Another Fidentia Review

A guy who calls himself Phase sent in this Fidentia workshop review.  It reads as a pretty even-handed taked on a typical Fidentia workshop, so if anyone’s thinking of taking one with this crew, you may want to read it.

Fidentia Workshop Review, 24th-26th June, Los Angeles.
Instructors; Robert Torrey (Nightlife) & Cameron Teone (The One)
Cost: $650

Intro

Looking back over the years all of my girlfriends have come from social circles. While I’ve had some great LTRs most of them have "just happened" – In all honesty I’d have to say that in most cases the girls hose and pursued me. That’s not a bad problem to have of course, but fairly recently after breaking up with an amazing girl I began to realize that my love life wasn’t something I wanted to leave to chance when I found DYD/MASF (I think via sosuave, which I found via a newsletter). After reading the DYD E-book so much seemed to make sense and I do think it improved my interactions over the following months with women but it’s debatable whether that was from trying to cultivate a "Cocky & Funny" attitude, or just because it gave me more confidence. I’m naturally a very analytical person; my job is writing high-performance computer graphics where knowing more detail is always better. After finding all this material I began to get into a rut where I was reading far more than practicing, it’s incredibly easy to unconsciously begin to believe you are actually learning from such things, when in reality you’re achieving almost zero improvement.

Looking to get out of this rut I started toying with the idea of taking a workshop. The three choices boiled down to RSD, MM and some new outfit I’d heard about called Fidentia. I’d read positive things about Fidentia and it seemed to preach a more natural approach as opposed to routines, which I’d never felt wholly congruent with, but RSD & MM had a lot more positive publicity and were better established.  In the end I sat down one Saturday and mailed the contact addresses on all three websites with various questions. Robert replied first thing Monday morning (and apologized for the "delay" in his reply due to him being in Miami), Mystery didn’t have anything local coming up, and as I write this I’m still waiting for a reply from RSD…

On to the review. Note that in the below I haven’t detailed most interactions, partially because I don’t remember the exact details of them all and I feel without details field-reports aren’t much use, but mostly because I’m lazy and don’t want to have to spend the time typing them up Also, I generally dislike assigning ratings to girls, not through any form of decency (hah), but because it can be so variable based on location and preference… Suffice it to say I live in LA, go out in Hollywood quite often and by the standards here I’d consider pretty much all of the girls I approached over the three days to be somewhere between 7-9′s.

Day 1

On Friday afternoon I arrived at the house of one of the instructors where the theory sections of the workshop are taking place, the first thing that threw me was several students were already there and acronyms I’d never heard verbalized before, "LTR", "PUA" and others, were flying around. Very weird the first time you hear it!

I should admit I was pretty wary about how some of my fellow students would turn out to be – Before Fidentia my sole experience of meeting others in the community was from twice meeting guys from PAIR and in both cases within an hour I’d been reduced to tears of boredom by their lack of social skills and excuser attitudes ("she’s not hot enough", "she’s not my type", "she looks in a bad mood", "I don’t feel it"). I shouldn’t have worried, there was a wide age range amongst the students (26-41) but everyone was very personable and people you could happily spend an hour chatting to about things unrelated to pickup. Infact given how great everyone was and how most of us live relatively close, I feel bad about not having made more of an effort to hang out with them since the workshop (I know, I’m shit, but I’ve been busy guys!)

When everyone was present we took it in turns to briefly talk about our background, our experience, sticking points and what we wanted to get out of the workshop. While this was going on the instructors took notes and asked us to be as honest as possible so they’d have the best idea of the areas to work on. It turned out that other than myself, everyone present had already taken an RSD/Mystery bootcamp/workshop/seminar, and most had taken more than one. I’d read DYD, listened to a few of DeAngleo’s programs and read too much MASF so it initially felt a little intimidating. At the same time I felt that if these guys had come to Fidentia after the other workshops then I’d probably made a good choice. Over the weekend stories I heard from other students on the workshops they’d previously taken backed this up bigtime… have you ever wondered why there are few bad reviews of some workshops despite the time they’ve been running? That’s because they only offer refunds to unhappy students if they agree not to write bad reviews. Scary huh?

