Hey guys, this is RadiantSun. I didn’t meant to make you guys wait for me. I know Khiem said I’d post my entry the day after his but he and I had to make sure you guys would really get something out of my writing… so without further ado, here’s part one of my perspective of the Los Angeles PUA Summit 2007.

Have you ever woken up and felt a little uncomfortable with what you did the day before?

That’s how I felt the morning after the PUA Summit. I worked there as a volunteer because I was interested in learning about what the Seduction Community was teaching men and I wanted to help out my friend Johnny Wolf, whom I’ve met through Khiem. My biggest discomfort came from the fact that I felt I was being publicly too supportive and I didn’t make my voice and my real opinions be heard enough when I disagreed.

When I went, I really wanted to like every speaker but in truth, it wasn’t the case. I liked some of the speakers, from the message they had, to how they presented themselves, their ideas, their goals, and their hopes for other members of the Community but with some other ones, I felt like I was in second grade. I was bored and I thought that any woman with self-esteem would not fall for that crap.

I understand that some of the techniques (even if it’s crap) obviously work for some men and not others. It also works on some women and not others, but some of the “crap” that seems to work plays on the fact that some (younger) women really aren’t sure about themselves. They don’t know what they want, especially with men and it doesn’t matter if they are a bitch or not. Is it what you guys want to play with? The self-assurance that a confident man (not boy) would want from a high quality woman doesn’t usually come until the woman reaches her late 20’s, early 30’s or later, rarely earlier. Unfortunately, sometimes it never happens.

I also know that some of the techniques taught are designed to knock-out a woman’s “bitch shield,” but have you ever stop to consider why we even have those in the first place? We want to meet real, genuine and masculine men. We have bitch shields to protect us from being hurt. If you were being real with us, we wouldn’t need our bitch shield up.

Another big concern for me was the issue of safer sex. Women love sex just as much as men, maybe more, but I was worried to note that the use of condoms was only mentioned once. It was only mentioned in the Vin DiCarlo Escalation Ladder and it wasn’t even talked about in a manner to remind men to practice safer sex. Instead, “Do you want me to get the condom?” was used to bypass the woman’s resistance in removing her panties when she’s already being aroused by your foreplay skills. If you’re having sex, please don’t be a disease vector too!

STDs, testing, and prevention was never discussed. I had a one-on-one conversation with a guy who seemed concerned with ethical sexual behavior. What I shared with him are two guidelines that I think will help:

1. Get tested regularly, for everything. Get vaccinated for HPV (difficult to find a place that will vaccinate men but they exist, call aim-med) and hepatitis (any GP Dr.)
2. Be honest with the type of relationship you want. There are many women who don’t want a relationship and just want sex. If that’s all you want, those women are great matches. If you know you are not going to marry the girl or don’t want to be monogamous with her, tell her upfront so that she is free to make her own decisions about what is right for her. It may surprise you but there are quite a few young women who are comfortable with that kind of thing.

I really feel that the risky parts of sex got glossed over, and that’s unfair to you guys and the girls you are having sex with.

Now, let’s talk about the speakers. I’m paraphrasing a lot, so not everything may be 100% accurate.

The second person I met at the summit was Vince Kelvin. I had a hard time taking Vince seriously. He dressed very peacock-ish (aka way over the top, especially for his age). His attire didn’t provide him the credibility or high value status that I expected, which interfered with my ability to respect him. However, since he was one of the event organizer, I followed his instructions. Overall, the summit was very well organized but to me, Vince seemed disorganized when coordinating the volunteers… probably because he was always scrambling to get the next thing accomplished. I think it worked well anyway because the volunteers were all smart people to begin with.

Johnny’s sister was also a volunteer. I really liked her. I felt more comfortable knowing that there was another intelligent female who was in support of what the Community had to teach. It was also cool for me to see siblings helping each other out.

Johnny Soporno

The first speaker I heard was Johnny Soporno. He was an older man, somewhat round, and had thinning hair. He talked about the evolution of the concept of property, farming, plots of land, control, etc. He explained that when you own something and you cannot walk away from it, it owns you too. For example, if you own a house and you can’t walk away from it, you become slave to it as it owns you too. One of the most important things I think he said was:

Women are not property. You do not own them. They do not own you. This does not mean we do not want to be together but if we are together, it is out of choice, not obligation.

Violet Marcell, his girlfriend, was on stage with him but she was not his only woman. Johnny Soporno is explicitly honest with every woman he is with. He is not a one woman man and has two rules for himself:
1) that he must not be the only cock a woman is getting
2) I forgot the other one but I remember feeling like it was reasonable.

