The seminar is The Blueprint Seminar. That is, basically, the seminar version of the book, The Blueprint. Of course since the book is not yet available, the seminar is currently the only way to get the information. Tyler plans (unofficially) to do another Blueprint seminar in LA in December, which will be filmed for DVD release some time in 2008.
Tyler kicked off by talking about The BP and how it was created. He laid out his intention for the seminar, which was to present “an advanced program for hardcore hobbyists who want to go deeper and become absurdly successful with women”. This is meant to be advanced material for guys who want to take their game to the very highest levels. That’s not to say you wouldn’t get an enormous amount out of it if you were new to the whole thing, but a lot of the basics were assumed. There was very little content in terms of “Game”. No routines. No body language tricks. No openers. No DHV tricks. No Plotlines.
Tyler is an accomplished public speaker and keeps the participants involved in the discussion. At one point he asked the audience how long he had been speaking for. Answer: Three Hours. Inevitably this made the seminar quite a demanding experience. There is a lot of material to take in and a ton of inter-related concepts to get one’s head around.
I found bits of what we were hearing familiar. Other parts were new to me, or at least only recently covered on Tyler’s blog. For example, Tyler covered Social Conditioning extensively on day one. A lot of the concepts here will be familiar to long standing community members, especially those familiar with Croatian PUA Shark, who covers the concept of Social Conditioning on some of his products. On the other hand, this was the first time I had been properly exposed to ideas like Self-Esteem vs Ego, or the idea of Drawing State from Within, rather than from the environment.
I particularly liked the breakdown of Approach Anxiety. Not only did Tyler manage to convey exactly what is going on with AI but he also gave us the exact information we need to deal with it. Hint – it’s about getting reference experiences that the approach will work or that if it doesn’t then nothing bad will happen. Of these, the latter is easiest to internalise and therefore should be where you focus your attention.
A good deal of Thursday was spent banging nails into the coffin of why you need to be good looking, tall and rich to get women. If you think you still need all that stuff, Tyler would have put you straight by lunchtime. This was pretty powerful for me as although logically I understood the idea, I’ve often had it nagging away at the back of my mind “Ahhh, but … this guys’s got XYZ and I haven’t.” And it’s not like you even need masses of something else to compensate. If you have even a tiny fraction more charisma than the “other guy” you’re going to succeed, regardless of his superficial qualities.
Tyler conveyed the current RSD approach to “game” which struck me as pretty Zen-like. He described the ideal mental state for approaching – “Think Nothing. Feel Good.” Yes, that’s right, you walk over with no plans in your head and no opening lines cued up. Non-verbals are everything. And this isn’t about learning how to fake anything. This really is about being an attractive man and allowing the women to pick up on that.
The strength of the BPS, to me, is not in the individual pieces (although they are still massively strong even in isolation) but in the way they combine and build to form a coherent whole. Tyler’s meticulously explained concepts pile up to form a bigger picture with pieces slotting together like a jigsaw puzzle. I found that I kept pinging with little realisations of what things meant, and more importantly, what they meant for me personally in terms of where I am at with my game.
An example would be in how Closing relates to Opening. Tyler spoke about how most guys have “Close Anxiety”, but they don’t realise it. They think it is technique, but actually the same ability that would get you to the Open would serve you equally well if applied to the close.
Another example was the realisation that it is Value creating the attraction/connection/whatever. Not the other way round. Women will massively rationalise that you have a connection if she feels your value. If you are a quirky guy, then your Value is what will make you Interesting rather than, say Geeky or Socially Inept. I think I’ve often got it back to front and assumed I needed to be a particular way in order to create value.
Since I’d like this to be a balanced review, I’ve dredged my memory banks for some downsides. They are few and far between. As ever, I guess the main one is that the event ran on RSD time. That is, with a surprisingly casual disregard for punctuality. Not a big deal, but could be annoying, I guess. To me it seemed a little at odds with the strong masculine traits that Tyler was proposing as a model for attraction.
There was also such a lot of material delivered that at times it was quite hard to keep up. I restricted myself to only taking notes to try to jot little reminders. I wanted to comprehend the material, rather than produce a transcript. Tyler was happy to take questions whilst presenting, though could perhaps have provided a couple more formal question and answer times.
Negatives aside, in case you can’t tell from this review, I really loved this seminar. I’ve been feeling super-happy since – that’s something you’ve got to actually learn to do and make yourself do, btw. It doesn’t just happen by itself but don’t worry, the “how to” is covered in the seminar. I’ve felt myself enjoying a change of thinking in lots of areas and it has really inspired me to get out and do more. The principles really align with what I believe in.
I had some pretty cool experiences when I was out on the seminar nights. (NB Evening Bootcamps are not included, although they are available as an extra – I was out with other people, anyway) For example simple stuff like realising that I have previously been somewhat stifled and talking a lot louder on the Thursday night meant I was getting plenty of female attention and doing things I wouldn’t normally do. I was noticing opportunities I wouldn’t have seen before and not letting things like girls mentioning a “boyfriend” deflect me. I was pushing myself a lot more than usual – I even brought The Claw out for another test drive.
Crashing a private party was fun. I think they were some religious organisation, or something, so I didn’t mind too much when they politely asked us to leave. It even seemed funny that they were being so uptight when presented with the opportunity to have a little fun. I guess I was rejected but somehow it didn’t feel that way and it simply did not matter. It was kind of sad to later have dinner with an old friend and to hear how down he’d got himself over women. Just the Thursday morning on looks/money would have blown his mind and he’d have been on his way.
I had a planned night in with my GF on the Saturday. After an afternoon of extensive coverage of the concepts of Masculine Polarity, I was in just the right frame of mind for our evening together. I really pushed things to a new level with her and we both enjoyed some powerful and new experiences together.
It’s early days, yet, for me to comment on the impact this event has had on my game. Initial impressions are very positive, though. Tyler made it clear that this is not a magic pill seminar. He did, however, set our expectations very clearly on what would be required to improve. Game is meant to be easy and fun. It should not be about approach anxiety or having to think about things in your head. I am really looking forward to getting out into the field and having a whole lot more fun with PU.