11/01/2007

I met with my first real student for my first mentorship today, a young West Asian/African man we'll call Anansi. He's gone by the names Zeus and Zebra previously, wanting something that matched the first letter of his real name, but neither nickname really fit the avatar possibilities I saw in him. He has a natural energy and vibrant personality, he seems like there is a lovable trickster in him. His new name is a dedication to Anansi the spider, an African god-hero whose domain was trickery and storytelling.

Anansi is a small man, average in height and seriously underweight. He wears clothes from Mexx and Guess, both very "preppy" in appearance. He is clean cut. He looks completely average. That has to change. He's got some great features to work with: he's exotic, has great cheekbone, a full head of hair and pretty eyes. He needs to add something interesting to his look, though, or he's going to get lost in the crowd.

On first impresion, he seems nervous. I've brought my girlfriend for the meet, and she refers to him as cute. The description fits. He stutters and stumbles through the first part of our interaction, occasionally (and obviously) phase shifting to hit on my girlfriend. I can see, in the shift, his potential. He comes off sleazy, his vibe needs adjustment, but the foundation of charisma is there. He's going to be good when he gains congruence.

Sadly, congruence can't be taught. It can, at best, be encouraged. So I focus on what I know. I've brought along a toolbox of Attraction and Comfort material, and go through the basics. He takes some notes (with the eerie ability to write and look me in the eye at the same time) and slowly loosens up. We talk theory for a while and then head out to see what's what on a Thusday in Edmonton.

Almost nothing is "what" on Thursday in Edmonton. Whyte Ave is dead because all of the students got their party out on or before Halloween. So we head to a Salsa club on Jasper to try our luck there. The place is packed, which is awesome, but there are a few thngs missing. The first is any sort of isolation point. There's nowhere to bring a girl so the two of you can be alone. The second thing missing is sexual intent. People are here to dance, not hook up.

Regardless, Anansi goes into set. His approach is solid, even if his approach-point is not. He gets the attention of a couple of 8s and then immediately loses them. I'm chatting with a Mexican fellow in Edmonton for mechanic work, and looking as bored as possible. Before I have a chance to see how his set is going, they disappear into the arms of a couple of muscle-bound Salsa hunks.

We break down the interaction. He opened situational, then had nowhere to go, a common problem in non-structured improv pick-up. We move on and I open my first set of the night. She's a latino 7, curvey in the ass and bored near to tears. I tell her she looks really bored and open with Makeup. By the time the root story is done, I'm already locked in and have established introductory kino. I re-thread with how I was dragged to a salsa club, even though I can't salsa dance, and she practically drags me to the dance floor to teach me. This is awesome, because I can't use my feet to save my life, but the kino is fantastic, she's taken over 50% of the conversation, and my mistakes help our rapport build to a very decent level.

I eject from the set without closing (my policy being that I refuse to focus on my own set while teaching) and go off to find Anansi. He's on the dance floor with a seven, looking confident in his dancing skills. She seems to be enjoying herself. I engage an older set at the bar, a couple of blond thirty-somethings, just to pass the time. When he comes off the dance floor, I discover he's actually opened a two-set, so I come in with my standard "Hey, have you seen Matt?" He introduces me to the set in reverse, identifying his obstacle as his target (no one could mistake the difference; his obstacle was butt fugly), and continues to talk to the blond 8 he was dancing with. I engage the obstacle, who immediately steals the set from Anansi, pulling all three of them off of the dance floor. I stay where I am and watch as he follows them like a puppy dog. It hurts me inside.

The obstacle decides to find a place to sit down, and pulls her friend along. I cut in front of Anansi and follow them myself, minimizing the effect his puppy-dog-ism will have on the rest of the club, then ask him to meet me at the watering hole (our very makeshift home-base).

I break down for him where the set went bad, and how he can fix it next time (engage the obstacle, pebbles if you need to, permission controls). It's coming close to the end of the night for us, so we decide to give Whyte one more try, and, finding it dead, call it a night.

