Program Review for Mystery, Matador, Lovedrop, and Kosmo, by Jewels, Los Angeles Super Conference, Apr 08

Hey folks…

I attended the conference portion of the recent Venusian Arts Superconference in Los Angeles on March 28-30th, and I thought I’d share my thoughts about it. I didn’t pay for the "in-field training" portion of the program, so if you’re only interested in that, this review won’t be helpful to you. But if you want to hear what the seminars are all about, here’s your chance. And since I have a lot to tell and can’t write it all in one sitting, I’m going to break these reviews up by day.

Before I begin, let me say that overall I thought the conference was great, and any complaints or issues I bring up in these reviews shouldn’t take away from that fact. I most definitely felt I got way more than my money’s worth and I would highly recommend the conference for anyone looking to learn basic to intermediate PUA skills. But there are definitely a few items that could be improved by Venusian Arts the next time around. So I’ll give the unvarnished truth, the good and the bad, but as a whole I thought it was great and I’d grade the event somewhere between a B+ and an A-.

Pre-Conference
First off, I thought Venusian did a good job staying in communication with us and sending information. Attendees were e-mailed a 22-page pre-conference handout to read that contained a lot of helpful seminar exercises and PUA information, both old and new. My only complaint was that the handout didn’t land in my e-mail box until the night before the conference, leaving practically no time to do anything but quickly glance it over. I originally thought this was because I had registered for the conference very late, but I later heard from other attendees that everyone had gotten the handout at the last minute, some not until that very morning. I even noticed a number of people hastily reading the handout for the first time while sitting in the registration area on the first day. A shame we didn’t have the time to really study the info before we arrived, but good stuff nonetheless.

Day One
The day started a bit late but well within reason considering it was the first day. Upon arrival we received an agenda detailing the schedule for all three days, which was great except when it ended up mysteriously changing along the way. (More on that in day two). But the very first speaker up on the agenda was Mystery, and sure enough, there he was, standing before us just as promised.

Now I’ve never met Mystery, but I’ve heard a lot about him. I’ve listened to his teleconferences. I’ve seen him on his show. I’ve read about him in "The Game." He’s got a lot of hype surrounding him, with some people calling him the best PUA on the planet. Well, I have to tell you, the guy lives up to it. He knows his shit and he’s excellent at explaining it. And the dude is a great speaker. Maybe it was because I was sitting in the front row, but he made it seem like he was speaking directly to me, as if we were just two guys talking. He’s conversational, often diving off on tangents but always managing to get where he’s going. He spoke for almost three hours straight on the first day, taking only one or two short breaks along the way. And during the breaks, he always ended up staying in the room anyway, answering personal questions from people and giving advice. I found him to be extremely approachable and got the impression he honestly wanted to help everyone out. Venusian Arts has a number of great instructors, but given Mystery’s reputation, you would expect him to be the best part of the conference. And he is.

Next up was Kosmo. Let me say that Kosmo has a terrific energy and is incredibly enthusiastic. However, I found this part of the day somewhat disorganized. He started by talking about opening for 15-20 minutes, which was fine. But then he broke everyone up into groups and instructed us to practice our openers on each other. The first problem with this plan was that it wasn’t carried out particularly well – everyone just sort of broke into disorganized groups of 5 or 6, then eventually wandered into groups of 2 and 3. Problem #2 was that, for a number of us, this was the first day of our first PUA instruction and since the handout had arrived less than 12 hours before, we hadn’t even read the openers yet, let alone memorized or practiced them. The third problem was that instead of moving quickly from group to group listening to openers and making corrections, Kosmo kept getting pulled into different topics by people asking him unrelated questions. I know he really wants to help and he’s got a bunch of great ideas and advice, but if we’re practicing openers, let’s practice openers.

Seems like the better way to handle this section of the seminar would have been for Kosmo to ask volunteers to come up in front of the room, demonstrate their openers to the group, then analyze what could be improved. I suspect watching three or four of these would have been much more helpful than what happened.