I can see that he is a very sexually open person even though he dresses kind of like one of my geek friends. I surprisingly didn’t have a problem with anything I heard him say. He came from a place of deep honesty with who he was and with what his intentions were. He is 100% okay with a girl not being interested in what he has to offer. He is very non-needy and that made him attractive. He also didn’t like to judge women by calling them sluts when they are just sexually open and free. You shouldn’t have to call any woman a slut, whether you sleep with them or not. This only hurts you in the long run.

I talked to him a little off-stage to ask his opinion on a past relationship. The guy told me I could see other men as long as I didn’t tell him about it because he was going to do the same. I wasn’t sure how to take that. I didn’t want to do anything I couldn’t talk about so I never slept with anyone else. That obviously didn’t work for me long term. Johnny Soporno compared his behavior to the “Gays in the Military: don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy. In his opinion, it doesn’t work. It comes from the place of “I don’t care as long as I don’t know” and that is dishonest, particularly to yourself. It always seemed a little chicken-shit to me, it was nice to have confirmation from an intelligent male who lived this lifestyle and had clearly put a lot of thought into how to make it work optimally. He also gave me a link to his site, Seductive Reasoning. I will watch it this weekend.

Adam Lyons

He had a lot of energy, and was a young wiry, well-groomed and normally dressed guy. He intentionally referred to himself as an AFC. His modesty made him charming. His main idea was: if you go to a club, meet and be friendly with everyone. Getting social proof builds comfort automagically ahead of time for you. People notice you the same way they notice a hot girl being approached by many men. They will look at you, smile at you and get curious about you as you are walking around the room building your value.

Like a true socialite, he said:

Don’t sleep with the first girl you meet. You might like her friend more.

I have found this to be true for myself as well. I like to spend time getting to know a guy and his friends because one of his friends may be a better match for me, and one of my friends may be a better match for him. I’ve also found remaining friends is a good way to too. For example, one of my ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend whom I became friends with is now passionately involved with one of my ex-boyfriends.

Adam had an amazingly hot and friendly girlfriend. I asked him:

Me: What do you like about her?
Him: She challenges me. There are times I just can’t stand her. She gets on my nerves but when I tell her something, she doesn’t always take it. She challenges me right back.

It sounds like they are both very confident in themselves. I could definitely see the loving and fun chemistry between them.

I really liked Adam’s energy. He encourages people to be socially dynamic and engaging which is so important if you want to become that fun, loving guy. His confidence and his love for having fun and connecting people really made him stand out.

Tung from Social Relations Institute

I think Tung was my favorite speaker for the content of his speech… even though he has room to grow as a presenter. He was an Asian guy, normally yet fashionably dressed. His overall message was: be well-intentioned.

“Be confident in who you are.”, he said. “If you are a likable social person, people will like you. Treat others the way you wish to be treated.” I’d like to add that if you treat yourself like crap, you aren’t going to be able to treat others well. Being well-intentioned, to me, means treating each other with respect and the way to respect a woman is different than the way you give a man respect. You don’t have to treat each other the same. It is about approaching the other person without stepping on their masculinity or femininity.

One thing that made Tung different from the other speakers was his opinion on approach anxiety. Anxiety is a good thing. The more anxiety you feel about approaching a girl, the more you know you like her — pay attention to that. It’s good! Tung was taking an existential position with this idea and I could really relate to it. Anxiety is in fact natural and has a place in our lives. We can in fact work with it, rather than having it work against us.

That Tung conveyed a sense of genuine caring both for his students and for the women he engaged with made him very attractive.

ThunderCat

ThunderCat was a heavy set bald guy. From appearance alone, you would not have thought he was a master PUA. However, as he spoke with calm confidence, I found him attractive too. He carried some very powerful and important messages that I think men AND women could benefit from:

Don’t be ashamed of being male (or female!). Be confident. Love yourself. Women are people too (so are men!).

His take on approach anxiety came at an angle I had never thought of before, and it made perfect sense. The number one reason guys are afraid of hot women is not because of fear of rejection. We get rejected everyday. We ask a friend to the movies, he/she says “no.” We ask if the restaurant we are at has steak, they say “no, we’re out.” It’s no big deal. We in fact get rejected daily. Rejection is not what we are afraid of. Instead, we are afraid of judgment.

