The Bootcamp with BradP and Gabriel
The cards were in play, the money was there, the timing was perfect and I just hung out with Brad as the 2007 PUA Summit and I knew training with this guy was on my path. First off, Brad’s style is not like the rest of the communities. I have been around the block for a while and most of the community is about getting any girl you want, any time; being able to approach any girl in any setting and seduce her. Mystery is the ultimate figure in this, with the 5-4-5 deal. If I recall, 545 is for every 5 girls you approach, you can convert all 5 of them into full on girl friends. That is fucking impressive and I am floored by Mystery! In fact, I wouldn't even be here, or even close to where I am without inspiration from Mystery. Now I believe I have described Brad in previous blog posts, but again he is about 6’5” but his body language makes him look about 10’10”. He has amazing focus, when he is talking to you, he looks you deep in the eye and has a flexible smirk on his face that at any moment can turn into uproarious laughter and glee. But he also has a dominant vibe, talking over him feels a bit weird (though it could be the whole teacher-student frame we are in.) He has an overall fun loving vibe, extremely loose and sincere and dedicated as a teacher. He will demo a set or watch you or anything, you just ask him. Brad’s style is also very tight, when you see him he looks like a real rock star, or whatever costume he is wearing. Gabriel is an interesting character, he honestly rubbed me as a long time friend, someone I can trust very easily and someone who is just cool to have around. In a sense, he comes under the radar because his game is fucking tight, yet he seems like a completely normal guy with great style. When a girl is around, he will run things step by step and do like improv. He also is a very insightful teacher and was able to help me out majorly in my game, one of the single biggest improvements I’ve ever had. His rapport skills are also very tight. I then practiced on Gabriel. Now, most of the community probably hasn’t heard of him, but he is a fucking amazing coach. He has a different vibe than Brad, so you can’t quite compare them; separate styles but exact same principals. Now, if I recall we ran out of time in the seminar so I never got a chance to really get Gab’s opinion in there, so I made a point to really talk to him out side while we walked to the new venue. I don’t recall our exact conversation, but I believe he just said he would demo in field and watch me closely. If you decide to take these boot camps, try to polish off your game, smooth out rough edges if possible (if not its okay) and when you take it ASK everything YOU CAN! I mean it, tell Brad exactly what you want to fix, ask him for all kinds of advice. It is really awesome, he is like your personal guru for 2 days, ask him anything. Take advantage of this fully! Do not be the quiet student waiting. So figure out where you game is now and then take the bootcamp and you will have MAJOR breakthroughs! Okay, it’s now Tuesday and I just got off the phone with Brad to finish the 3rd day. He guided me through an identification building exercise and details on how I can utilize resources around me, including emailing him if I have questions. Then we got into the in-depth analysis. Honestly, it felt like a really accurate cold read, it was extremely useful information nonetheless. He got a taste of me for 3 days and how my personality is really like and gave me some pretty big pointers. One thing I need to do eventually is get out of the suburban bubble and back pack through Brad was telling me a bit about his life and we seemed to have gone through fairly similar situations. We were both very tall, got picked on, played basketball and dealt with the whole basketball drama environment. Of course he told me how he eventually gotten over it all and now rarely deals with that shit. One of the reasons I chose Brad is because I felt his vibe and style is similar to mine, but his is of course much more developed. To sum up BradP’s camp in 2 words: Life Changing. Labels: Field Reports, Outings, Reviews
For me, it obviously never worked like that. It was more like 100-4-1 haha. After talking and being with a bunch of girls, I learned I don’t like most girls after awhile, maybe due to their vibe, degree of sexuality, values in life, and overall energy you name it. So I took a break from indirect game (i.e., Mystery Method) and tried out Grungey’s direct game. I really liked direct, except for the fact it takes a lot of my own courage and energy to muster up per approach, like A LOT for me. With direct, you know right away if the girl is at least semi interested.
Ahh, direct is awesome, don’t get me wrong. But, my path doesn’t lie in direct, at least I don’t think so now. BradP is a totally new style. Brad joined the community after learning and become an expert on his own in like 2005. He had his own seminars in a pizza parlor in New York City and eventually his students turned out to also be members of ASF and, yada yada yada, BradP is now probably one of the “top 5” guys around, if you are into scales.
