Bootcamp - LA 9/27/07 - Sheriff & Mr M. - another review
First of all I'd like to express my thanks to Savoy , who arranged for me to participate in this bootcamp after not being 100% satisfied with a previous BC I've taken. So credit goes to him and I can attest to that he does his best to make sure his clients are happy. Accordingly, I must start with a disclaimer for the fact that I haven't been to the first 2 seminar sessions of the BC (due to the arrangement Savoy and I agreed upon), so my review is only based on the in-field portion and the last seminar day. The way I see it, though, the most important part of the BC is the in-field by far (it also costs accordingly, so TMM, at least, sees it that way as well), so this review should be very relevant to ppl considering taking the BC, IMHO.
I'll start with the seminar .
Like I said I can only attest to the last day, but to me it was good - though not as good as it could have been. I mean I've been reading MM and PU stuff for over a year now, I know my theory pretty well. For most of the principles that have good material/books/articles, I don't really need to be lectured on,
and a lot of what the instructors talked about was standart PU/MM/Mystery stuff. I guess It's not their fault, since the seminar has to make sense to total newbies too (and if you are one - the seminar is great for you), but that's just how it felt for me. I do think it can be done differently, because another seminar I've attended, led by Sinn , felt more innovative, original and unique in its approach to a lot of the PU material. Sinn was also very dogmatic about what he taught (not afraid to tell you "do X, everything else is crap" which in my eyes is valuable in order to weed out a lot of the crap there is out there in PU) and good erxercises have been performed (where the instructors would act as sets as you approach, lock in etc.) which I liked A LOT
(Instructors are far less forgiving than girls, so you can really learn a lot). Now don't get me wrong - Sheriff , Mr.M and DaHunter all fucking rocked, and all of them had gems to teach and share in the seminar ... I just think that a different format could have been that much better.
Now for the serious stuff - in field. First of all I would like to take this opportunity to publically thank Sheriff for his unreal hospitality. Like I said I've participated in this seminar as part of an agreement I had with savoy .
what I didn't mention before was the fact we only agreed on 1 night. but when I told that to sheriff HE IMMEDIATELY INVITED ME TO BOTH THE FOLLOWING SEMINAR DAY AND THE SECOND INFIELD PART, JUST LIKE THAT. That's just how great that guy is.
Nights breakdown:
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Night 1. CRAZY student to instructor/approach coach ratio. I'm talking 1:1 if not better, it was just ridiculous, like a TMM meetup or something. Ironically, the venue was pretty much dead...
We still opened sets and as another example of how cool The instructors were, when I suggested bouncing to a different venue my suggestion was immediately accepted and everyone bounced, Mr.M taking huge care that everyone is counted for and everything ticks, all the time keeping us up to date and even debriefing us mid-night in case we couldn't get into another club or something went wrong, making it clear that even if something like that happened, it would be compensated for the following night by a longer sarge. That guy was just as awesome as Sheriff was, really I can't say enough good things about those guys.
Night2. Due to sad circumstances which weren't in the lead instructors' control (one instructor got sick and 2 instructors who were supposed to come didn't show up) the ratio wasn't as good as the first night but still OK.
The venue was better though - not the best imaginbale, but enough to learn from. Now get this. In the end of the night, Mr.M, DaHunter and I continued to hang out and even though no sets were around, we discussed (among other things) several PU issues, including specific sticking points of mine, that helped me out considerably. Like I said, these guys were determined to help the students out and they did more than they were formally obligated to.
Instructors breakdown:
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Sheriff - Like I said, super nice, calm, and willing to help out guy.
Very knowledgable in TMM and always glad to help and clarify even in breaks, after the seminar , etc.
In field I haven't worked with him a lot, but the few times I did he had some good feedback to give me
Mr.M - Awesome. super clear, super willing to help, always has feedback when you ask him, always knows what's up and keeps you in the loop. Just a great guy and a great instructor. And don't worry about his game, he almost FC'd a playboy playmate during the BC.
DaHunter - The surprise of the workshop for me.
Formally he's an approach coach, but I saw him in field and he knows what he's doing. I have "stolen" him several times in both nights for mini 1-1 's where I got some very good feedback. One time I basically eavesdropped an entire sarge of him and got a few pearls out of it. All in all, great job.
TheMagicMan - Great guy, knowledgable in PU.
To be honest I haven't really had the chance to work with him so I can't say much more than that, sorry!
Conclusion
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If you're a newbie - take it. At the very least, it will save you time, which is a very valuable resource in our lives.
If you're doing pretty well - realize you'd probably get some good pointers/tweaks to your game, a couple of gems, and most importantly for me, close most if not all of the little loose ends you had left after studying various resources. Don't expect (like I did) to be in-set with instructors all the time and getting constant feedback. As willing to help as the instructors are, you'd sometimes have to find them, wait for them to finish with other students, you can't hear them because of the noise, they can't hear you, etc. It is far from ideal but it's hard to blame TMM, clubs can be like that. I still believe the entire process could be managed more intelligently
(e.g. pairing an instructor with a student and switching every 10 minutes),
but like I said I learned quite a bit as it was. A 1-1 might be a better option in this case, but since I haven't taken one, I can't say for sure.
All in all I'm happy with my decision and with the way it turned out, and I will consider a 1-1 in the future . In contrast to some of the other reviews you might read here, I'm teling you straight out - the workshop didn't change my life, it didn't open my eyes to whole new worlds, I wasn't amazed by some super phenomenal demos... it simply improved my game - And that's all I wanted. Back home now (I came all the way from Israel), I'm getting good results, and the BCs definitely deserve part of the credit (I take most of it to myself
)
Peace,
Ohad | Who wants to change their abilities with women and dating FOREVER? |
Last edited by g3nius; 10-27-2007 at 05:14 PM.
Forget the so-called date...
- Mystery
Age: 23 Loc: Israel, Center
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