People are naturally judgmental. When you judge someone, the concept of reciprocity works somewhere in the back of your brain so you end afraid of the judgment that may come from the other person and that will come from yourself. When you judge them positively, you put them on a pedestal so you become afraid of the judgment you give yourself for not attracting them.

You are your own worst critic. You know your flaws best but no one else really knows them but you. This concept is something I’ve written about before and trust me guys, you are not alone in having a yapping inner critic. Thundercat’s advice works for men and women: stop being so JUDGMENTAL of yourself and others. Many of the guys in the PUA Community rate women on a 1-10 scale. Thundercat prefers his own scale: is she “good enough” or “not good enough”? That’s it. You shouldn’t judge your friends on how hot their partners are either. If they are happy, who cares?

Another salient point he made was that:

When you are comfortable with negative emotion, you train yourself to accept that and so when positive emotion comes your way, it seems out of place.

On using trickery and deceit in seduction, he said:

You can trick but it is only in the moment and in the long run, it will cost you when she discovers you aren’t you. Women are human beings, they have free will and you cannot make someone do anything they didn’t want to do, even if you trick them in the moment. You can only control you. You can’t control others. When you are a positive non-judgmental person, women (people) want to naturally be with you.

The only point I want to quibble with is: “You cannot make someone do anything they didn’t want to do, even if you trick them in the moment.” By virtue of tricking someone, you are providing a false context and you are taking away their ability to make a fully informed decision. By hiding information or misleading them, they can’t soundly choose if they want to do something or not.

On the other hand, I agree with his point that trickery is not doing you any favors. I think that if a person feels the need to trick someone into liking them, it implies that they find flaws or failings within themselves and feel they aren’t good enough for the other person. This proves that the person is not truly confident in him/herself. It tells me their inner critic is still sitting on a shoulder shouting down their value and pushing away happiness. It could also be the person is a scumbag. It happens and they will get their comeuppance eventually.

puaL

He was dressed in a trendy way with some black eyeliner, which always looks funny to me when it’s on anyone who isn’t a goth kid. In time, I’m sure I’ll get used to men wearing make up. I like that men can now have that burden too.

puaL was the first speaker who took me a while to warm up to. His opening joke rubbed me the wrong way. While dining at a restaurant, his beautiful girlfriend leaned over and told him “Paul, I’m pregnant.” He then stood up, picked her up and punched her in the stomach. Sorry guys, I don’t find that funny. Yes, it is a “joke” but it is a cheap joke. I’m sure he didn’t mean it this way but a joke that tacitly condone violence against women (or anyone) is not humorous to me. A lot of these kinds of jokes are ubiquitous in our culture, and often slip by unnoticed. You may get a few laughs but it’s just inappropriate. I don’t remember what he said next because I was too busy being appalled.

His story would have been the perfect opportunity to remind guys of the consequence of condomless sex or the incorrect use of condoms (which can also make a girl pregnant) but since he didn’t, I will again. A girl being “on the pill” does not guarantee that she is 100% safe from pregnancy or STDs, especially if she is also taking antibiotics or St. John’s Wart. I know that some girls will lie to you and as many of you can imagine, end up knocked up! Remember that the pill has ZERO protection against STDs. If you don’t know how to put on a condom properly or remove it properly, learn how here.

When I put my gut reaction aside and listen to his content without being emotionally charged, I admit that puaL has a some good messages. Don’t be ashamed of what you want or who you are. If you want to tell a pretty girl she is pretty, do it. For example, “I noticed you. You’re very pretty and I wanted to tell you that today.”

He also talked about beliefs. You should examine where your beliefs come from. Are they really yours?

He then reaffirmed like many other speakers that the most seductive thing you can do is to be 100% you. Being unique and special makes you infinitely valuable. This is good advice. By being 100% you, you will attract someone that is a good match for you.

He proceeded to demonstrate how to successfully approach women on the streets, even when you are using a pick-up line. As I walked across the stage, he addressed me with: “If you were a booger, I’d pick you first. I just wanted you to know that.” I have to confess. It made me laugh. It was a good opener just because it was so absurd but his use of a pick-up line wasn’t what made me laugh. It was how he said it. If you are a PUA worth your salt, you should already know how tonality, body language, eye contact all convey messages beyond the spoken word. His non-verbal communication was attractive.

This slightly strange looking guy, tall, thin and wiry with trendy clothes, messy hair and smeared eyeliner knew how to carry himself with confidence. It’s hard to explain. Some things can’t be explained with words. Confidence is something you have to see in action to get it. If you looked at all the things he demonstrated on stage and removed that air of confidence from him, everything would look really silly.

