All the old posts from the old Your-Japan.com on the Your-Japan Blog Network

Continuing in series from the previous posts…

All right AJ, this all sounds great, but can we get back to the "correct" way to do the first touch? Continue with the guidelines!

OK, here’s a critical one I’ve mentioned only briefly before. Never look at your hand! Keep strong eye contact with her. Looking at your hand is creepy, wishy-washy, shows lack of confidence, indicates you’re asking permission to touch her, and shows it’s not a nonchalant, casual, normal thing for you. It’s terribly bad for so many reasons, just don’t even think about doing it! Meanwhile, your eye contact works to attract her and make her feel your presence even more. She should feel a rush when you do this.

How can you touch her arm when you aren’t looking at it?

This can be kinda tough since you’re totally focused on her eyes, but what I used to do is, just as I was getting next to her I would note the position of her arm. After a while this will be second nature and you can do it without thinking.

Any special way you touch her on the arm?

Nearly flat palm, firmly and authoritatively, yet warmly, for about one (1) full second. I always touch on the lower to mid part of the upper arm. Of course have a big smile of confidence as your first impression.

OK, I think the first touch is pretty much covered. How do you escalate it as the pickup progresses.

First of all, make no mistake - kino progression IS the heart of the pickup. Everything else basically serves kino escalation, not the other way around. You’re CREATING those high points through what you say and do in the pickup, SO THAT you have windows to kino her more and more intimately…all the way to sex.

So, for instance, how do I touch her the next few times after the first one?

The next few touches will be to cement the anchor you started building with the first touch. Generally follow the advice given in so far and stick to the arm, then the shoulder and then lower back.

How long should these first few touches last?

About 1 second at first, according to how long her peak of good feeling lasts. Don’t let it slop past that feeling peak. The first few times it really benefits you to time it carefully so the anchor is well established. Then that anchor will serve you for the rest of the sarge. Later on they can last 1.5 seconds or so, but these numbers aren’t going to help you as much as a common sense feel for it. Always watch her reactions carefully. The first signs of discomfort if your touch was too invasive can be very subtle, especially in Japan. Moving away from you is a not-so-subtle one, in which case you’ve got to tone it way back for a while and be extra careful reestablishing the anchors from square one. Ideally, just find a new girl.

Please give an example of a standard kino escalation order

My personal one, thoroughly field tested to get the majority of my 140+ lays, starts as

Upper arm, shoulder, lower back, upper leg.

Do you keep all these to 1-1.5 second each?

Yes, and maybe up to 2 seconds later on, right up until we’re accelerating toward the kiss. If I’m moving toward the kiss (and in Japan, the kiss is where last-minute resistance and the end-game begin), I might be touching her quite a lot, knowing all the sloppy touch timing will mess things up if I don’t get to the kiss soon. It’s a trade-off where I risk prompting her anti-slut alarms but in exchange I get increased horniness from her. This trade-off is advanced and risky if you push it too far! Caveman-style (never means forcing!) is a type of touch where you can get away with sloppiness like crazy by creating the right frame, but that’s a topic for another time.

Do you ever keep your hand on her leg or back?
When I’m about to do the kiss I might, but not before. See above where I talked about slop factor. When you keep your hand on her somewhere, it implies all kinds of things, and so you better be ready to make good on it fast (read: within seconds)!

What about holding hands? Doesn’t that build comfort?

I never touch their hands except to compare hand sizes if I’m really running behind schedule in the touch escalation game and need something to fall back on. Same with thumb wrestling - it’s very much Plan B for situations where, for example, she’s not having enough high points for me to give contact on.

I find holding hands activates anti-slut alarms and makes girls uncomfortable because it’s giving off romantic/provider vibes that seem to her to be incongruent with your fast escalation. Don’t worry, if you want a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship your best chance of getting it is always to lay her as fast as permissible (the great thing is that you now have many of the tools that allow you to control what she finds permissible).

Basically, the rule of "no slop" means no continuous touching! At least not until late in the pickup.

What about after the upper leg?

Then you’re nearly in last-minute resitance (LMR) and should generally be kissing her. I’ll leave that for an LMR discussion.

What about touching other areas? Face? Hair?

Just before going in for the kiss would be fine, but not early on. The touching escalation is designed to give you

THE GREATEST INCREASE IN HER HORNINESS FOR THE LEAST INTRUSION

Touching the face is pretty intrusive to many girls, and it doesn’t usually do that much for horniness. Hair is not intrusive, but it also doesn’t make them that horny usually and it also tends to gives relationship or provider vibes too early (before sex is too early - it’s highly inefficient, chance reducing behavior).