Ending the day was Matador talking about what he calls the "Way of Being." Matador is another guy who’s genuinely excited about sharing his information, which is pretty deep inner game stuff. I thought he was good, but I would argue that this material would have been better placed on day two (I also thought Matador himself was better on day two – more on that again in the next post). It’s pretty advanced stuff, much more than just canned routines and game theory – really about learning to live your life – and I certainly think it’s important to be shared with the group. But I think it would have been better to get into some of the new "Revelations" theories at this point, given that’s what this superconference is supposed to be about, and holding off on the Matador stuff until the next day. Swap this seminar with the "Revelations" one on day two and your flow is much smoother overall.

The day ended around 8:30pm after about six hours and those of us who weren’t going to the clubs that night were done. One excellent thing Venusian Arts did which I want to mention was that on every night of the conference, they had a club recommendation for those of us who had paid for conference-level only and weren’t going out with one of the instructors. We could go to that club on our own or as a group to practice the day’s material and get in without waiting in a huge line for hours. That was a very nice touch and well thought out. I didn’t take them up on it the first night as I had to work, but I did on night two, which I’ll share more about tomorrow.

Hey all…

Really sorry that this Day 2 review of the March Los Angeles Superconference took so much longer for me to put up than I planned. As sometimes happens, life got in the way and I haven’t had a free moment to write about my experience, especially given that I want to be thorough about it. But I had originally jotted down extensive notes during the conference, so between those and my personal recollections, hopefully my memories will be adequately refreshed.

For those of you who didn’t read my Day 1 review, I’ll state again that overall I thought the conference was great, probably a B+ to an A-, though I didn’t pay for the in-field training so my experiences and reviews are restricted to just the seminars themselves. I’m trying to give the unvarnished truth here so that not only everyone gets a true look at the conference, but also so that perhaps improvements can be made for future students.

Day Two
The day started right on time at noon and the first speaker up was Discovery, who talked extensively about personality profiling. I thought this was the second best presentation of the whole conference (with Mystery’s first day being number one). Not only is Discovery a great speaker, he was fantastically prepared with a full PowerPoint presentation. Plus he clearly knew his topic extremely well. He also lead us through perhaps the most revealing group exercise I’ve ever seen done anywhere, showing us in vivid detail exactly how each of the four types of human personalities tackle and accomplish a task. Finally, he gave each of us a card that was a helpful visual reminder of what he had just taught, and to top it all off, then told us how we could use the card itself as a prop during actual pickup. REALLY excellent work. The only topic he seemed mysterious about is how he’s managed to go from complete newbie to PUA instructor in basically 8 months flat. I personally asked him twice about this and didn’t really get a straight answer, but I’d say it’s safe to assume that some people take to this stuff like a fish to water, and Discovery is one of those people.

The next seminar topic and instructor were very surprising, but not for the right reasons. According to the agenda we were handed when we arrived on Day 1, we were supposed to be hearing from Mystery again at this point on the topic of storytelling. But instead, Lovedrop came up and started taking us through the new Revelation material, which wasn’t supposed to happen until Day 3. No mention of the change at all, nor why it was made, nor where Mystery had disappeared to. Everyone seemed to go with it, and so I did under the impression that an explanation would be forthcoming or perhaps Mystery would be up next. He wasn’t. More on that in a moment.

But in the meantime, Lovedrop did his seminar on Revelation, and I’ll break this into two parts: material and instructor. In my opinion, Revelation is moving in the same direction as much of the PUA community, which is to say relying less on canned routines and exact A1, A2, A3 structures and more on overall concepts and models rooted in inner game theory. I personally think it’s the right direction, but maybe aimed at the more intermediate PUA and not the beginner. This is not in any way to say that the material is difficult to comprehend – it’s very easy to understand. I simply think most beginners (myself included to some degree) find it easier to start with canned routines, and slowly move into their own material based on higher level theories. In other words, Mystery Method is the training wheels, and Revelation is where the training wheels come off. So make sure you’re reading the right book for your level.

Now, the instructor. I have to be honest here, and I’m sorry to be negative about it, but I wasn’t that impressed with Lovedrop as a speaker. He definitely knows his material and he worked hard to impart it to us, but he just didn’t seem as polished and prepared as most of the other speakers. I don’t know how much seminar teaching he’s done, so perhaps he’ll get better with practice. And I’ll also say that at many other seminars, he’d be one of the better speakers. But the bar set by the other instructors at this conference was so high that I thought he stood out as not quite being on the same level as most of them.

