Tokyo July Bootcamp FR

[Ditto]

So it seems like I should note how and why I decided to take this bootcamp when I don't currently live in Asia. Long story short, I got to Japan on a family vacation and saw a bunch of cute girls there, and thinking back to every other (failed) attempt to ask girls on dates in my life, I looked for inspiration online, and for a place that girls went to "get met" as is a typical social requirement of California. I found RPQ's posts on pickupasia and really liked the way he delivered information with evidence to back it up, unlike most things I'd read from pickup artists in the past.

Just to attempt to explain how weird this was for me, my family thinks it's a big deal when my cousin got a boyfriend after being in Australia for months. I did this to break the long line of men in my family who couldn't open a girl well if there was a gun to their head. So during a visit to Tokyo Disneyland with my family, I told them I was going out for a run and snuck out to do the screening phone call with RPQ over bad hotel wifi on Line chat. I half believed I was being scammed up until I met everyone in person because seriously, who could have possibly figured out how women think, right? After reading the fashion primer I bought a 7 dollar shirt and some blue slacks from Don Quijote the thrift store to replace my standard, function only, cargo pants wardrobe. 

 

Day 1 - Night game

I don't know if we use names on the forums and none of my bootcamp mates have pseudonyms that I know so I will use letters 

We met in a cheap restaurant frequented by families and high school students. RPQ and TJ were already there. I had read the black book a time and a half and almost nothing was going through my head but "stay calm or you'll do that twitching shit with your face and girls will get weirded out." Out of my comfort zone is one of my favorite places, but that doesn't mean I'm any good at being there. The Touch would soon arrive and we'd begin going over the first lesson: the parts of the sarge, logistics, and how to do opening and attraction. During dinner RPQ opened the girls across from us and had them giggling with some silly faces, that much seemed possible, "but don't do that twitching shit, don't." @ladysman6969 made a quick appearance to say hi, and that we'd be meeting him through the night. 

It was decided we'd go to a bar first. On the walk up the silent battle of nerves continued. This is a bar? It spills right out into what looks like a nice hotel corridor. The first set is a blur in my memory, I believe it was a girl and her mom sitting at a table, I ejected early because my social abilities couldn't take me past "do you like this place?" The second set spoke pretty good English and the girl more or less isolated herself for me, I think she was with friends and I did not hook the set like I was supposed to. A little talking about how she went to Yale or Caltech and no BT spikes or qualification. We made two rounds of the bar and left for A-life where we met Prime, who gave us packs of gum so our throats wouldn't get too sore from all the yelling (I recently finished that by the way and it helped a ton, thanks!) My first time in a club and the nerves hadn't gotten to me one bit. I fought to hear RPQ's brief over the "STAY CALM DAMNIT." RPQ points to a three set sitting on a bench near the bar, "go tell her 'your bag is SO big, you must be really strong!' and motion like this, go." I walk the step and a half towards them and try the seemingly ridiculous opener, they giggle. I find out it's just the three of them. RPQ either has to send in my wing for me or remind me to. "Who's the bad girl?" Am I supposed to know that? "This is the bad girl!" I say, pointing to the one closest to me so I don't have to think about maneuvering, leaving precious cycles for my social skills that are hitting all kinds of memory faults. I run the set terribly, running no attraction and going straight to comfort with the sweet innocent looking Japanese girl who just smiles and is happy for the attention. RPQ pulls us out of the set. What just happened? Time for another, my wing and I exchange smiles acknowledging that it could have gone a lot worse.

AA starts to set in, can I really do that again? I'm loving the adrenaline on the other hand which is almost worth it in and of itself. @ladysman6969 is walking by us yelling, "Open, open, open!" RPQ turns to me and points at a girl, "Go tell her ..." I ready myself and start the opener, getting immediately blown out. Okay, that's supposed to happen sometimes. I see a girl who looks like she's about to throw up, perfect! Maybe I can go give her basic medical aid or at least offer to get her to a chair, she needs wa.. "DAIJOBU"(She's fuckin fine mate) the four foot tall friend intercepts me with a surprising amount of force "Wait but she looks.." "DAI JO BU." RPQ then had to explain to me what the 'terminator walk' is and how approaching girls like you're getting ready for a street fight isn't a good way to make them feel safe. Believe it or not this is a huge revelation for me. The night goes on, approach casually, not in a straight line. I eventually hook a reasonably attractive, tall girl. I'm talking about her job and how she manages mining investment portfolios for some huge company, is there with her coworkers, and likes playing golf. Probably about 15 minutes in, I'm talking to a girl! RPQ comes up, "what's cool about this girl?" and leaves. I stare blankly, wow, I don't think this girl is cool at all actually. It didn't hit me till later that it was because I needed to ask the questions that told me cool things about her. A few minutes more and I eject. RPQ has me try the "what animal is this?" opener on a sad looking girl whose friend is being hit on. Compliance is low, kino is still near nonexistant. I ask if she wants to go dance because I'm out of stuff to say and she leaves immediately when we get to the dance floor. 

