I attended a weekend seminar with John La Tourrette with two other guys from Project Oslo and a bunch of people from Project Copenhagen. I’ll let the wisdom from the seminar seep into my upcoming posts in different ways, but I specifically want to focus on one golden nugget which will really help out people who are just starting out.
As with a lot of of La Tourrette’s teachings, it’s communicated using stories and experiences. This particular item of information was communicated to us using a story. I’ll try to retell it here, crossing my fingers hoping that no essential knowledge is lost in the process:
Some time ago, I had a friend who always ended up in bar fights. And he consistently lost them, getting beat up. The apparent problem was that he wasn’t really a good fighter. Coming from a martial arts background, I taught him a simple left-left-right combo. Installing this One Process drastically improved his abilities in bar fights, even though it’s a very basic move.
The problem with social interactions is very similar for a bunch of guys starting out. “I don’t know what to say when I’m opening” creates approach anxiety, even though the problem isn’t really real; most guys could probably go situational if they actually opened.
Installing One Process in this context would be to learn and completely memorize at least one solid all-round opener. Knowing that you have this knowledge will probably remove approach anxiety caused by the excuse “I don’t know what to say”. And actually knowing this one opener will not mean that you actually have to use it all the time. It’s just there as a worst case fallback if you ever freeze up completely.
Social experience gives you fluidity in social situations because the experiences installs a number of processes that you’ve tested and are confident about.
Personally, I’ll install at least one process for a number of pickup related areas. I also have a bunch already installed, for opening, LMR, etc. I’ll try to map out the processes I already have installed in later posts, but for now the challenge to you, the reader, is:
Install One Process for opening, if you already have One Process (or more) installed, not at a theoretical level but a practical one, describe which process(es) you have installed as comments to this post. Find two stickingpoints and nominate processes you want to get installed in response to them.
It’s important that you actually go out and consolidate the process, it should be automatic. No more “I don’t know what to say” when you see a hot chick on the street, because you have at least One Process installed.
If you have a problem coming up with good processes to install, check out material in the community; there’s really a bunch of excellent material. Also, stay tuned for a future post which will be on opening, different types of openers and how we routinely go from approach to number-close in short time.