We took a break and came back, wondering if we were next going to hear from Mystery on Microcalibration, as per the original agenda sheet. Nope. Lovedrop came back up and started into Physical Escalation, which was scheduled to be after the Mystery seminar, and at this point it was very clear that we were not going to be seeing Mystery today. Word spread that Mystery was under the weather and couldn’t make it, but again, I never heard an official explanation from anyone (until Day 3, which I’ll talk about in my final review posting). I will admit that I was late at the beginning of this day and missed the first 10 minutes, but I asked several attendees if any sort of announcement about Mystery had been made, and nobody I asked remembered hearing one.

Anyway, Lovedrop’s seminar on escalation was much the same as his one of Revelation – good material, okay instructor. Lovedrop did do several physical demonstrations with his girlfriend (no, not those kind of physical demonstrations – get your head out of the gutter) that were great and very revealing. I also really liked his "Rod Stripper Bit" – if you see him or go to a conference with him, ask him to demonstrate it for you. It’s a lot of fun.

Next we had a quick 10 minute preview presentation from Ross Jeffries, who was scheduled for a full two-hour seminar on Day 3. I’ll save my impressions of Ross for my Day 3 review, but for now I’ll simply say that I think Ross Jeffries earns his overall reputation, in both good ways and bad.

The day ended with Matador finishing up his previous day’s discussion of the "Way of Being" and also talking about the Game in general and answering questions. As I mentioned before, I think his "Way of Being" is very good inner game work, but advanced material and definitely better placed here on day 2 (or even at an intermediate-level conference). But by far the best part of this talk was his discussion of the Game and his Q&A, which was absolutely great. One of the students had apparently been present with Matador late the previous night in a hotel room with his girlfriend and four other girls from the club, and the description from the student of what happened was astounding. But then, Matador was standing right there and able to explain EXACTLY why it happened, how he made it happen, and what we needed to do to make it happen ourselves. Really, really terrific stuff, and fantastic to be able to hear the story right from an independent, objective observer who saw it happen less than 24 hours earlier with his own eyes, then having the instructor able to immediately explain the hows and whys. It’s the sort of arrangement you always hope for, but rarely ever get – normally you get either one piece (the telling of the story) or the other (how he did it) but not usually at the same time. If there’s any way to do more of this type of work, I would highly encourage it. In fact, I would say setting aside the first hour of each day to do a "post-mortem" on the previous night’s activities would be an extremely worthwhile use of time. Even for those of us who weren’t there (and maybe especially for those of us who weren’t there), just hearing what happened and then explaining how it happened makes this stuff come to life.

End of the day at about 8pm, and once again, those of us not doing in-field training were given a club recommendation. This time, I and several other guys took them up on it and went to the club, arriving around 10:15pm. We did have trouble waiting in line at the door – the problem wasn’t that we weren’t on "the list," but that we were trying to get 7 single guys into the club all at once. Luckily one of the more entrepreneurial members of the group was able to make a deal to get us in and secure bottle service for us at a reasonable cost when split among all of us. The club itself was pretty good, very large and with a big outdoor section that was quieter and easier to work sets in. We were there until about 3 or 4am, and though I personally discovered I have a lot of practice ahead of me, I thought people were doing reasonably well. And it was great to be there with a solid group of like-minded guys.

That sums up my Day 2 experience, and I’ll get my final day post up as soon as possible, hopefully tomorrow but probably over the weekend when I have more time. Thanks for reading and hope it’s helpful.

Hey everyone…

Finally finishing off my review of all three days of the Los Angeles Superconference in March. If you haven’t read my first two reviews covering Days 1 and 2, you may want to check them out first before reading this one. I didn’t do the in-field training so my experiences and reviews are restricted to just the seminars themselves, but overall I thought the conference was great. I’m giving both the good stuff and the bad stuff in these reviews so everyone gets a fair look.

Day Three
The final day began on time and most of the day ended up matching the original agenda given to us on the first day, starting with two hours of Ross Jeffries talking about Speed Seduction and NLP. Ross argued that his techniques fit very well into the c1, c2, c3 "comfort" section of the original Mystery Method, which while being a convenient tie-in reason for him to be at the conference, I think is an argument that does hold some water. Ross is obviously a long time figure in the PUA community and his material is very well established. Having never personally reviewed any of his stuff before this, I thought he had some great techniques and was extremely enthusiastic in teaching them. He also did a couple of language demonstrations with women that were quite impressive.