But here is the truth. Brad, along with his assistant coach Gabriel, were probably the best, most accurate, most perceptive, most caring, most concerned, most legit teachers I have ever had. I am so fucking impressed. Okay, let me describe from the beginning.
We start out Friday with HEAVY traffic on Sunset Blvd so I get in about 20 minutes late, along with M, a guy who flew from
It started off with semi-casual intros, greetings and story swapping. We are still waiting on another person, so we just chill and I set up camp on one of the random chairs.
When everyone got in, we began by doing some exercises. You see, Brad is not about routines and memorizing too much—it’s mostly about vibe, being playful and flirty, being “socially free” and amazing body language. We only memorized 2 opening routines and learned a general concept for how to tell stories. The rest was almost like Improvisation practice, but these exercises were fucking amazing.
So we began by going over openers, I got to practice Horse Girl with Brad and get critiqued. Turns out, I was doing it all wrong! I was facing too straight on, I was too much in the girls face during it and pointing too my “YOU look just like her!” Even though I had a lot of fun making fun of new girls and flirting, I was a bit too much. Now it took me a whole other day to really soak in Brad’s teachings to really get it, along with observe him in field, however this was a start.
We go to our first venue. Brad hangs back since one of the students is under 21 and Brad plans out a way to get him in. I didn’t see it, but apparently Brad just captivated the door guy with his vibe and the student just slipped in. Haha. Well, we enter and Gabriel opens a huge set with Cotton Candy (“Hey do you know where I can get cotton candy at this time of night”) and just improvised from there. It was a huge set with all the girls paired up with guys, it would take like an hour to really get into the group, so with that Gabriel left and at this point Brad was in the venue. Time to see the guru in action :)
Brad walks around and gets a sprite for me and another student, and flirts with the bartender lady. He does some fun “Hey you are…. Ohhh I know you…” and waiting for her to fill in the blank. She doesn’t go for it and Brad is like “Ah well, just a warm up” Then Brad walks around and we stay close—during bootcamps, Brad tells us to watch him very closely, as all the sets are for us to see, unless he fucks a girl in the bathroom that is.
The next set Brad did was a rather long one. A 2 set, guy and girl sitting together at the bar. Brad opens with his ridiculous “Hello. I am from central and we were wondering if your stay here is above average, average, or crappier than average?” And he went with that. The girl seemed tentatively into him and Brad subtly kino’s her arm, but as Brad kept going, it became clear the guy was probably not her boy friend and he ended up talking to us! (It was me along with a few other students watching).
At first it felt like a TV Show watching Brad, but later on, watching Brad became an observation, a close study, and an inspirational event. Either case, Brad got the girls number through some weird way, like taking a picture of her and saying he’ll text message it to her. She gave him the number and that was that. Haha.
So now it was my turn to open and have Brad watch. I don’t think Gabriel was with me at that time. Now, as you may know, approach anxiety is kind of an annoying road block in a lot of my game, but honestly 90% of my approach anxiety disappeared when I told my mind “I want to get blown out, as long as Gabriel or Brad watches me, I’m cool.” With that, I open a girl sitting down with Horse Girl and though I do it all wrong, the girls laugh and I leave. Then Brad says it was good warm up and has me open another right after the blow out. This next girl was with her drunken friend hand in hand, and I open with horse girl again, perhaps a bit off. The girl seemed interested but she was a moron—I did the entire opener, she was laughing, “I am not the weird horse girl” and then her friend pulled her away. Later the drunken friend came up to me and started screaming “DID YOU CALL MY FRIEND A HORSE!?” holy shit, this girl was a drunken mess. This tiny girl is like staring me down, and I say “No, you miss heard me” and this girl has no negotiation ability, she is just full of rage and I just stare back at her. She is like “WHAT. HUH!” and I just stare back. Meanwhile, I notice Brad is still there, but he is actually talking to other people in the set, occupying time and I don’t think he noticed this drama at first. Anyway, I am in a fucking staring contest with this girl. I am looking at her and not looking away for like a full 2 minutes. That is a long time to stare someone in the eye, especially over a pick up line in a bar.
