Workshop Review: Social Savant Bootcamp

Note: Originaly posted on EBSS by Slamboni

I'm posting (extremely late) a review of Dennis and Derek's Dating Bootcamp that I took back in October of 2006. Their website is www.SocialSavant.com. Dennis goes by Marina Hunter and his email is dennis@socialsavant.com, and Derek goes by Positive and his email is derek@socialsavant.com.

BOTTOM LINE: Dennis and Derek's Dating Bootcamp is great and teaches both PUA and Social Dyamics. I strongly recommend it to others.

OVERVIEW: Dennis & Derek's Dating Boot Camp conducts a private, concentrated PUA weekend, but beforehand you'll have several weekly phone coaching sessions with Derek or Dennis about both Social Dyamics and PUA. They'll give you assignments to help prepare you for the weekend, such as writing out a deep rapport story, asking women where the nearest Starbucks is, etc. Then you have the actual PUA weekend which is unbelievably eye-opening, exhausting, exhilarating ,and empowering. And they follow it up with coaching in the weeks following.

SOCIAL DYNAMICS: I originally signed up for the class mostly for the PUA instruction, thinking that I didn't need instruction in Social Dynamics. Boy, was I wrong. They opened my eyes to a lot about interacting with women. They cover things like: attraction theory, frame control, setting up a Day2 date, rapport games, kinesthetics, etc. As examples of some of the things I learned, they showed me how I tend to talk logically with women and how to connect emotionally with them instead. I still remember the rapport conversation with Derek when he spoke to me the way he would with a woman he was trying to connect with. He asked questions which took me away from mundane, stock answers to really reliving experiences and discovering things about myself that I hadn't realized before. And I try to do the same thing when talking with everyone now. They taught me a simple, effective way to keep someone thinking of me when she goes out of town, and I still use that today.

PUA WEEKEND: This was incredible. I flew in on a Thursday night and worked with them straight through to Sunday evening. We did happy hours, clubs, shops, streets, day game, night game, and everything in between. They would watch every attempt and then discuss what went well and what needed work. They evaluated my body language, energy, and I even did mock pick-ups with women who were working with them so they could give me their direct feedback on my approach. They kept pushing me and taking things to the next level once I demonstrated competency in a previous area. I crashed a lot, but their feedback helped me hone my approach, and on Saturday night, I wrote this email to my best friends:

Today was life-changing. Seriously. I feel like the scales fell from my eyes, and I'm seeing the matrix for the first time. I've always said that one of the greatest rushes in the world is doing something you never thought you could do.

I think I did like 5 of them today.

It started out with picking up an incredibly cute blonde in front of her dad, continued with winning over the friends of a cute Asian girl and having them push her number on me, progressed to picking up a girl in front of a bunch of people in line at a coffeehouse, moved to entering other people's pickup attempts and controlling the conversation and being so much more interesting that the guys just kind of skulked off, and finished with bringing girls back to the apartment that night.

Best of all, I'm not pumped or adrenaline-filled about it. Instead, I'm just enjoying it and being present. Which is a very large difference in what made today more successful. You know that rather frenetic energy that I carry with me a lot? for the first time in my life, I met and interacted with unfamiliar women in a truly grounded, relaxed, solid, steady manner.

This is so empowering and gives me such a new perspective on things. Blondes aren't an unattainable ideal, guys attempting to pick up somebody aren't an intimidating foil but a mere obstacle to be gamed away, mothers, fathers, friends, and strangers aren't intimidating witnesses to potential embarrassment but rather allies to be won over, and nothing is out of my reach.

Holy shit. Holy, holy shit.

PLUSES OF THE CLASS: Private instruction, great coaching, value of learning both PUA and Social Dynamics in one program, curriculum tailored to your strengths and weaknesses, follow-up coaching after the PUA weekend.

MINUSES OF THE CLASS: Sometimes the instruction was disjointed and Dennis and Derek had conflicting instruction and terminology. I would have liked more detailed PUA methodology instruction and been able to watch them approach people before they took me out and said, "Okay, go open her." Sometimes their feedback made me feel discouraged and like I had failed. I discussed all this with them afterwards, so hopefully they have ironed out these things by now. While the PUA methodology that they developed is very good, I think there may be other methods which are more optimal. For instance, they discourage Negs, favor mundane, situational openers, and heavily stress their version of Banter; it obviously is very effective for them, but I'm not completely sold on some of that.

LOOKING BACK: Reviewing their class so long after taking it allows me to really appreciate all the elements of the class and how it has positively affected my life since then. I have not become a PUA master since then, but that is because I haven't been practicing, so that's my own fault. However, their Social Dynamics instruction has greatly improved my interaction with people, and definitely contributed to me getting a girlfriend soon after the course. And after that relationship ended, I picked up another girl and have been happily dating her since. I still kino a lot, try to keep my energy grounded (very difficult for me), practice frame control, etc. And I do have the tools and notes that I took from that weekend, so I feel like if I really push myself, I can return to the level of that magical weekend when I was a Pick Up Artist. If you have any questions that you want to ask me about my experience, you can email me at slamboni@gmail.com.