But I wish Ross would get over the idea that he has to constantly either 1) pitch himself, or 2) be outrageous. Yes, Ross is significantly older than most of the community and certainly than almost all of its teachers. I appreciate that he’s aware of this and not in denial about it. But he doesn’t have to constantly justify himself because of it. One mention of it at the beginning to show that he’s not unironic about himself would be plenty. And being shocking, while occasionally entertaining, is always problematic in the end because if that’s your bit, you’ve always got to work to top yourself and be even more outrageous with the next thing. It’s just not that interesting in the long run and while Ross is Ross and his material is definitely worth the time and energy, I do wish he’d just get a bit more comfortable with himself.

After Ross was another seminar by Discovery, this one about Delivery. If you read my review of Day 2, you already know that I was particularly impressed with Discovery’s personality topic. I also thought this one was great, maybe just a touch less great than the personality one, but I don’t think he could have beaten his first topic and this one was also truly excellent. Again the guy was well prepared and excited about what he was saying. He also again had some great demonstration pieces and exercises that clearly showed the theories he was talking about in action. Venusian would be wise to keep Discovery deeply involved in their conferences.

And then, finally, Mystery returned. (If you read my Day 2 review, you know that Mystery was a no show on Day 2 despite Venusian’s original plan for him to be there.) I saw him at the break and personally talked to him a bit – it turned out he had been truly under the weather the day before and seemed to feel really bad about it. I obviously don’t have any complaints about a guy being sick. It happens to everyone and if you’re feeling like shit, you’re not going to do a decent job teaching anyway. My issue all along was the lack of any communication about why he wasn’t there. So seeing him back was refreshing.

Mystery came up and started talking about building a social network and relationship building. He was just as awesome as he was on Day 1. He also spent time reviewing the performances of those who had been out with him during the previous two nights and going through some of the questions people had for him. And again, at the breaks, he was completely available to anyone who wanted time with him, even taking photos with people and patiently signing books at the end. This led into some end-of-the-day exercises on storytelling, with instructors coming to each table and working on improving individual openers and stories with DHV’s and delivery techniques. All great stuff.

The "official" day ended with a review of where to go from here and a quick discussion of some of the privileges of having attended the conference. Everyone got a complimentary copy of the original "Mystery Method" book and a promise of an e-book copy of the new "Revelation" when it’s complete. I think Venusian’s doing a nice job of trying to keep some follow up going with the VIP lounge in the forum and the opportunity to come back to another conference or bootcamp at a discount. I know some others have complained that they’d like more personalized follow up. While I certainly can’t disagree that that would be nice, I can also understand how it might be difficult to do, both logistically and financially. Perhaps a follow up teleconference or webcast for just conference and bootcamp attendees?

After the conference officially ended, those who could stick around got a bonus session with Matador about Avatar Building, where he explained the difference between true peacocking and just wearing goofy, incongruent stuff. Matador is just incredibly enthusiastic about helping out and even after he finished up and the hotel was making us leave the room, he was still talking and teaching to a group of guys in the hallway who could stick around. Unfortunately I had to go at that point, but I know everyone appreciated it.

Post-Conference
As everyone says, the key to improving your PUA skills is practice. A number of the L.A. contingent that were at the conference put together an e-mail list and have been sarging regularly, and while I haven’t yet had a chance to join them due to my own travel schedule, I’ve been making sure to go out regularly on my own in whatever city I’m in. And yes, I’ve made some major progress, including ending up overnight in a young attractive lady’s bed just this past weekend in New York. I also attended David DeAngelo’s conference a few weeks ago and found that to be a great compliment to the Venusian workshop – very different material but not at all incompatible. My plan right now is to just keeping working at it, making sure to go out as often as possible and improving my material as I go.

I hope these reviews are helpful to those of you thinking about taking a workshop (or maybe even those of you planning the next one). If anyone has any questions, don’t hesitate to leave me a post here on this thread as I check the boards all the time. Or just click on my name and send me a private message here — I check my inbox whenever I’m on the site.

Good luck and happy sarging.