What about kisses on the cheek, head, hands, and so on?
I never kiss girls until the full-on makeout, at which you’ve entered LMR. Kissing anywhere else really clues them into your game plan and does little for horniness UNLESS it’s the earlobe and it’s not really identifiable as a "kiss." Once you’ve kissed them on the cheek or something, what can she tell herself to combat her anti-slut alarms?? For me, it makes getting the makeout 10x harder. She shouldn’t ever have a conclusive hint at what you’re planning until you do it.

To be concluded soon. Questions and comments welcome at amanojacktokyo@yahoo.com

Continuing from the previous post…

Won’t she find it odd at some point that you’re touching her a whole lot, even supposing she’s feeling good every time you do it? Won’t she still find it intrusive?

Yes. Yes, she will! And as long as you follow the Frog-On-A-Hotplate Principle (explained later) this just helps you even more, because of something called the Cialdinian Consistency Principle. This basic principle of persuasion psychology simply states that the more you can get a girl to acquiesce to (generally by inciting her desire), and the faster you can get her do it, the more she will justify to herself that it’s because you’re so great and because she is so attracted to you. Is this counterintuitive or what!

In other words, she’ll find it very ODD that she’s enjoying getting touched so much by you and so fast and so intrusively, and the odder she finds it (while still allowing it) the more quickly she will fall for you. That’s why girls that don’t mind being touched - although generally a big help - can sometimes put up unexpected resistance later. The Cialdini effect is not working on them much because they are not breaking with their conditioning much.

Girls that don’t like being touched are HARD to touch-escalate properly, but if you do, look out! She’ll tend to fall for you hard and quickly because she’s never felt so good being touched by someone before, and she’s likely to subconsciously justify that she must be very attracted to you and you must be very special.

[Take a few minutes to consider the amazing implications of the above.]

What happens if the contact spills over to after the surge of good feelings has subsided?

This weakens the anchor by diluting it with neutral and even negative feeling associations. Even worse, it makes her feel like you’re touching her too much and even if she likes it she’s still obligated to object. Then a bad precedent has been set and all future touching is potentially suspect. In a later post I’ll cover what to do if you make that mistake at some point. Note also that later in the pickup, you can and actually want to be less careful and "messier" - to a degree.

So I’ve gotta watch pretty carefully to make sure she’s really in that good feeling spike when I touch and get in and out in time?

Yes, at first the tighter your physical contact timing the better, for the reasons explained above. Later in the seduction some slop factor is OK, and if this takes all your concentration time that will also be bad, but this is what you should shoot for, realizing that touch is one of the most effective weapons you have to get with the woman you’re after. (Use it well and use it responsibly.)

What else does this first touch accomplish?

- Makes you more "real" for her
- Lets her know very viscerally that you are a sexual being
- Gets her horny…especially as you touch her more
- Shows leadership of her
- Shows confidence and warmth (I’ve had girls tell me they laid me because I was kind, and when I asked them how they knew I was kind they often say "from the way you touched me at first")

In summary for this segment, touching her correctly early on will actually imbue your touch with the power to make her feel good every time you touch her. On the simplest level, if someone feels good every time you touch them, what does that imply about their feelings toward you?

Oh visa. Elusive, elusive visa.

That is all. Stay tuned for my report on new hire orientation whatnots.

Last time I lived in Japan on the Japan Adventure Program, my friend Mike used to keep tally on a whiteboard of Him VS Japan. Whenever one got the better of the other he’d add a tick mark. Get owned by the konbini clerk because you don¡Çt understand that she¡Çs asking to throw your burger into the microwave? Point, Japan. Remind the prick working behind the counter at RIGHT-ON that you speak Japanese and would like a point card like everyone else? Point, Mike. Think your train is stopped to change tracks when actually it’s getting ready to head back to your departure point? Well played Japan.

Last time the odds were unfairly stacked against us. Who knew that trains moved backwards and convenience stores do weird crap like heat up your food and that every store ever has a point card system? Well, we all know now. Look out Japan; this time around I¡Çm going to shove all that BS into your snaggle-toothed grin.

Is what I¡Çd say if there was any BS, but there¡Çs not, really. People are generally very accommodating if they know you speak Japanese, so if you make small talk with the clerks it puts them at ease and opens the door for great service. There’s still miscommunication, but nothing as bad as going to the same shop for half a year without being offered frequent shopper coupons simply because the register clerk didn¡Çt want to deal with the inconveniant possibility that you don’t understand Japanese. Everything was moving along just fine until the McDonald’s reopened.

The Katamachi McDonald’s has had its dining area closed off for the past month or so for remodeling. The new design is swank, with a glass wall separating the smoking and non-smoking sections. I had just bought “Ningen Shikkaku” (”No Longer Human” in English, highly recommended!) by Dazai Osamu and was raring to tear into it over some ¡ï100 coffee when asininity struck.

