe it was get more physical. To be honest, I had so much going through my head, I couldn't freaking remember. That was the best thing that could have happened to me. So I'm talking to these girls, and Matt comes in to wing. Cassi is just my type of girl.. smiley, dark hair and just interesting. So we're talking, and I see the light shine on her. I'm like crap, I need to be more physical. So I just thinking about how I'm going to 'sneak it in'. About 5 seconds later, the light shines again. Ugh, Nathan must be getting pissed.. I need to react. 5 seconds again, and the light hits her again. I'm like screw it... I can't even remember what she said, but I was like 'Oh yeah!!' and wrapped my arms around her.. huge hug. She's giggling, I'm feeling so good at this moment. I'm thinking 'Yeah, Nathan knows his crap.. good timing'!!

WOW!. It wasn't Nathan at all. It was the lights from the freaking disco ball. I went in with so much belief that now was the right time, it WAS the right time. Belief is a funny thing. That really was my first big ah-ha moments. The girl is a reflection of your vibe... (yeah, I've read it before but now I have the reference point). I believe it would come off great and sure enough.. it did. I told her let's go to the bar. She said something like 'I can't drink anymore' and I responded with something like 'What do you mean, I'm talking about me' with a huge smile. Yeah, it wasn't total dominance but it was sincere. She laughed and off we went. We flirted a bit, I got her number and learned how to implemented flyers (something that's so simple but really cool). Funny thing is, even though it was the beginning of the night, I think I was put in the same situation now, I could have eventually pulled. Maybe it's a dillusional confidence but after the crazy things I've encountered at bootcamp, there's little that I think could actually limit me.

I've already talked about the superhottie in my earlier write-up I approached. There were a number of good approaches. I didn't stay in set long (we got this worked out on night two) but I got a ton of reference points. I could see there were hot azz liquid metal girls that could really be into me. Especially after the super hottie, I was approaching women I would have never considered before. It's like they wanted to give me a chance to be chill.. I started to feel like women were my own cheerleaders. They wanted to be approached by a cool guy and when I didn't live up to it, it's like they were let down. Noted.

The debrief was much longer than I anticipated. The feedback from Nathan and his crew was spot on. I liked the fact it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. The vibe was positive but the expectation was firm. Emotionally, I was drained. This is something I didn't even tell the guys. I got back to the motel and just laid in bed motionless. I went through such a range of emotion... I can still feel it as I'm writing this. I thought about all the opportunities with women I missed out on, all the times I stayed with my ex because I thought I'd never find someone as amazing. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around this behavior. How could I seriously suck so bad when I have so many other areas in my life handled. I eventually snipped the negative though loop but wow, I haven't had those feeling spawn up in awhile. I knew the path was set, but I just wasn't sure exactly what I was feeling.

Day 2 is when things finally started to solidify.

DAY 3

We're at the Westin hotel debriefing and all is good with the world. Nathan lays out a solid game plan and I just feel like I conquered one of the craziest emotional rollercoasters of my life. Mike and I  put the hours in, we layed it all on the line and the results were there.  Maybe it's just me, but as I walked through the college today (I teach a bit throughout the year locally), I just noticed a lot more girls smiling at me.  It was almost like they were saying:

Cool speaks cool, it's about freaking time.

Thanks man, look forward to checking out your journey posts.