Boot camp teaches bachelors how to score booty

"You are here to breed," said British dating coach and author Adam Lyons to his audience of 15 Bay Area bachelors who shelled out a thousand bucks apiece to sharpen their seduction techniques.

Lyons, 29, billed as one of the world's top-ranked pickup artists, hosted an intensive boot camp at the Serrano Hotel last weekend, advising his love-hungry disciples on how to approach women, build attraction and find motivation within.

Having transformed himself from a Dungeons & Dragons-obsessed teenager to serial dater of models after picking up a copy of Neil Strauss' 2005 book, "The Game," a guide to the strange world of pickup artists, Lyons said he had an innate bond with his students.

"We didn't get the period from 18 to 25 that most guys in college have, running around (and) having loads of sex," he said, confessing he spent those years wearing capes and wizard hats, which, not surprisingly, aren't much of a turn-on for the opposite sex.

The hotel's conference room was filled with men who looked as if they would have little trouble getting dates - handsome, capable of speaking in complete sentences and, given the weekend's steep price tag, obviously too rich.

Some said they were there because they lacked confidence, a few because they had recently gotten out of long-term relationships and were feeling a bit lost. And then there was the guy who just wanted a threesome: "I only get good girls, but I want bad girls," he said.

Lyons, who documented his first year as a ladies' man in the book "The Diary of a Pick Up Artist," said that people should think of these courses as self-help for men. Yes, he gives methodical instructions on how to hit on women in nightclubs, but his main goal, he said, is to help level the playing field for socially awkward dudes.

"A lot of these guys don't understand human interaction," Lyons said. "If they can control that, it will start a process of realizing the other things they can control. At the moment they think they're a victim of circumstance."

Having armed his students with some advice that seemed fairly easy to follow (speak to women at eye level, be liberal with the compliments, subscribe to Cosmopolitan) and some that seemed impossible (take your date bowling, "no alcohol whatsoever"), he then took them out to practice their lessons in the real world.

It didn't go well at first. Assigned coaches and dispersed in groups of four along the cluster of bars on Geary on Friday night, they were easy to spot because everywhere they went it looked as if a grenade had dropped. Several young women actually made a break for the exit at Ambassador after being approached by two of Lyons' disciples. "Run, don't walk!" yelled the one in the back.

Luke Krogh, a large guy with a blue Mohawk who looks as if he hasn't slept in days, said the fieldwork was what did him in when he signed up for one of Lyons' boot camps a year ago.

"The first day, I cried," he said. "The second day, I cried too."

Now he serves as one of Lyons' main coaches. His iPhone is loaded with photos of his conquests from the past year, most of them in various states of undress.

At Swig, women were literally hanging off Krogh within minutes of his arrival. "I don't teach guys how to get girls," he said after exchanging Facebook information with his favorite dance partners. "I teach guys how to have girls get them."

Lyons tirelessly stuck with the students, patiently shoving them into different sets of women until the rejection started to sting a little less and their self-confidence started to build. By the end of the evening, even the most hard-luck cases were scoring phone numbers.

"Under normal conditions I can't approach and talk to girls," said one student (who didn't want his name used). Holding up his trembling hands, he gasped, "It's been life changing."

ow to catch, keep or release your valentine

Want to make Valentine's Day truly memorable? Here are some tips from Adam Lyons:

1. Make dating fun!: "Dinner and a movie has been done to death. Invite her out to a late night at the aquarium or to paint pottery at an arts and crafts cafe and you can be sure you're the only person to have asked her on that date today. This is going to help you stand out from the crowd and ensure you have a much better chance on the date."

2. Ask more than one woman out: "I'd stagger three dates throughout the afternoon to evening. If one of them is going particularly well and you don't want to meet the others then you can simply call in sick. It sucks for them unless they're reading this guide too because then they'd have options as well."

3. Text the woman in the morning before the date telling her you're going to be five minutes late as your day is really busy and ask if that's OK: "This may sound ridiculous but it will give her the opportunity to cancel if she's on the fence about coming out and stop you getting stood up waiting for someone who isn't going to show."

4. Treat her like your girlfriend on the date: "Don't do the awkward thing of shuffling your feet and wondering if you should or shouldn't hug her. Give her a big hug, a kiss on the cheek and then link arms. Start a date like this and add in a few simple acts of chivalry like opening doors and pulling her chair in at the table for her and you're on to a winner."

5. Multiple venues are better than one: "If you want to bring her home or get back to hers, she needs to be used to being with you in multiple locations. If you go to a coffee shop, the aquarium, bowling and an ice cream shop all in one night, she's going to be much more likely to agree to heading back to yours to finish the night off."

For more tips, go to www.puatraining.com

E-mail Aidin Vaziri at [email protected].

This article appeared on page F - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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