The clerk asks me if this will be for here or to go, I tell her I don’t need a tray so don¡Çt sweat it. Now this draws blanks from the automatons in America so you better believe I get slack-jawed responses in Japan on a regular basis. Finger hovering hesitantly over the register, she watches me, eyes quivering.

I ask for a ¡ï100 hot coffee and she continues to stare at me with the same puzzled expression. I feel a little embarrassed but figure my Japanese is just not on the ball today and point at the picture menu. Yeah, one of these, a hot coffee. Small.

It looks like I’ve made my point and we complete our transaction. I wait, feeling slightly dejected as she hands out the order in front me, and watch as she begins to fill up a small Coke. My gaze falls back to the picture menu; The Coke is right under the Coffee. I wince. She brings me my Coke and I play coy. Can I have cream and sugar? She gives me a look like she just bit into a curdled crepe and hastily spins around to fix my order. I feel like such a tool. Was my Japanese that bad? Did my Whiteness frighten her deaf?

As I contemplated our communication breakdown I hear her chattering to her co-worker about how to change the order in the register. Except they’re not speaking Japanese, they¡Çre speaking Chinese. I¡Çm not surprised—I know some of the Chinese exchange students in the area and they all work part time jobs, though their Japanese ability is questionable. Here I had come full circle, from being linguistically spanked by clerks to administering to linguistic spankings. I don’t know if I should feel vindicated or villainous.

2nd floor emergency escape rope

One thing¡Çs for sure: The redesigned dining area on the 2^nd floor lacks a fire escape, so if similar oral abuse drives the Chinese workers crazy and they blow up the place by throwing blocks of ice into the grease fryers, I’m gonna have to McClain my way to safety. Puchi Bruce, eat your homuncular heart out!

This series fits into the category of "fundamental knowledge and understanding of the principles of pickup" as explained here: http://amanojack.your-japan.com/post/22/421

Knowing how to touch a woman at all stages of the interaction is something no man should be without. Today I begin a series covering the basics and theory of how touch works in pickup and how and how not to use it. The articles follow a Q&A format, and I’ll also open the forum up to additional questions at each stage.

When do I first touch a girl?

Foran arranged meeting (introduction from a friend, Internet first meet)it should be with the first greeting. For other situations, it shouldbe at the first opportunity (her first "high point" - see below).

Why at first greeting/opportunity?

Shewill accept that that’s just how you are, so won’t read anything toomuch into it or the rest of the physical escalation that’s coming…at leastnot until she’s too horny to care.

What if she doesn’t like to be touched?

Touchingon the arm briefly is pretty non-invasive if done correctly (seebelow), and assuming she is happy to meet you it will happen whileshe is in the grip of a positive feeling anyway. From then on, anchoring (see below) ensures that she WILL like to be touched by you.

What is the "correct" way to do the first touch?

Today I’ll start in on the standard advice, exhaustively field tested to be highlyeffective. Throughout the series this will be frequently interrupted by explanations of theory,so that you can think and use it for yourself rather than being relianton rules and instructions.

Rule 1. If an arranged meeting, touch her asyou say the first greetings. If not an arranged meeting, touch her the first time she is clearlyin the grip of a positive emotion. Try to find the timing where shereaches the peak of that feeling and confine your touch to start ANDend within that peak time window. Laughter is usually the most obviouspeak, and we all know from personal experience that we go into aslightly altered (positive) state for a brief moment when in the gripof sincere laughter.

Why does the first touch have to be during the peak of good feelings? What does that do?

Iknow you said "first touch" but I’m going to run with this and explainit for touch in general. I’m no NLP expert, but I do know that thisworks eerily well. First, if you are so inclined, read what an anchoris here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_%28NLP%29

Moresimply, when you touch her during the peak of the positive emotion, shebegins to associate your touch with positive feelings. After a fewtimes of doing this carefully, you can touch her even when she’s not inthe grip of a good feeling, and it will feel good to her and she won’t know why.

The "she won’t know why" aspect is key. It’s mysterious that for some reason - especiallyif she usually hates to be touched - she finds your touch to make herfeel really good. See what this implies to her subconsciously? Whoelse’s casual touching feels inexplicably good to her?

MaybeI can see what you mean. Like when I have a girl I really like…if sheeven holds my hand it feels so good for some reason.

That’sexactly it. Love, attraction…these things are all created mostpowerfully when a person doesn’t know WHY it’s happening. If you show herhow amazing you are and how handsome, etc., she will naturally beattracted but part of her remains defiant. With anchored touch it’s theopposite.

I think that’s enough for today. Please ask for clarification on anything. The implications of what I’ve said so far are pretty major, so feel free to check and object and ask about what if’s.

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.