Over the last three years, the number of men worldwide who consider themselves "pickup artists" or apprentice PUAs has grown immensely as the pickup culture has started to hit mainstream. This is potentially a very good thing for many men (and women).

However, when anything goes mainstream it tends to get watered down, distorted and eventually defiled. Only the most marketable "quick fix" aspects survive. Only the ideas that are pretty close to what people grew up with really reach acceptance, until finally we're left with only a marginal improvement over the status quo.

The modern man of 2007 is spoilt for choice in what school of pickup to study. Unfortunately, this is not such a great thing, as almost all this material is restricted to what is sellable and marketable. This means more flash than substance, more familiar ideas less mind expansion, more platitudes less in-your-face truth.

Yet despite all that, you - dear reader - have stumbled upon my page. It's not terribly comprehensive, nor very flashy or well-written. What I offer here is exactly what you won't get from most of the other pickup resources out there: substance, hard-to-swallow truths, simple ideas that work and let you apprehend the reality of situations for yourself, letting you see the forces at work and giving you the power and clarity to move your interactions with women exactly the way you want them to go.

But all this is too abstract, so let's take a look at the following pyramid. This represents how I got to be how I am now and how much importance each factor has in my success. Like the Food Guide Pyramid, the base of the pyramid is the most important while the tip is generally of little relevance or sometimes even harmful.

Self-esteem, confidence, lack of negative baggage - these are what powers a truly successful person of any stripe. Self-discipline and drive to succeed are also essential in any endeavor.

In this particular endeavor, knowing why you are in it and why it is right and good for you to be doing every single thing you are doing is absolutely indispensible. There are moral issues to be thought through carefully. There are societal mores to be deconstructed and re-assessed. There will be tough situations where if you haven't taken the time to understand why (and whether) what you are doing is best for everyone involved, you WILL waver. And that tiny hesitation or uncertainty will hold you back every time until you take the time to sort these concepts out in your mind.

Sexual confidence is also a major one. Not everyone has this, but the guys who do are the ones that really end up enjoying this lifestyle and running with it, because they know they are doing the world a lot of good by increasing the pleasure in it (provided they're doing so responsibly). Sexual confidence also covers over many weaknesses in general pickup technique.

Together these concepts are sometimes called "inner game." I don't like the word "game" in this context, but this is the common name for it among seduction community folk.

Now I think any PUA worth his salt could have told you about "inner game" and would agree with it all himself (still many seem to consider it a side issue...it is in fact central and pivotal). However, what the community of late has - as a whole - egregiously neglected is the next slab of the pyramid: basic knowledge and understandings. The very most bread-and-butter concepts like "rocks and gold," Cialdinian consistency, "girls want more nicer hearts," the baseline of resistance, restricting her motivations for seeing you to the sexual, the imagination principle and many other fundamental and transforming ideas. These great pieces of wisdom and windows into the female psyche give a man what he really needs: a view to the REALITY of what is happening in all his interactions and the tools with which to control that reality so that have can use pure reason and logic to figure out what to do on his own.

Such an enlightened man can, without even knowing any tricks or tactics, make his own tricks and tactics on the spur of the moment because he can actually see what is happening rather than just stabbing in the dark. He doesn't need anyone to tell him a technique for turning a friend into a lover, for instance, because he understands how and why he is stuck in friend zone and has all the information and tools he needs to find an efficient way out. He sees all the potholes on the seduction path and simply walks around them, because he can actually see where he's going. My blog is intended to be the proverbial lamp that lights the way, so you can make your own decisions. It's not going to be "one killer technique" or "33 golden gambits." It's simply illumination and tools so that you can make your own skilled maneuvers and know how and why they worked and how precisely to use and refine them next time. This is how the successfull PUA's skills develop. They are organic rather than tacked on, hence far more powerful - and he doesn't even know the meaning of the word "calibration" for it is not needed because he has two eyes of his own and can see what he is doing!

Any other place you can find information of that sort of illuminating nature - rather than flashy tricks to try - and it's coming from someone highly experienced, it is extremely valuable. There are other places than this blog, perhaps, but they are hard to find. I encourage the reader to seek them out as well, simply keeping in mind what I said above. No great teacher, no matter how flashy of moves they teach you, should keep you in the dark and reliant on them.

