The Annihilation Method Part II

Taken from an Art of Approaching email.

Here's the second part of my no-holds-barred report about Neil Strauss's special farewell workshop.

The Annihilation Method Day 2:
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On Day 2, things started a little late, which is understandable considering that all of the students and instructors were up pretty much until 3:00 am.

As the Final Five wandered into Neil's house at the crack of 11:36 am, they all brought their club clothes with them as they were instructed to last night. Today, Neil had a surprise for them...

Namely, girls.

Once, way back in the good ol' days of Project Hollywood, Neil had done something really cool during the Pick-Up Artist Summit of 2004. During his presentation at Project Hollywood, he actually had a number of girls he was dating come in, pair off with some of the guys, report their first impressions, and then give fashion critiques. Neil also went on to demonstrate different techniques on the women.

It was probably the single coolest thing I'd ever seen up to that point, and I knew Neil had something similar planned today.

But the Seminar started off by doing a run-down of the night before. Neil went through each guy and covered what he had done, how much he improved, what results he had, and how he could to better that night.

As things turned out, everyone in the group had a new energy about them as they started recalling the previous night's successes. Everyone had shown they were up to the challenge of being Neil's "successors."

Neil then went on to cover a little more of the Annihilation Method. Basically, the day before was all about how to chase women. Now it was time for the guys to learn how to get women to chase them.

Neil went through his methods for getting women to pursue you. It breaks down into 8 different categories. They are:

1. Pebbles
2. Negs
3. LAS VEGAS Attitude
4. DHVs
5. Challenges
6. Hardcore Push-Pull
7. Disqualification
8. Cat String Theory

You combine all these to make the woman feel like she is winning YOU over. But once you get attraction and rapport with a woman, you can drop most of this.

Then, came the girls.

On day 1, Neil had gotten the phone numbers of 4 girls we had met in the club and convinced them to come over to his place to help do fashion consultations for the guys. As the girls began to show up, Neil had the guys change into their club clothes.

With the exception of one girl, the women were all very attractive and had a good energy about them. Not only that, but they were game for what Neil had in mind.

The first thing Neil did was pair off each of the Final Five with a girl, and just had them talk to each other alone in different parts of the house. Afterwards, everyone re-convened in the seminar room, with the girls taking center stage.

Neil then asked them the question: "What was your first impression of the guy you talked to?"

Then, one by one, all the girls started to share their first take on each of the Final Five (the good, and the bad). This was some amazing insight for the guys on how women perceive them, and gave them a good idea on what their real strengths were and what they still had to work on in terms of the image and attitude they were
projecting.

Then the real craziness happened.

Each guy got up before the firing squad and had the girls start critiquing the way he dressed. The girls all got into it and started really giving the guys good advice on how to better dress themselves to suit their type and look cool.

Neil really emphasized the concept of creating a character that you can live up to when going out, and dressing to suit that character.

Out of all the guys, Outback got critiqued the hardest by women. It might have had something to do with the fact that his club clothes were all peacocking, consisting of faux alligator pleather pants, a vintage t-shirt, and a furry rainbow colored jacket. Poor Outback was so proud of his brazen outfit at first, but as the
women started to rip into him, he was quickly making excuses for how he was dressed. I couldn't help but feel bad for the guy (especially since I'd seen MUCH worse peacocking work pretty well, despite what the girls were saying).

The fashion breakdowns all consisted of:

1. Style
2. Fashion
3. Clothing
4. Accessories
5. Hair
6. Grooming
7. Optional Male Makeup

Each point was hit on with each guy. Eventually, one of Neil's friends, who's a fashion expert, and his girlfriend Lisa jumped in and started giving their opinions too.

After the Fashion Breakdown, it was time to get back to the Annihilation Method. Neil had the girls hang around by the pool while he pulled them in one at a time to start demonstrating DHVs on them.

This was extremely cool. It's one thing to read about DHVs. It's another to have someone lecture you on them. But it's something totally special when you get all that, PLUS a demonstration on an actual girl who has no idea what's going on.

The first demonstration was Neil's "Five Questions" routine, where you basically play a "lying game" and bust on the girl's ego or naiveté (depending on the girl). Neil demonstrated this one on his fashion expert friend Mya, who fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Her reaction to it was great, and it really showed the power of
what Neil was teaching.

Next he called in another girl and did Style's patented Value Elicitation (a.k.a. Style's EV) and showed how that worked. The basics of this is that you can find out exactly what is important to a woman and what she's about by asking three simple question.

There's some hard-core NLP at work in this one, and the reaction from the girl was very cool. Neil was able to strike right at the core of who she was, and she really responded to it.