We move to the top floor where the music is so loud that I can just barely project my voice enough for the girls to hear me. Sat in set with an older lady who liked rap music, ejected. Get instantly blown out on a two set by opening the hot girl. RPQ has us all open a big 5-8 set separately and we all exchange grins briefly. RPQ grabs my arms and places them on the girl's waist, she hardly flinches. Right kino is a thing, and wow, it's awesome. At one point Ladysman brings me in to wing on the obstacle in a 2 set, I forget to isolate and ruin the set. Felt bad. I get blown out quite a few times towards the end of the night and we go for the debrief. We pass the 'what animal is this girl' who had seemed entirely uninterested on the street and suddenly she had a huge smile and was waving like I'd just met a friend from high school. I still can't tell if that was social proof or she just realized noone else was hitting on her lol.

 

Day 2 - Day game

After a restful four and a half hours I was back on the metro to the day 2 lesson. I believe we talked about longer term logistics and more in depth about opening and attraction. 

Off to the plaza at the mall, our objective is to try and bounce sets to the Starbucks for coffee. My first set I think my new wing TT opens and we get blown out for no Japanese pretty quickly. RPQ sends me after a girl in a yukata to ask what's going on today, the set lasts for about 5 minutes with some okay BT spikes but I never transition her out of just being a really helpful person, despite a few "do you want to go to the festival with me later then?" attempts on my part. We go to the Starbucks because someone wanted to order coffee, I am in line and open some entirely unattractive girls, then buy a water and a donut because I felt the need to justify being in line. This immediately got a nasty look from RPQ who assured me that that's not why I was there, and nobody cared what I did anyway. I introduced the girls to my wing "these are my new friends." "What the fuck is that? Something gay shit they say in America? These are girls you want to bang, not your friends," was the gist of the chastisement I received for that less than alpha line.

The AA for me and my wing is pretty bad most of the session. We approach and probably due mostly to our weak body language and openers get immediately told "I don't speak English." We start pulling out translators, and talking to sets that aren't at all up to our imagined low standards. We do end on a decently good note running separate sets all talking about the strange spider statue above us. 

After the debrief TT and I open a set behind us that had been smiling at us, my target starts taking a phone call almost immediately and we stay a bit for TT to practice. We open another set with two shy girls playing with boy idol group dolls. We stay in set for the sake of practice but mostly just get minor reactions and try to keep them interested.

Night game

We meet in a burger king to talk about deep comfort and sexualization. Having it proved to us that we don't know how to articulate the physical attributes of a sexual state at all, and RPQ makes everyone uncomfortable while talking to them seductively -- of course illustrating how you can copy a state or be in it.

We go back to the same bar as night 1, I try to open a girl from a 2 set that a non PUA guy is already working on (talking to in drunk Japanese and looking pretty beta) he preferred talking to me and the girls left pretty quickly, it illustrated why we isolate quite well though. As I wandered around more Prime told me to come over and talk to this girl, she was not cute at all but would Prime wanted me to get past my problems with talking to girls and arguably self image, she would be sufficient to prove his point. Prime helped translate a lot for us, he'd tell me what to say, I'd say it, then he'd translate it to the girl LOL. He had all these cheesy lines like how she was a nurse and I had a broken heart that she could fix. He showed me what a good set could look like and by the end of about 15 minutes she was resting her head on my chest and occasionally reaching over to squeeze my ass. Seeing this opened my eyes to what I could do if I'd just learn the tools and get good at using them. RPQ broke half my frames about the world, and Prime just broke half of mine about myself haha. Thanks again brother.

We went to 1OAK next, TJ successfully opened what looked to me like a difficult 3 set of married women who were actually kino compliant and fun to talk to, lasted about 10 minutes. Opened a 2 set with a very compliant girl and her unhappy yet cockblock-happy friend. Brought in my wing who had a hard time with the angry obstacle and eventually she took her friend away. Opened a nurse in a 2 set and used some of Prime's lines from not even an hour before, they worked again. It was a trip, managed to qualify a tiny bit, do comfort, attraction, and even seed going a few places. Her friend had to go to the bathroom, but I had her agree to meet me downstairs. RPQ said Line message them and say my friends wanted to continue exploring, so we continued. Opened a tall half russian girl who I totally would have gone for except she didn't align with any of my qualification questions, she stayed hooked for a while but as I ran out of things to talk about she said she had to use the bathroom and asked me to hold her drink. I didn't recognize this for a shit test until the next day and when she came back and saw me still holding it and talking to one of the guys she walked out to the dancefloor lol. Helped wing on a couple of obstacles but eventually just started opening a lot, and started actually enjoying just going for the hard looking opens and getting blown out. Opened a 3 set from the wrong side and got a lesson on opening the whole set and talking across them rather than starting by who I'm opening. Felt great as we left 1OAK for the debrief, even despite my 4 year gap in social interaction.