The first part of the seminar started with Robert talking about the fundamentals of body language and demonstrating ways your poise and facial expressions can affect your state both positively and negatively. He also talked about the differences between a mans idea of their ideal partner, which largely focuses on physical characteristics, and a woman’s which relates more to personality and the emotions a man elicits within them – and how many of these personality traits can be expressed via body language.

We were also introduced to the first of Fidentia’s six steps. One of the core areas of their teaching is that it’s easier to concentrate on what to do than on what not to do and to this end they’ve created six steps to follow during an interaction. Each day we were given two steps which were explained and then practiced using exercises. We’d then take them into the field and the instructors would critique us and suggest improvements.

With regards to these steps, I liked them a lot. They’re simple and easy to remember but if you follow and do them well during an interaction you’re going to have a lot of success. Out of interest, after the workshop I looked up the famed "25 points" post on MASF and found that in a lot of cases most of the "things not to do" in that post are covered by one of Fidentia’s positive steps. The 25 points post does go into a lot more detail and contains good stuff, but while it intuitively makes sense there’s a heck of a lot to follow and internalize.

After dinner we did a few exercises based around projecting emotions and the physical process of approaching, then headed up to Hollywood. We split into two groups and spent the night at a couple of different bars doing approaches with an instructor around, both to push us into sets if needed and provide feedback. One of the things I liked was that unless asked the instructors made no attempt to get involved in a set. This was in contrast to another workshop that happened to be running in one of the bars we went to where an instructor would step in to a set and pump things up when a student was running out of routines, before stepping out again. Though I have no idea whether this was something the other student may have asked for, I felt that I learned more by letting things take natural course and then being debriefed, and indeed by the end of the night I realized that while I never got anything less than a positive reaction from approaching, I wasn’t doing enough to lead the conversation and hence sets would tend to evaporate as girls spied something shinier to occupy their attention.

When I realized this I began to think about going back to a routine stack post-opening and the even spent time rehearsing one again the next morning. However it turned out that I’d never need it, what we were taught on day2 would solve this problem in a way routines never could.

Day 2

While day1 covered the beginning of an interaction, day2 was mainly spent working on the actual interaction itself. Cameron gave an excellent talk about how to be a good story teller which was followed by exercises where we worked on how to keep conversations flowing by switching/changing topics and leading with little or no input from our udience.

This is where I had my biggest breakthrough during the workshop;

During one exercise designed to encourage flowing conversational skills, I’m telling about different countries I’ve lived, things that had happened and the cultural differences. I end up talking for quite a while with all the other students listening in and at the end Cameron says; "I only have one question… why aren’t you saying this stuff to girls?" and I’m like "Yeah… I was just thinking that myself"… Boom – something clicked for me. From that point on I could keep the conversation going indefinitely with almost every girl I opened during the workshop, all the time keeping her locked into me and while getting lots of IOI’s. Better yet, when I started getting better at story telling I realized that many of the things which help create a good story (passion, projecting positive emotions) were also things that when applied to opening also raised my game and led to more positive responses. One of the great things was that all the students chipped in to give feedback on the stories of others and helped shape one or two average tories into complete classics that had the students and instructors in stitches. (Baksheesh?).

Previously the instructors had asked us whether we were interested in night or day game and as most of the experienced students wanted to work more on day game the instructors changed the workshop to suit this, which I thought was pretty cool. For the in-field part of day2 we headed out to a mall mid-afternoon where we got food and Robert showed us an amazingly simple but effective method to both increase a girl’s interest and get her leaning into you. I’ve used this many times since the workshop, with girls I’ve just met, have been on dates with and even known for some time – and it’s never failed to work. In a couple of cases girls have actually began kinoing me because of it which left me speechless the first time it happened.