Next up, Neil demonstrated his version of The Cube on another girl. Now, I've been using the Cube for what seems like forever, but Neil's version is actually much better than the traditional model, and the reaction from the girl was excellent. Neil also took the opportunity to play around a bit and make her a member of the "Pen 15" club by writing "Pen 15" on her hand.

Of course, when you look at it, it looks like she's got the word "Penis" written on her hand. It's a great way to tool any girl (or guy) and demonstrate higher value while entertaining others. The girl jumped up and yelled "I have to go wash PENIS off my hand!"

Definitely one of the highlights of the seminar.

The last bit of demonstration came when Neil did eye accessing cues with the women. This is really cool, since he basically taught us how to catch anyone in a lie, but also have fun doing it. He's got two lying games, one called "Eye-Accessing Cues" and one called "Interrogation." I won't go into them here since they're a bit detailed, but they were very fun and had all the girls laughing.

But as an added benefit to learning this little game, you can tell exactly when a woman is lying to you about wanting to get together or whatever. Very powerful stuff.

After his willing female subjects left, Neil covered a variety of DHVs in detail, including:

1. Best Friend Test
2. "C"s vs. "U"s
3. Name Mnemonics
4. Cigarette Vanish
5. Various other playful games

Then Neil got into what he calls his "Black Mirror Technique," which is basically a form of cold reading that really lets you stand out from any other man your target is likely to ever meet.

The first step of it is to do a really cool psychic trick where you're able to guess the woman's birthday. The second part of the Black Mirror is to do some hard-core cold reading to demonstrate an understanding of her reality and pull her into your world. It was really cool stuff that I'm not allowed to go fully into detail about (sorry, that's the price of admission to the seminar!).

By the way, I found out that Neil calls it his "Black Mirror" technique because when you use this method of cold reading, it's like getting a window into someone's soul and reflecting it back to them so they can see it (though the technique involves pointing out problems they're having in life, hence the "black" part of the mirror).

Neil then touched a little bit on qualifying girls and establishing an emotional connection with them. He offered up a few cool routines and how to use open loops to keep women interested.

Finally, Neil ended by talking about (appropriately) Closes. This was probably one of the most eye-opening parts of the course. Sure, a lot of guys can open women. Maybe they can even get comfort and attraction going. But when it comes time to seal the deal and actually get physical, most guys FAIL!

Neil knows this, and he started to share some awesome tips to make sure that when the time comes, you're able to smoothly transition into kissing, then make-out, then sex.

Neil spent some time on teaching how to read a woman's Indicators of Interest (IOIs). He pointed out that you never want to show you're interested in a woman until she shows she's interested in YOU.

Then, you escalate the kino (ie: touching). He showed a cool little trick on how to do this called "Right Hand/Left Hand."

Then he shared his patented Evolution Phase Shift Kiss Routine. This is Style's own tried and true method of getting a kiss and make-out EVERY SINGLE TIME he was with a girl. I think he said it only didn't work once out of all the times he used it, and that was because he telegraphed too much interest before hand.

Neil also went through about three more kissing routines, then shared Juggler's Girlfriend Test (which was killer), and then started talking about "instant dates."

Instant Dates is a time distortion tactic that makes the girl feel like she's known you longer than she really has. It consists of taking the girl to different places the same night you meet her.

For instance, you meet her at the bar, then move her out to the patio to talk. This is the equivalent of 2 dates, because the surroundings change, so subconsciously, it feels like a different venue. And because of that, the woman feels like she knows you longer and is more comfortable around you.

Then, Neil's girlfriend Lisa took the stage and gave the guys some tips on "Make Up."

Now, when Neil had originally told me he was going to have Lisa teach the guys how to use make up, I was a bit skeptical. I always looked at that as metrosexual bullcrap.

Boy, was I wrong.

Lisa developed a special "Male Make Up" baggie for each of the Final Five. It consisted of some powder, some eyeshadow, some mascara, and a hair stick. She got Zone to come up in front of the group and started demonstrating the use of this make-up on him.

The first was the powder. She showed how you can use powder to even out your skin tone and look healthier. Then we all watched in amazement and Zone went from a pasty white guy to a guy who looked like he had a nice bronze tan in the matter of a minute.

Then she used the eyeshadow to bring out his eyes. It was flesh-colored, but gave the area around the eyes a little darker tone, so his eyes popped. Then she used the mascara to move his eyelashes away so you could really see his eyes well.

Then the cool thing was that she used the eyeshadow to darken the grey spots in Zone's facial hair and the back of his head. He didn't have to dye his hair or anything, with just a few quick strokes, he had some nice, even hair color.