On the way to the debrief RPQ opened a 2 set of hostesses, I sat there grinning like a moron just taking it all in, completely forgetting that I'm not supposed to distract the set yet. I'm called in to wing on the obstacle hostess and after a very brief bit of attraction and logistics discovery RPQ invites them to join us for breakfast. His target plants her feet and will not move, and we just go into the "come on why are you so slow?" bit. RPQ had explained this tactic to us so it seemed totally natural and I was having a great time, not even realizing that her action was a form of reticence at all, I just thought it was part of the game. It was the end of day 2 of bootcamp okay. We walked them to breakfast with a "it's not that far" and I mainly BT spiked with my nonexistent Japanese and RPQ did the "what do you think of this girl" and ran to get everyone else to catch up. Debrief was fun with the hostesses there even though I made my girl angry, I think by joking that her long painted nails were scary, and not reassuring her they were cute afterwards. Watching RPQ gain kino compliance in the two steps forward one step back manner until the hostess was okay, and eventually happy with him grabbing her face was amazing. Afterwards we walked the girls to the station and RPQ explained how the logistics could have worked if we wanted to try to home bounce them. This was easily the most exciting thing I had done in a long time, and I had just gotten my skydiving certification for shits and giggles.

 

Day 3 - Day game

The final day we met up at a vegetarian restaurant and discussed hero stories. At one point the waitress asked, "is everything okay?" RPQ answered, "yeah but it'd be better if you joined us." and motioned at a chair. The waitress giggled and might have given some excuse about having to work. I still want to try that one. 

RPQ set up at a table at Starbucks so we could bounce girls there if it was full. We started off in different directions to approach and still experiencing some AA I walked back and forth about twice before kicking myself and remembering I didn't have to have perfect conditions, that was the point. I opened a girl and talked with her for a while and she responded well even though I ran the set terribly, she was married of course. Got her Line anyway to prove to myself I could. I started approaching a bunch of walking sets that were going back and forth past the subway. One girl spoke very little English but we ended up playing rock paper scissors and I just tried to see how much incidental kino I could get in while I failed to think up things to say. She gave me her Line but said she had to go shop, never replied I think. I tried to find a shop to buy one of the Japanese sweat rags that everyone has since I was sweating buckets, and opened a few two sets on the way, none that agreed to a bounce. One kept walking as I talked lol. In the store I opened five or six sets with "that's cute" or "what tastes good" or "hey there can I help you." One was a set of keen girls that I remembered to ask if they were in high school finally. Yes. I ejected with a "I like your contacts" in broken Japanese. Never got a real sweatrag, but I opened some (probably) Yakuza members which was fun, they tried to tell me which drink they thought was good.

I ran into TT again and we opened a few more sets in a dark alley which didn't go so well. After a few opens I saw a girl looking confused so I went and offered to guide her, despite not knowing where the hell I was. She said where she was going so I looked it up, and took her hand saying, "alright let's go!" She withdrew her hand, later I learned that was a bit much, but I kept to the rule of lead the girl. I took her to her 100 yen shop where we picked out a basket and some trinkets for her, doing BT spikes and comfort mostly. I convinced her to go to a Starbucks with me on the way back and I took her to the first one that I remembered passing. BT spiked by ordering 10 of the drink she wanted in Japanese I had her teach me in line (I previously said how many do you want? 10? 20? and she answered 10) Did some qualification and sexualization that she was reasonably receptive to. Had no idea when we were supposed to meet for the debrief because I manage to forget the important stuff, so RPQ called and told me to wrap it up haha. Told her we had to go and took her to the subway entrance, got her to give me a "kiss on the cheek" which was actually an inch away but she didn't outright refuse. 

 

The only thing I regret about the bootcamp is that I didn't take it 10 years sooner lol. The amount of time it would have taken to learn all the things I learned in 3 days on my own would have been immense. And even though I am nowhere near done, the difference in the capacity I have to approach girls still amazes me every time I think about it. I went from unable to express interest in girls that were basically throwing themselves at me a week before, to closing a girl from a gucci store who had no IOI's that I could see 3 days later.

 

Apologies for the long winded FR, this was the track my mind had to take to remember what happened in reasonable detail 2 and a half months ago. I tried to leave out a lot of the superfluous stuff.

[RedpoleQ]

Great FR, man!  You KILLED it on the boot camp.  Thanks for winging me in that set, it was a lot of fun, and it was great seeing you in Chengdu!  Looking forward to you doing a daily write up like @The Animal so we can really up your game!

[Ditto]

Haha don't try to butter me up! But yeah that set was super fun, and the sex seminar was everything I could have hoped and more lol. I don't know about daily but yeah I'll start a thread about my approaches because I really could benefit from feedback rather than just trying to calibrate off what I remember at the time!