Basically, “learn the PUA tools, so you can drop them. Trust yourself”, he said. A wise professor once taught me that when you over learn something, you make the conscious unconscious. It is the last step of the four steps to competence which are:

1. unconscious incompetence
2. conscious incompetence
3. conscious competence
4. unconscious competence

Three other things I liked from puaL’s presentation was:

1. People don’t want to be dicks or bitches.
2. This is not about getting laid, that’s a side benefit.
3. People move nations by communication.

We broke out for lunch… and I will post part two and part three soon.

This is the continuation of my previous Los Angeles PUA Summit 2007 Summary, pt. 1 post.

SUNDAY 08/26

7:45 a.m.: I wake up. I’m still tired from yesterday, but I get ready and head to the Roosevelt. The Way of the Superior Man: The Teaching Sessions is currently playing in my CD player but I’m really not in the mood for that. Who cares about masculine and feminine energy if I can only open my eyes half-way? (Ok, fine. I’m Asian and have slanted eyes, so what? lol) I quickly switch to some hit music station. Bam bam beedee boom boom. Ahhh, that’s better.

8:45 a.m.: I’m greeted at the door by RadiantSun’s smile (formerly known as the “White Woman” if you’ve been reading some of my previous entries this year). I’m so happy to see her! I feel like I haven’t talked to her in ages. I give her a nice hug. As I like to say: it’s not a hug until you feel the titties squish! She’s wearing a yellow shirt today. I let her do her thing. She’s helping Christina (Johnny Wolf’s sister) check-in the guests. (more…)

The more I study the Seduction Community, the more I realize how important it is for someone wanting to learn a method to meet an instructor or an accomplished practicioner of that method.  You can THINK you understand a method, but you won’t get it until you meet the person behind it live. 

This is why I was so excited to have the opportunity to finally meet Wayne “Juggler” Elise at the SoCal Lair meeting of 04/26/2007.  I have been a fan of Juggler for a long time.  My buddy from Tampa was one of his earliest student and was raving about him to me for months.  His enthusiasm sparked my curiosity which led me to read all his e-books, listened to all his Charisma Arts podcasts, and watched all the videos he has released (including the bootcamp DVD I borrowed from another friend of mine).  Intellectually, I knew everything there was to know about the Juggler Method but as I later found out, there was something else I needed to figure out: the Juggler VIBE!

On that evening, I headed with the “White Woman” to  K1 Speed in Irvine, CA where the meeting was being held.  If you were wondering:  yes, she drove.  She even brought me leftover Thai food from her work.  I know, I love her too.  She’s awesome like that.  You can’t ask more from a friend like her

As you can imagine, I was happy.  I was in good company and was about to meet another “pickup guru.”  Some of my posse would be there too (a couple VAC alumnis I had invited) but the cool part was that we had another woman with us.  She was a friend of “the White Woman” and sported colorful purple hair.  Oh yeah… she was white too but I guess I’ll just nickname her the “Purple Woman” for storytelling purposes.  It was the first time I met her but I liked her.  From the few conversations we exchanged in the car, I could tell she was confident and very intelligent… just the kind of woman I like to surround myself with.  As expected, they ended being the only 2 women in the room.  Maybe I should have put a wager because  I would have made some easy money there LOL

We didn’t have to wait long for Juggler to show up.  From his towering (estimated) 6′2 height, he looked very relaxed in front of the audience.  Unlike the majority of PUAs I have seen, his clothing was not flashy.  He wore simple jeans with a blue sweater.  If you were to believe the fashion advice of the Seduction Community, he would barely pass the “fashionably trendy” test, and would definitely fail the peacocking test.  His demeanor was casual without being overly alpha.  His scruffy looking face gave you the impression that he just woke up and didn’t have time to shave.  The “White Woman” turned to me and whispered in a disappointed tone: “Is that him?”  From appearance alone, I guess she was expecting a little bit more.

After the typical speaker introduction, Juggler leaned against the table, looked at us and said nothing, a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y nothing.  For a while, it seemed that he didn’t know how to begin his speech.  Maybe he was giving the audience time to settle down.  Maybe he was searching for words.  He finally pointed to someone and broke the silence with “So what do you want to talk about?” The guy quickly replied:  “The Juggler basics.”  Juggler smiled and said:  “The basics?  I will show you a juggler trick later.  Before I leave, I WILL show you a juggler trick.”  The audience laughed as Wayne Elise crafted his next response:  ”The Juggler METHOD basics… I don’t even know what those are.  What I have been thinking about lately is knowning how little I know.”

