THE FORUMS

What’s happening RSD Nation? I told Nathan I would give him a little love back for the extra mile he went with me during bootcamp, so here it is!

So, a brief overview of my story….

My name is Chuck, I’m 45 years old and trying to start my own Internet business with the help of former RSD instructor Natural Tim. I have been a fan of RSD since 2005. I took my first bootcamp with Nathan in 2008. I don’t want to say I wasted the bootcamp, but pretty close. Back then, I was working a lot, very chodely and shy. I took it mostly to see what this was all about and didn’t really know what to expect. I almost religiously read the newsletters, got a couple of DVD sets (Yes, Tyler, I actually PURCHASED them. LOL. You can check the records, if you like.) and have been to every Hot Seat and plan on being at the upcoming HS in Austin in May. Hence part of my problem. I was a classic keyboard jockey! All theory and no action.

Then, almost two years ago to date, something awesome happened to me, I GOT FIRED from my job. It’s OK, I hated it, anyway. They fired me before I could quit, which is better because now I can collect unemployment. ;) But, also, now I could concentrate on GOING OUT AND TALKING TO GIRLS! But, here’s the funny thing; I only went out sporadically until about a year ago. Old habits die hard. That, and I had terrible approach anxiety.
I’m mostly over that, now. Once I get warmed up, I can talk to just about anyone. Hot, hideous, fat or thin, makes no difference to me. My problem now is that I can get phone numbers and an occasional makeout as the day is long, but my interactions don’t really go anywhere.

I have a mutual friend here in San Antonio that I met on the first bootcamp that had been badgering me for months to take another bootcamp. Initially, my reaction was “Hell no!”, then, as I started to go out more, it changed to, “I’ll consider it, but I don’t want to go back to Nathan from the perspective of a guy who hasn’t been going out. I think that would be a waste of his time and my money.” So, I finally hit the wall. I just couldn’t take going out and talking to women with no point to the interaction, anymore.

So , I signed up and Nathan did not disappoint.

The two things that really changed this time around were:

1) My attitude – Like I said, in 2008 I was working an odd schedule and made a lot of excuses for not going out when I had the time. Mostly, it just amounted to me be a scared little bitch. Now, after doing a lot of approaches, I’m no longer afraid to approach and realize that it was all in my head in the first place. Nathan even said that he was bracing himself thinking I would be a difficult student, but was pleasantly surprised when I did EVERYTHING he asked me to do without complaint or whining.

2) The integration of modern technology into the bootcamp – If I had a criticism of bootcamp in 2008, it would be that after bootcamp, I didn’t have anything to anchor my experience to. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t remember what I had for breakfast today let alone what happened 3 ½ years ago. The cool thing is, this time around, Nathan set me up in an audio recorder , filmed me and had me take pictures to remember my experience and so that I would have something to anchor my experience to. He also put together some documents for a game plan from here going forward, then, he sent most of that material to me digitally, so I could have it for reference later.

Memorable approaches

It’s hard for me to remember most of my interactions, but there were a couple that stood out.

Friday night, we were on 6th St. at a popular club and Nathan opened a cute blonde. I was standing next to him and they started talking and eventually she got onto the topic of going to California. I jumped in and told her that I went to California for Christmas and we were off to the races. After about 20 seconds, Nathan left the set so that it was just her and I and I made out with her and got her phone number.

Saturday night, we went to Rainey Street, which is a new party district south of Cesar Chavez bordering Lady Bird Lake, which I’ll discuss more in a minute. While there, I was walking toward the back of one of the clubs when I overheard a girl in a bachelorette party say to her friend something to the effect of, “Lauren, are you going to get laid tonight?” This, of course, set off a light bulb in my head, so I briefly talked to the bride and she shoved me off to her girlfriend, Lauren. I lead her out to the back of the club where we started talking and a few minutes into the interaction, she discovered the MICROPHONE HANGING FROM MY NECK (Nathan wanted to record my conversations to pinpoint where I was losing the girls). Initially, I joked around with her and told her that I was with the FBI and that she was being investigated for drug trafficking. I even got her mind off of it for a little while, but she kept coming back to the subject of why I was recording her. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just laid my cards on the table. I told her I was a bootcamp student with RSD and eventually led her over to Nathan and the crew. The interesting part is, during the Sunday debrief, Nathan used this as a teaching moment. One of his big criticisms of me is that I’m not being real enough with the women I interact with and that I should learn to put my personality and soul on the line. Point taken, Nathan. Another interesting thing is, after I told her that, she actually became fascinated and was asking me a lot of questions about it. For awhile, she didn’t believe me until I introduced her to Nathan and the crew.