After the tension got super high, I realized something. I should be sending massive amounts of love through my eyes to this girl. As I realized this and I forced myself to feel massive amounts of love, I noticed her eyes began to dilate. It was very eerie and interesting. Soon the tension got humongous, so I broke the tension with “You know what, I really like you” and she just busted out laughing “Omg, what?? What the hell” She felt it and was so confused. She went from huge drunken rage to drunken love! It was crazy. I kept going “I wish I approached you first and not your friend, you stand up for your friends and I admire that. I like you”
That diffused it. She was perplexed and walked away. Brad then turned back to me and we talked about what happened. A few minutes later, I suppose the drunken love turned back to confusion and then resentment; a guy approached us asking “What was up with the horse thing, she’s not a horse” My god, it has been like 10 minutes and they are still hung up on it! So we tell him, “listen, I thought she looked like someone I knew from when I was a kid who liked horses, she just misheard me and now hates me. I meant no harm” The guy agreed and just joked around “haha okay okay, but just incase next time you want to call a girl a horse, at least buy her a drink!”
After the guy left, Brad was like “Haha, he is giving me dating advice” and we walk to the other side of the bar. That was that, I think the drunken rage girl followed me and was yelling “You startin’ drama huh?!” as we were all walking away. Crazy LA people haha.
So I continue opening through the night, more of the same sans the drunken angry chicks. One set I opened was another VH1 zombie: Her: “OMG VH1’s pick up artist is everywhere, please don’t talk to us” group. I got blown out before I could even say “hi” these girls were so fucking jaded, such a shame. I asked Brad to then open those girls, and even Brad could barely plow through, these girls had no vibe, they honestly dressed up, came to a bar in LA, and whenever guys would approach them, they were like “OMG Help! VH1! Help!” I don’t see why these girls come out to a bar on a hip Friday night in the first place.
We are now about half way through the night and the personal lessons start coming in. Gabriel is coaching me at this point in next venue and the first lesson is POSTURE. Man, I have worked and worked and worked on posture, but there is only so much a person can do with just a mirror. My friends like 4Five6 and Ulysses have pointed stuff out, but Gabriel is a fucking solid teacher. I was outside with Brad and Gabriel and Brad finally said, “Dude, we have to work on your body language. It FUCKING sucks!” Wow, ouch. That would have been an insult if instead they didn’t help me out right then, and help me out they surely did! Brad physically moved my back into shape, my shoulders and everything. Gabriel did the same thing too, they had no shame in shaping me. Hell if someone has good intentions and I trust them, it’s cool with me, especially if I pay them $1000 for it! I believe I told Brad early on to “Lay it on me. Tell me the like it is and correct the shit out of me”
Apparently my posture idea has been all wrong. I was always trying to straighten by back by sucking in my gut, pushing my lower back outwards, but the result was it seemed like I was learning forward. Through all the work, I ended up leaning way backwards! Like way, way back. The thing is, to an outside observer, it seems like I am straight up and down, normal. But to myself, it felt like I was leaning 10 degrees backward.
That was amazing lesson #1. That night ended with all of us having dinner and just chit chatting with Brad and Gabriel. Apparently the Australian guy got into a long set and made out with the girl! Nice! But, even if I had the chance, I wouldn’t. I came to Brad’s bootcamp for deep, fundamental changes. I already got lesson #1, keeping a straight up and down posture, something no one really was able to point out and actually help me correct.
The second day started out with more clothing advice. I let Brad and Gabriel know to lay down the advice real horror show. I.e., ignore my feelings, tell me like it is. With that said, Brad told me NEVER to wear my short-sleeved shirts again! Just burn them! I have shirts with funny catch phrases on them; they are semi tight on me, along with band names. Brad instead told me “just go for the sophisticated/mafia look.” So I went out with a black, button down shirt and a white blazer. It looked fucking cool, but so-long my tee shirts, I’ll miss you! Basically, Brad’s theory is style is all about looking like a person your girl would like to fuck—for example, looking like a band member from AFI. Girls want to fuck AFI members. However in my case, what famous archetype just wears jeans and a tee shirt that says “Led Zeppelin” on it and that is it. The rocker look needs more accessories, better jeans, boots, etc. My shirts are like half-assed. And I admit, they kind of are.