At that moment, I knew.  I knew my drive to Irvine was time well spent.  Within 2 minutes of his presentation, Juggler has just showed 2-3 applications of his method.  He vacuumed the audience, used playful misinterpretations, related to guys in the audience by disqualifying himself.

Juggler continued talking mostly about the importance of vibe and logistics.  Instead of summarizing his speech, I strongly recommend you download it instead (duration - 1 hr 32 min) and listen for yourself.  Some things are better experienced first hand and he definitely deserve all the honor and credit he can get:
- *.wav format (58.48 MB)
- *.mp3 format (84.28 MB)

Right click and hit “save as…” to download the file.

For people who are too lazy to actually listen, here are some sound bites that hopefully will entice you to listen to the speech in its entirity:

• Interaction is really about just showing up:  just being there, being there at the right place, the right time.  It’s logistics.
   
• (About compliments) Unfortunately, people don’t believe in truth. There’re a long ways from being truthful to making it believable.  In fact if you can make it believable, that’s so much better.  You can say to a girl “you know what?  I think you are hot” and she will like that and that will work… if she believes you.  She has to believe you [...]  It’s not even about her.  If you tell a girl that you are hot, it doesn’t matter if she believes if she’s hot or not.  She has to believe that you believe [...]  Our job is to convince them that we believe it.
   
• (Escalation is about) Owning it.  
   
• I want you to be Forces of Nature. I want you to know what you want, I want to know your opinions, I want to know the essence of “John” and I want to bring that out of you and kick somebody’s fucking ass [...] On your own authority.
   
• There’s only one reason things don’t work:  it’s because either your vibe is wrong… or your logistics are wrong.
   
• Two things make vibe: (1) how you handle yourself in the interaction and (2) if you really care about people.
   
• When a girl says:  “I don’t sleep with guys the first night.”  It’s not necessarily bad, that’s a limitation.  That means that she’s willing to commit within that limitation A LOT.  Guys hear that and they think:  “Oh, she doesn’t like me at all”.  No, that means she wants to go home, make out and get naked with you but no actual penetration.
   
• Two techniques for handling AMOG:  (1) making negative presumptions about the person and (2) making the audience decide.
   
• We hear it all the time in the Community:  “you are gonna be better in relationships because you have options.  Because you can pickup somebody else, that means when you commit to somebody, that means more.”  You know what?  They are wrong!  I don’t believe that’s the way to feel secure.   I believe the way to feel secure is to be okay with your aloneness.  Once you are okay with your aloneness, you realize you are never alone.
   
• The tendency for most people is to move that interaction off of themselves because most people are not comfortable with that.  One thing I teach is keeping that (conversation) centered, keeping that focused on the other person but at the same time focused on me.  So that’s the only thing I talk about:  myself and the other person.  The topics are just kind of ways to put our personality through that.

By the end of the presentation, I fell in love with the Juggler Method (or maybe just Juggler himself) all over again.  It was interesting for me to see the parallel between his take on “vibe & logistics” and theApproach’s “Sex = VAC + Logistics” formula.  I guess in the end, each guru explains the same thing in different manners.

What I liked about Juggler is how he embodied true warmth and genuine compassion in the way he interacted with people.  He was never condescending nor did he try to come across as the all-knowing guru when he answered the audience’s questions.  He was funny without being a clown, he was confident without being arrogant and he had this very zen-like internal emotional state.  If I had to make a comparison, I would describe his vibe to be closest to a Buddhist monk… but conversely more engaging than a Buddhist monk.  I guess he’d be one of the few gurus in the Community that I would feel comfortable introducing to my sister, my mother or grandparents.

In terms of his skill as a teacher, he had this innate ability to explain social interactions in simple terms without using Community technical jargon.  Just by watching him, I understood how and why his philosophy were so powerful and so well-regarded.  His open vibe is what I think was  missing in my application of the method.  As friendly and as social that I was, I realized that I was still fairly selective of the people I chose to interact with whereas he tried to make EVERYONE feel appreciated. 

However, as much as I enjoyed meeting Juggler in person, I was not prepared for the best comment of the night.  The “White Woman” later admitted to finding Juggler progressively more and more attractive as he kept talking.  Sigh… so much for a negative first impression!

Wayne “Juggler” Elise, I send you my regards