Mapen's review of the LA Phil workshop in Las Vegas

So here’s my review of last weekend’s bootcamp with LA Phil in Las Vegas. Before I start, I would like to say that in my opinion, a workshop is great to go along with the 30/30 program as you will get very good feedback on all areas of your game up to all your sticking points. In addition, LA Phil has a seriously strong frame, and he’s very good at spotting your weak points and helping you outline a plan of action to break through them. I came into the workshop with some degree of skepticism.

About three years ago I entered the community by reading DYD and taking a PickUp 101 workshop. The workshop was so bad (I could out game the coaches) that I demanded a refund and basically dismissed the community as a bunch of charlatans that could talk a big game but couldn’t get laid. I have a cousin and a couple friends who, before they got married, could basically get laid any night, and I was expecting to learn how to do that.
Well, LA Phil is the real deal, and I have no doubt about his ability to get attraction and seal the deal. He also is living proof that my self limiting belief about being short can be overcome. Now I almost didn’t make the workshop as I was sick as a dog with a massive ear infection and live in NYC. Nevertheless, I felt like it was something I had to do, so on Thurs morning, I went to the doctor, got a prescription of antibiotics and painkillers and hopped on the plane. So although my state was absolute shit all weekend, I am very happy I made the trip out and learned a lot.

So we met LA Phil, talked about what openers we were going to use, how to deflect tests, what our goals were, etc for the first couple hours and then we went into action, and an interesting first night it was. My sticking points have been approaching mixed sets, sexual escalation and some residual approach anxiety, especially approaching large groups of moving women. So I asked LA Phil to start us with a couple demos, which he did, and then we got started.

Couple highlights from the first night: LA Phil was working with me on mixed sets and at one point we were chatting with some cute Swiss chicks that I had Horse Girl opened. At one point, LA Phil and I stepped aside and chatted a bit about things, the group dynamics, etc. Suddenly, these two huge guys go up to the girls and start talking to them. LA Phil says watch this. He slides between the two big guys and puts his arm around all the girls, blocking them out. Nice!! I turn back to a chick from the group that I had been chatting with and one of the guys that LA Phil has blown out comes over to me and says “Damn your friend is good” and goes sits with his buddies. The other big guy (Gorilla – I’ll call him as he must have been 6’4” 250lbs) stays on to challenge LA Phil. I look back over and Gorilla has his hand on LA Phil’s shoulder. I thought, oh crap, I do not want to fight this guy as both LA Phil and I are small guys. Then one of Gorilla’s friends comes over and takes Gorilla’s hand off LA Phil and escorts him back to his seat. Gorilla is fuming, screaming at us, which of course gets the girls all excited. I go back into the set that LA Phil is gaming and talk with them. LA Phil leans over and says let’s bail and go open new sets, I said ok and tell the girl I am chatting with that we’re leaving to go find some single chicks. She says “Wait, I’m single!!” Haha.

So then LA Phil spots this group of guys with a couple chicks, and he says to me to open them. These guys looked like a Mexican gang from the valley with their little chickitas. I am a short Caucasian Wall Streeter, so every bone in my body told me that approaching this group was clearly a bad idea. But in I go, opening with email breakup. What was interesting was that the alpha males and the chicks stuck around while all the beta males left. The alpha guys in the group were digging it, telling me that I should keep nailing the chick while testing me by asking me the chicks name, etc. I ended up joking around with them a bit, and got the chicks involved , so clearly shattering my preconceptions about mixed group approaches.

Afterwards I approached a group of three pretty hot Mexican chicks with HG. They didn’t speak English well, so I had to speak Spanish with them. One of them had her shoes off and was holding them in her hands. All of a sudden this hand appears over my shoulder and snatches one of the shoes from the chick. Gorilla was back! He starts yelling at them and these chicks were like WTF. I stayed in set and moved to box him out like LA Phil had done. By just being unfazed by the guy and ignoring him, he really didn’t do anything to mess with me. The chick wanted her shoe back though and was kinda freaked out as she barely spoke English, while Gorilla screamed at them about their shoes. Finally Gorilla gave the shoe back but these girls were a bit freaked out by Gorilla and wanted to leave, so I let the set go. But I really saw how effective the box out and ignore can be in certain sets. So those were the most interesting sets from the first night. Lots learned, some self limiting beliefs blown out.

Second day was day game. From multiple sets I saw how to mirror disinterest , as I show too much interest in a girl right from the get go. So in later sets I started using less eye contact and became much more aware of my nervous energy and my fidgeting as I am in set, so I set my focus on keeping my arms and hands still and relaxing, while not showing interest and gradually showing more interest as the chick earns it. This is something I am really going to practice on my cold approaches going forward. I also probably need to upgrade my summer wardrobe as summer approaches. I also discovered that I need to be way more aggressive in my kino upfront. One of my self limiting beliefs is that I shouldn’t aggressively kino in day game. Wrong!

I bailed early as needed to rest and was feeling like total crap, sick and little sleep. So I met LA Phil for the night session. We did some sets, I would normally open them and LA Phil would then game them, so I could observe how he gamed them and built attraction. Later he sent me into a set of two guys and a girl. I HG the chick and completely ignored the two guys. They kept trying to break in and kept saying “who are you?” and “are you serious” and “hey this is my sister” and I ignored them all and kept going. The brother was this tall good looking record producer guy and he was pissed. The chick though loved how I totally blew her brother out. Her friend later came up to me and told me how much she had loved my “My little Pony” story (I usually reference My Little Pony in my HG opener).

Then LA Phil worked with me again another two guy/one girl set, this time working with and including the guys in the conversation. This was all awesome training around mixed sets. Finally we pick a set for me to game and so I open with HG. This time I stay in set and LA Phil holds down the friend while I run the set and he observes. I start moving through one of my stacks. But this set was a classic example of a twenty minute set to nowhere, something I have mastered completely. This chick was clearly looking for dick, so it was my set to blow, and blow it I did.

Afterwards, LA Phil and I chatted about the set. He pointed out how I need to escalate my kino and also convey sexual intent in my conversation. Bingo! This is the missing link as it is something I never do in cold approaches. I just opened my 30/30 club month 7 CDs and they are titled “Physical Escalation” – so right on time!! After our session was over, I went to a club solo and started opening using heavy kino. I was running HG, which didn’t work too well for me as I think it might be a little long to run in a loud club environment. But I did open a bunch more chicks, using heavy kino.

Last day was a wrap up and a couple more demos. We did some inner game stuff and further work on my goal, etc. I then got a detailed analysis on my next steps. More approaches, watch what I do with my hands, mirror interest levels until she has “earned” my interest, then, physically escalate with kino and LA Phil has given me a few routines that I can use to convey sexual intent and escalate the conversation. Since joining 30/30 I’ve had to drop my old routine of wait for interest to be expressed and then get totally smashed with the chick, using alcohol to blow out any anxiety I have before sleeping with a woman. This does result in lays, but it’s very inconsistent and usually not with great women. Since starting 30/30 I have stopped drinking when I go out and I am really having to face up to my anxieties and learn how to properly escalate. I am really seeing how I play it very safe, being a “Nice Guy”. But I am seeing how being a Nice Guy is really being an Insincere Guy with fuzzy and incongruent intentions, which gets really shitty results. So I really have to blow these “Nice Guy” traits out. Basically if I am going to get better, I am going to need to grow bigger balls and lean more deeply into my fear. So to reiterate, taking a workshop is a great way to get really good feedback and is a great way to enhance the 30/30 program. It will point out any flaws in your game and give you a great roadmap forward for improving and moving forward. I also think LA Phil is a great coach and want to publicly thank him for a great weekend.