This enlightened pyramid is in stark contrast to what most of those who have recently discovered the community have ended up with. The "light for your path" described above is not very marketable with brief sound bites about "52 super techniques to floor her" or "20 ways to boost your value in her eyes." What happens when you ignore the fundamental in favor off all the empty flash and gimmicks? Honestly? It's not all that bad. You get guys who have a lot of fun going out and learn to be "cool social guys" and get laid a little more than before and get more confidence. That's all well and good, because they are at least better than where they started.

However, the dream of getting with hot women on a consistent basis perpetually seems just out of their grasp. They sure are getting a lot of interest from girls, and seem to be hitting all sorts of breakthroughs, but once the rush wears off there isn't all that much improvement. They still watch other guys who seem to have a lot less going for them - even guys who the girls don't seem as attracted to - end up with the finer hotties like they were flowing from a magical tap. Then they figure, "just a little more calibration and I'll be there, just a few more better techniques..." It just don't work that way! See the inverted and mangled pyramid below, representing the average products (men) turned out by most of the seduction community in the last 3-4 years.

They are focused on PERIPHERALS, like having their shoes shined and their cars spotless, looking "cultured," demonstrably being connected with famous people, having the right color wallpaper in their house. These concepts the easiest to market, and have been by men's magazines since the printing press was invented. This is in fact AFC (average frustrated chump - the community word for people who know nothing of pickup and have little success) territory, absolutely. In fact the whole "pyramid" is in danger of being crushed under the weight of all that - frankly - bullshit.

Next come tricks, tactics, gimmicks, etc. These include stuff that helps in opening and initial interaction like palm reading, magic, etc. Some of that is harmful, some can be helpful if the fundamentals are lacking, but very little of it has any significant value when compared with the lower slabs of the pyramid proper. Now tactics ARE very important sometimes, but being taught tactics is not so much. The successful guys will NOTICE tactics because they can see the road in front of them and are consciously searching for a way. Lo and behold, they find it, and they refine it through experience and under "good illumination." The frustrated apprentice gets taught tactics and tricks, uses them haphazardly and gets partial results. These partial results excite him, but no or few lays occur. This can go on for months, years...and he may never notice that he's hobbling around like a blind chicken with one leg,

The "skills" area is relatively equal on both pyramids, provided plenty of experience is had. This is the only reason the average frustrated PUA really gets any noticeable boost to his sex life from before (besides the obvious factor that now he knows pickup is possible and doable, which counts for a lot by itelf). These skills help him, to be sure, but he is always feeling he needs more calibration. Not surprising because he is still shooting in the dark, just with a better gun!

He always wonders when his big breakthrough is going to come. It could come by accident, when he discovers great efficiencies through sheer luck. But for most this seems to take years. For me it took a few months, but only because I had....yup, you guessed it: access to the knowledge and understandings (reading material from online mentors) that would light up the whole reality for me and lay bare for me the truth in my interactions with females. I knew what I saw and tested my reality, thereby quickly finding the hidden efficiencies and shortcuts while skirting the pitfalls. In the average frustrated model, this would-be foundation is reduced to an anemic leg, actually festering with the pustules of misinformation and mal-understanding (which I am not good enough with Illustrator to draw).

The inner game is perfunctorily there, and some come to the community with more of it than others, but for the majority it remains a weak and meager support mechanism to hop about on, directionless, rather than a rock of solid strength they can push back against when plans falls through and times are choppy (happens on the way to almost every lay!). Instead of building this chicken foot into a massive cornerstone of support, the frustated trainee seeks out more peripheral irrelevance, more tricks and tactics to cover over that weak core.

Only after years of trial and error does he perhaps finally build his skills and confidence and understanding so much that he can go to soar with the eagles. This is wonderful, and all respect to those who do this path. But if you are not there yet, I'd ask you to take a look at these two pyramids and understand what to focus on to get to success FAST. Anyone with decent inner game will reach extremely high levels within 3-4 months IF they have the right material to read, the points of light that show them the way so that they can reason for themselves.

This is in many ways better than even what experience can offer, especially given the time and expense. Experience is paramount of course, but keep in mind that I made my big transformation simply by reading the right material over the course of a few months. The very first chance I had to use it, I took it and had unbelievable success (relatively) over my former performance from Day One in the field, with zero experience. Of course, experience added on the final boost, but knowing where you are going and seeing what is actually going on in the normally obscured world of male-female interaction gives you a simply unbeatable advantage. I hope this blog continues to help people gain those understandings, starting with this overall understanding of what separates the guys who do OK from the guys who soar in this field.