On a side note, for any of you Austin guys who haven’t tried Rainey Street, yet, I highly recommend it! It’s a very different vibe than the loud, noisy clubs of 6th St. Most of the bars down there are old homes that have been converted into drinking establishments and they have a slightly older crowd and much more laid back atmosphere. From a game perspective, it is bit more of a challenge. You’ll have a lot of seated sets and because you don’t have music blaring like a jet engine to hypnotize the girls you are talking to, you have to rely on your wits a lot more. My Spidey-sense tells me that Nathan will be working Rainey St. into a lot more of his bootcamps because it’s more challenging, if you’re used to club game. He said it’s a lot like “day game with a couple of beers”. I’m pretty sure he mentioned that this is the first time he’d been down there. So, I have that going for me. I was the first student that Nathan took to Rainey Street!

Nathan always kept it challenging and fun. He gave me a lot of missions, all of which, I completed. Now I just need to remember some of the lines he had me use.

But, the thing that impressed me the most was during Sunday debrief he spent a good seven hours going over video and audio from the night before. He didn’t have to do that. He could have just wrapped at 4PM and been done with it. But, instead, he meticulously went over my night, pointed out things that I did well and things I did not so well. I made sure to take notes!

He also gave me a makeover (or more accurately, he made me give myself a makeover). He confiscated my $20 chode Casio watch and gave me a nice, stylin’ Citizen Blue Angels watch that is currently at a jeweler getting a new battery, being calibrated and tested for waterproofness (is that a word? LOL.). More importantly, he told me to shave off my beard and shave my head! I was initially resistant to the idea, but honestly, I’m kinda digging the new look and have been getting positive feedback on it. I’m an older guy and my hairline has been slowly receding, anyway, and I told my friends that if I ever got the “horseshoe hair” or the bald spot on the back of my head got bigger, I was going to shave my head, anyway. So, Nathan just had me do a pre-emptive strike before I started to look like a guy in an ad for the Hair Club For Men.

I think my biggest takeaways from the weekend were learning to pump my own state, leading more and working on my vocal tonality. He gave me a lot of his personal notes on me.

Did I get laid? No. But what I did get was a game plan. I told him that before bootcamp, I kind of felt like a boat with no oars or anchor. I don’t feel like that, now. Besides, it’s more important to me to have an emotional connection with a woman, right now, anyway. Like I said, I can get phone numbers all day, even an occasional makeout, but a “Day 2”? Forget it.

The other thing is, he didn’t just go over pickup stuff, either. He also gave me some nutritional advice to lose belly fat as well as some supplements to look into.  Before bootcamp, he asked me to record a video for him showing off my condo and lent some advice on how to spruce it up.

A note to all you “keyboard jockeys” out there….you can read a Library of Congress full of articles, you can watch every DVD put out by every pickup guru on the planet, you can read every book by every PUA ever put into print and you know what? When you step into the club and you get a couple of drinks in your bloodstream and the music is louder than a 747 at takeoff, all that shit will leave your head. I think this is why bootcamp is so great. Because, it will give you a direction on small things to work on every time you go out. I was surprised to find out how much my vocal tonality still sucks and that I still occasionally do shit like lean in and give the “purposeless hand of doom”. So, it’s back to basics for me. That’s usually 90% of your game, anyway.

I suppose I could go on, but I’ve covered the main things I wanted to cover. I have a lot of work to do, but I’m confident that if I just stick to the game plan, I will have girls giggling when they hear my voice in no time.

Before I sign off, I wanted to give a quick shout out to Matt, Jeff and Seth, all part of the RSD Austin crowd. It was great meeting you guys and hopefully we can hang out soon!

Chuck!