We all took turns to practice this exercise on each other, both to get the hang of it and to see the unconscious reaction of the student guinea-pig and see how effective it was. We were doing this in the food court of a crowded mall so initially I was a little uncomfortable but almost no one paid any attention to the fact we kept leaving our seats and re-approaching the table with an opener and I just forgot about it. After the workshop I realized that unconsciously this did a lot that day to breakdown the uncomfortable feelings I had about the reaction of people nearby during daytime approaches – The truth is 99% of people just don’t care, further demonstrated later that day when I saw a girl sitting by herself at a table outside Starbucks. With nowhere to sit I walked to the table of black dudes next to her, said "Guys, is anyone sitting in this chair?", picked it up, sat it down next to the girl and opened her. After 15 seconds of silence they all went back to their conversation.

Like the previous day the in-field section was done by splitting into two groups with each group having an instructor to critique students while they approached and were in-set. One of the few negative points about the workshops, and something that would also happen the next day though to less of an extent, was that after having eaten and worked on exercises it was fairly late in the afternoon with a lot less people around, so harder to find targets. We all did a good number of approaches though, I think I did 5-6 (which might not sound a lot for a workshop but a couple of them were pretty lengthy) but it might have been better if we’d started a little earlier but as I was happy with the outcome of the day and my approaches I shouldn’t complain too much!

Day 3

Again day3 would be split between exercises and theory with the latter part of the day spent in the field on day game. While some time was spent going over some of the important aspects of the past two days, we also did exercises about how to tackle women who initially offer resistance when using a direct approach. Although this wasn’t something that was needed during the in-field parts of the workshop, I’ve found it helpful in a couple of cases since when I’ve received an obvious brush-off. The very first time it happened I found myself going into a form of autopilot and applying what was taught in the workshop which was an odd but satisfying experience. Prior to the workshop if I received anything less than a neutral response I’d eject but now I see it actually being an enjoyable challenge to break through.

Like day2, day3′s in-field section was day game in a mall in LA. Unfortunately by the time we got there and had eaten it was getting on a bit and we probably missed the busiest time of the day. From what I saw all the students did do a good number of approaches but it was a little harder to find targets than it would have been a few hours earlier, again I have no real complaints about the outcome other than possible missed opportunities. Because one of the students left before the in-field section the instructors invited a previous student who was in town to join us which I thought was a nice touch.

As in the previous day, now that I’d learned how to direct and lead conversations I had no problem in keeping them going indefinitely. Highlights of day3 would be a woman I opened in a bookshop and chatted to or a while, who was obviously interested in me, until she started blushing crazily and mentioned she could see her husband coming down the stairs looking for her. Also a woman who in a health food shop who I must have spent 10-15 minutes talking to while other shoppers weaved their way around us, when I said "I should really get back to my friends" she immediately offered her (solid) number and thanked me for approaching her. Oh and the minor celeb that both another student and myself approached within minutes of each other. She was a little confused by this and started looking around as if seeking some Punked-style camera while asking if I knew "the other guy" – at least neither of us used opinion openers, I can’t imagine how you could easily recover from that one…

Summary

From reading the above it should be obvious that my experiences of the workshop were almost wholly positive, but there were a few negatives that I’ll mention. The first would be the slightly-off timings for the parts of day2/3′s that were spent in the field, though the day2 criticism is a little unfair as the schedule was changed during the workshop to accommodate the wishes of the students. I was also a bit disappointed about the fact that I spent most of my time with Cameron… No offense to Cameron He’s truly a great guy with a lot of warmth and an obvious desire to see people succeed, but I’d have liked to see Robert in-set as I think his lower-energy attitude is closer to my own personality. This only occurred to me after the workshop and I have no doubt that if I’d asked to see it during the workshop it’d have happened.