So my look is Mafia/Sophisticated and well dressed. This means nice slacks, a nice button downed shirt and a sport jacked or something, along with nice shoes. Perhaps 1 ring too and a hat—not a sports hat, but like a cow-boyish, hat (I forget the name, like a quarter sized top-hat).
With that said, Brad offered me his new fashion book for free (albeit, paying for his bootcamp is about 50x more than the ebook, I still very much appreciate it).
So I suppose that is like great mini-lesson #1b. Its not part of the super big 3 I got, first of which was a huge posture re-doing. Lesson #1b, how to dress!
The next thing we work on is this: Brad is very blatant when he says this “BigSend, you have a lethargic vibe” Whoa… that struck a chord in me—lethargic. That is the adjective. See if you know me, you’d notice that I am not super expressive with my face and body. For example, I’ll say something like “Get out of here” and my face will be fairly straight, not too intense. Perhaps I’ll yell if needed or get red, but my face doesn’t say, “Get out of here!” I asked Brad “Listen, if you can figure out a way to fix my lethargic vibe.. man that would fucking amazing” He mentioned this at the end of the first day.
Apparently Brad slept on it. Him and Gabriel may have discussed stuff, I am not sure. Either way, the second day we did some day game in The Grove and Brad had me work on my walk (while everyone else did something different). He knit-picked me, had me do a bunch of walks till we found the exact one needed. He made me swagger, bounce, move tight, move loose and we finally found the walk. It is hard to describe here, but basically it is leaning way back, swinging from side to side, using lots of forward momentum—almost aggressive—and just being dominant.
And, ding ding, this was amazing lesson #2. Brad put a good amount of work into this and got it, a dominant walk and stride. It feels so new to walk now, although it does go hand in hand with #1, this is lesson #2.
Along with this, I got to observe more sets by Brad and get more advice from Gabriel. Since I am so tall, I should lean in from the side or bend my knee(s) to lean in, or hang my neck down, but not face her straight on and bend downward.
Well that night, we went out to the same bars, but this time we did street approaches first. I was with Gabriel at this time and he got to watch me very closely as I opened street sets. One set was super bad, I opened the girls when they were like 3 feet from me and walking fast, they seemed scared and walked off. At that moment or so, Gabriel was like “Dude! You need to move your face more when you speak!” I was a bit dumbstruck… my God I think he’s right! Deep down, I know there is a part of me that wants to break free and I have suppressed it through the years, thinking back it could be getting made fun of and told “Be cool dude, be cool” I am pretty sensitive and feel like I have hidden this side of me.
After this, that part of me CAME BACK TO LIFE. I shit you not, email Brad and ask if you don’t believe me. I started moving my face like crazy, furrowing my brow, moving my cheeks, squinting one or both eyes, curling my lips, moving my nose, you name it. All the guys there in the bootcamp were watching and cracking up. I recall moments like these in High School when I’d be expressive and everyone would laugh and have a great time, but those rarely came out. Now, I feel I got it back!
We went back into the bar soon enough and my God, sets were going amazing. Lesson #3, MOVE YOUR FACE! Express yourself! Talk with your body, face and then mouth! I was opening with Horse Girl by looking at the girl with a cock-eyed look and furrowing my brow and the girls were like “Omg, haha!” One girl I opened was previously opened by Horse Girl.
Me: “Hey… do you like horses” [I was being very expressive]
Her: “OMG I already got asked this”
Me: “You always get asked this!” [Facial expressions by me. Maintaining frame]
Her: “You know what I said to the last guy who said this to me” [bye-bye motion]
Me: “You always go bye-bye to guys”
And she was laughing! My expressiveness, personality everything was coming out, it was GREAT!!
Her: “Haha, but I haven’t said bye-bye to you yet, so nice!”
But I eventually lost her, the shit-tests were getting pretty severe and she sort of drifted off.
I eventually run into Brad and I start talking to him with my expressive face. He lights up and is like “OMG!! THAT IS IT!!! YOU’RE CURED!!” So Gabriel fixed this, Brad has good, solid coaches!