11/02/2007

Anansi and I meet at the Starbucks in West Edmonton Mall. West Ed is no longer the largest mall in the world; it's the fourth, which is still pretty fucking spectacular when you come right down to it. I want to shop in the mall in Dubai, and more importantly, the outdoor mall in China, but those not being a possibility, we decided to build Anansi's avatar at West Ed.

I want to add a bit of bad-boy to his style. His current style is very, very preppy.

The first thing we do is hit Millenium. This place is fantastic for peacocking, having nearly everything a goth-emo kid could want. Wearing nothing _but_ goth-emo clothes is dumb. Wearing spots of goth-emo with normal clothing makes your wardrobe much more dynamic and dramatic. Because his new avatar is a spider-god, we decide to go with some spider-themed accessories. He picks up a glow-in-the-dark keychain with a real spider encased in it, and a webbed belt buckle with a gem-encrusted spider on one side. Both of them look fantastic.

Then we get some blond highlights in his hair. The kid's got great hair, and it looks awesome spiked, but he needed something a little more dynamic than what he'd been doing with it previously. He was actually sort of shocked that I suggested he change his hair, as that's something he'd been proud of. For the evening of sarging, we put him in a button-down shirt, a nice-fitting pair of corduroy slacks and a sport's jacket.

I have "Before" and "After" pictures, but I'm not sure Anansi wants his image plastered all over a public forum.

We enter the Empire Ball Room and pick a spot. I grab a coke from the bar (always tell whoever your bartender is that you're driving), and Anansi and I chat for a bit. No routines, no lines, no theory, just sit back, relax and chat for a while. A couple of really nice sets come in, including a birthday party and a whole lot of people in for some modeling thing Hugo Boss is putting on. Anansi hits the birthday party and finds people he knows there. We try to use it as an "in," but it turns against us, as apparently one of the girls has seen The Pick-up Artist and her alarm bells went off when I asked her to introduce us to her friends. "Are you guys trying to pick up?" she asked me, which I found slightly amusing, and I ejected the set.

I open a two-set sitting by the wall, and find them very, very incredibly drunk. They laugh at everything I say, which is funny for a while, but gets old fast. There's no real rapport, and mostly I'm just keeping myself busy while Anansi does his thing with the birthday party. When I come back, though, the party has split into two groups. One of the groups is male, the other female, and between the two was a solid glass wall of discomfort. I try to distract Anansi's friends (the men) long enough for him to get locked into the female half of the set, but his friends AMOG me hard (calling me both old and creepy; old I have a comeback for, creepy I do not), and I'm forced to leave the set to keep Anansi's value at a peak. His buddies cock-block him, though, and eventually we decide that it's better to open a few new sets. I get some AA for a few minutes, which sucks balls, while Anansi opens another set somewhere. I finally get over the AA and open a two-set at the beer-tub. I'd opened the beer-tub girl a while ago, coming back to check on her now and again for social proof and also because she seemed to need the pick-me-up.

The target is a blond perky-bouncy little thing with just enough librarian that I immediately liked her. The obstacle was a little more Artificially Pretty, and definitely had a thicker bitch-shield, but Anansi took care of it well, and engaged her in some natural conversation while I demonstrated some value to the target. The fashion show started, and the girls ejected, so Anansi and I watched the show. Nothing spectacular, though the guys they picked for models are nowhere near as pretty as some of the guys on this forum. Think about _that_ the next time you're experiencing some inner game issues.

I reopen my set, using the show as a situational opener, and they're responsive. I've lost Anansi, though, so the obstacle is definitely on guard. I lock the target in with a bracelet I bought for a dollar at the Dollar Store, and go find Anansi back in the Birthday Party set. He's drowning. There are at least ten people now, and he knows a few of them, but he is very definitely not the center of attention, and he's losing his frame.

I go back one more time to my two-set, and figure we'll call it a night. I don't bother closing. We debrief on the way home, and I give him two new missions. I didn't get a number once during the entire session. I had fun, though, and that's the important thing.

I'm definitely looking at doing more teaching. I just need to find some more students...