Another downside is that I feel the logistics of the workshop could have been better explained with more info provided beforehand beyond the FAQ on the website. For example; The fieldwork parts of the workshop took part in West LA but the seminars were held at an instructors house in Redondo Beach, and while the location was fine I’d have been a little ticked off if I’d flown in and booked a hotel in LA only to find I had to make my way to Redondo Beach each day. In fairness Fidentia knew that I lived in LA so this information may be something that’s given to students who are coming from out of town. I also found the payment section on the website to be a little vague but I’ve noticed that this has since been changed.

I’ve read reviews of many workshops where students talk of having a quantum shift in thinking, or have trouble sleeping because their head is spinning so much but I experienced neither of these. What I did get from the workshop was what I can best describe as a feeling of solid inner confidence and the knowledge that situations that I was apprehensive of in the past are really nothing special. I’ve gone from someone who was largely uncomfortable with cold approaches and had interactions that lacked direction, to someone who genuinely enjoys it with a near-total confidence and believe that I have the skillset needed for pickup.

Beyond this, my daily interactions with people in general and women in particular have greatly improved and I’ve noticed that I get a lot more IOI’s in daily;y life. What still amazes me is that in many cases these occur with no verbal interaction. For example every afternoon I cross the five-lane road outside our office to Starbucks which usually consists of waiting for a few minutes for a break in traffic and I now regularly get girls checking me out as they drive by, to the point where last week three girls in a convertible honked and waved. I have no idea why, I dress no differently and could just be better at noticing such things, or it could be the mother of all coincidences, but it does happen.  Ironically, despite the fact that one of my goals taking the workshop was to get away from a reliance of social-circle lays and dating I’ve found opportunities here have gone through the roof; One example being a BBQ I hosted over July 4th for friends and friends of friends. Although I never tried to be anything but a good host the next day I was told that three girls who I’d never met before and spent little time with were asking our mutual friends whether I was single and for my details.

One of the really important things I learned was just be less analytical; Gone are the hours spent with audio/video products, no more browsing all the latest threads or archives on MASF, or reading the DYD/RSD/Mystery newsletters. Infact a few days after the workshop I deleted all such content and products from my PC – I simply don’t need them anymore, and got about 7gb of free space back too! (7gb!!).

There are still plenty of rough edges to my game but the difference is I can now identify these, recognize problems, and then enjoy working on them. Analogies aren’t easy but if I had to pick one it would be the path to becoming good at either sport or a musical instrument. No matter how much you practice, read, or try to mirror others, just by working with a good instructor you’ll gain instant improvement from their feedback alone. More importantly they’ll break areas down into elements, how you the ideal technique for each and by working on these elements your performance will skyrocket – and this is what I learned at the Fidentia workshop.

Just a brief word on the Fidentia student forum; Excellent. The instructors are very committed to it and answer pretty much everything that is asked of them. On top of that there’s a lot of very good stuff posted by students themselves both in the form of fieldreports, comments and questions. While MASF is an excellent resource the signal to noise ratio is pretty low and in the case of fieldreports many contain at best a large amount of mental masturbation, and at worst downright lies. Of course MASF is free and only exists due to the hardwork and good will of a single guy so in that respect you certainly get more than your money’s worth, but there’s no comparison with a closed-forum where everyone knows everyone else either directly or through one degree of separation.

So the ultimate question… Was it worth it? Without a doubt I’d say yes. Technically there’s little taught you couldn’t learn yourself over time through trial and error, but when I hear people talk about going out 4-5 times a week for X months solely to learn pickup I can’t help but think they must have incredibly empty lives both to be able to do that, and not to be meeting women via other means. I have neither the time nor desire to make that level of commitment and being able to shave so much time off the learning process is invaluable to me. Since I took the workshop I’ve noticed the Fidentia prices (which considering the time given by instructors were unrealistically low to be honest) have risen, but had I paid the current prices then I’d still consider it good value for money.

The End, or rather… The Beginning