Then she showed how you can use the same technique to darken your scalp under balding areas. Usually, when guys are losing their hair, the scalp gets really pasty white. But then you use this make-up and it makes the scalp underneath the hair look even with the tone of your face.

Finally, she used the hair stick to give his hair a cool little spike to it. I had always wondered how so many people got their hair to look "messed up but cool," and with this little trick, Lisa showed us all how to do it.

Neil was very big on teaching the guys that you have to show your best self and take some effort with your appearance, and with Lisa's make-up kit, all the guys were set to look killer tonight.

After the Make Up demonstration, the Final Five went back to the hotel to get ready for the seminar's second club outing. Tonight, we were going to a club called "RokBar" off of Hollywood Boulevard.

Neil was good friends with the owner of the club, so we were treated like royalty. When the Final Five road up in the limousine, they by-passed the line and went right in. The club had reserved an entire second tier balcony for us to hang out in.

As I walked in the club, I was a little worried because there were definitely more guys than girls around. But the club was hopping none the less. The DJ for the night was playing some truly excellent music, and the club was bathed in blue, red, and purple lights.

Girls would get on top of the booths people were sitting in and start pole dancing, while on the ceiling above us, the movie Boondock Saints was projected onto the wall, giving a cool "cinema" vibe to the whole rock-and-roll atmosphere.

Once the club started to pick up, the Final Five started doing their thing. The guys were on fire, particularly Zone and Indiana.

Zone was a machine, going up to woman after woman, dancing with them, bringing them up to the VIP area, the whole nine yards. I couldn't believe that this mild-mannered journalist, who the day before you couldn't hear in a quiet room because he talked so
softly with a voice that completely lacked confidence, was now walking up to women in a loud club and getting them interested in him.

The real cool thing was Indiana getting his first "club make-out." That was definitely the highlight of the night. He had picked up this really h-o-t Asian girl and isolated her in our VIP balcony while Outback and I occupied her friend. Before the friend ended up dragging the Asian girl away, Indiana had not only gotten a phone number, but he'd also gotten a major tongue-down too!

Not all was going well for the Final Five, though. Rourke ended up leaving early because he wasn't feeling well. Outback was doing really well approaching women, but he was losing them in the attract phase. Wiseguy was having a slow night as well.

Then, Mystery arrives.

Mystery and his new girlfriend had driven in from Las Vegas and gone right to the club, so he wasn't peacocked out at all. But regardless, there's always a certain energy when Mystery walks into a room, and tonight wasn't any different. It was as though his presence gave the other guys the energy they needed to start having a wild time.

As the night wore on, things started to get more and more crazy. More girls were brought up to our area and the party started to get wilder. In addition to them dancing on our tables, some were even making out with each other right in front of everyone! Mystery started doing his magic tricks and creating a real party vibe.

Eventually, two off-duty strippers came up from the dance floor and started dirty-dancing on our balcony. That's when Wiseguy grabbed one and started grinding on her, doing a half-assed version of Neil's Evolution Phase Shift (which was a small mistake, because this girl was ready to go!).

By the time the club closed, the guys dragged the two strippers back to Neil's house. I pussed out and went home after the club closed because I was dog-tired, but I heard the next day that Wiseguy had ended up making out with one of the girls back at Neil's place, and probably could have closed the deal if her friend hadn't dragged her away.

So the breakdown of the night was:

Rourke: 6 approaches (went home early)
Zone: 2 numbers (as opposed to the night before, where he got 0)
Outback: 1 number
Wiseguy: Make-Out/Kiss close
Indiana: Make-Out/Kiss Close and two numbers

Overall the guys were really improving. As opposed to the night before where they were just opening sets, now they were actually using the Annihilation method to build at*traction with women quickly and effectively!

All of them could have gotten a make out had they been a little more practiced at using the Annihilation Method's means of creating an Emotional Connection and a Physical Connection, but for their second night out, the Final Five really did an amazing job.

Both Neil and I talked at the end of the night about how amazed we were at the student's progression. Neil had taught at a number of workshops over the past two years, and I've been to my fair share of them too, and neither of us had ever seen such a remarkable improvement with workshop attendees.

But the best was yet to come...

Neil had some surprises for the guys the next day that they didn't know about, and it was going to radically change each of their lives...

Forever.

(to be concluded...)

Check out some of these related products that helped Neil achieve with women:

Double Your Dating

and

The Art of Approaching

or listen to him personally explain how he had wild success through online dating on David Deangelo's Meeting Women Online DVDs