The rest of the night I was opening, but honestly, I got my shit. I got what I needed. Those 3 lessons were the $1000.
The lessons in order:
1. Lean back! All the time
1b. Dress advice (I added this later, I like top 3)
2. Walk dominantly, don’t seem submissive ever.
3. Move my face and be expressive!
Along with this is Brad’s amazing story telling ability. It is crazy, but Brad can take any shitty, weird story and turn it into the most exciting attractive piece you have ever heard. I mean this shit blows half the routines in the community out of the water. I can’t really explain what he does, I asked him. He hears a boring story, takes out every exciting point and links them together in a way that is quick, to the point, and has a huge climax.
The third day I had to leave early. It was the optional day, so I will write more about it later. The day was more about self-help, setting goals, and getting a deeper evaluation. I had to leave early to make it to a Hamsa Yoga meditation, as this will be the last mediation Guru is giving in my area for a long time and I felt the need to go there. The truth is, I was so mentally and physically worn out from the BradP bootcamp, it hurt my legs like crazy to sit cross-legged, and I couldn’t really mediate. My mind was too out of whack. My soreness was a bit too much and fuck, I really didn’t get anything out of the mediation. Well, that isn’t quite true, it was a great meeting but about half was through my legs just started to ache real bad.
Brad agreed to give me a free phone consultation to make up for the early leaving.
All in all, I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this bootcamp!! Christ all mighty. But first, understand that I have been in the community for awhile, I fixed A LOT of my game before this boot camp, I fixed a lot of my approach anxiety (even though I still have a lot of it, I opened dozens of solid sets), some students in the camp seemed to barely open many sets. Others came just to help relieve approach anxiety. That is cool. From what I seen, you can be at almost any level and get a lot out of the bootcamp, on the second day Brad tailors lessons for each student individually and mentors you through them personally. So a beginner would do basic stuff and get fundamental fixes, advanced guys would get advanced stuff and also be mentored.
BradP along with Gabriel are EXTREMELY perceptive. They seem to know exactly when to teach you stuff and when to wait. They can be harsh, like Brad telling me my posture “fucking” sucked. But he also helped me out big time, personally moving me into place. Gabriel was working hard on me too, he wasn’t just sitting there saying “Just be cool dude” he was thinking hard, trying new stuff all the time and finally figured out what was wrong!
These guys are legit. They are amazing in set, but again you won’t see them hook every girl, in fact I didn’t really go into their successful sets too much, you can read Brad’s 50 Lay Reports floating around the net for that. Instead their style is “Blow me, or Blow-me-out!” That is, they are either IN or they are OUT. No wasting time, though they will plow through hard sets and keep trying, but a girl who has no vibe will be elemi-dated.
Man I have to tell you more, one set I opened by looking at every girl there very cock-eyed, I ran horse girl on one of them, but another girl came up and was like “OMG Who Do you think you are HUH!?” And I just looked at her cock eyed, furrowed my brow, smiled, squinted my eyes and then she ASKED ME TO SPANK HER!! Wtf!! She was like “SPANK ME BIG BOY!” Man, I turned that blowout into a spanking session. I spanked her HARD! Ooo, I felt the sexual vibe increase a lot! Fuck it though, I didn’t know what to say next and all the girls in the group were just staring are at me like I had 9 dicks growing out of my face. I got to get comfortable with crazy success and keep going with it, that was NUTS!!
There were more crazy sets, including ones where Brad personally winged me and ran interference for me (i.e., diffused cock blocks). Also, Brad demonstrated a few more sets, one in which he almost got the girls in the alleyway to fuck him, but not quite and he even took his shirt off in the middle of the street and every girl was like “I LOVE YOU!”
This is probably one of the most life changing experiences I’ve ever had, and I didn’t even finish Day 3 (will get on the phone with Brad on Tuesday probably). I got some harsh, though very wise criticism on my dress, posture, expressiveness, and my walk/dominance. That covers A LOT. And plus, this is stuff that comes into play in all walks of life. Being more expressive in my face will be there in every social interaction. Same with my style and walk.
BradP's Dating System: http://simurl.com/bradp_uds
Brad's email (he responds to them personally) datinggurubrad (at) yahoo.com
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