Analysing Infields

If you’ve read this post, you’ll know that I waxed lyrical about recording my sets. It turned out to be an interesting inner Game, as well as outer Game, tool. I’m writing this post because I want to get some input from you, my esteemed readers, as to how to analyse infields.

Let me go through how I’ve been doing it so far (the previous linked post explains the equipment I use):

First I divide a sheet of paper down the middle and put WWW (what went well) and EBI (even better if) at the top, just like back at school, and then listen to each set at least in a cursory fashion. For the sets which turned out to be No girls or weak Maybes, I’ll listen through once and at the end scribble down what I thought was good and what I could improve on. These are very general observations. Often, the analysis for these sets will focus on what I did wrong right at the very start, perhaps the stop was wrong and if that problem persists it will become a major learning point.

Then for any set which lasted a decent amount of time, i.e. we progressed to vibing and beyond, I’ll listen and then pause any time I hear something which I want to remember, generally did well, or to improve on. For example, I might hear a stack which was particularly clever; I might notice that I passed her shit tests; and I might notice upturns in my vocal inflections to eliminate in future. The first two examples would go into the WWW column, and the latter into the EBI column.

I’ll then write down S1, S2, T, H and L which stands for stack one, stack two (if required), topic, hook point and length. That way I have my stacks for posterity, I identify what the topic was, where and how she hooked, and the length of the set. Finally, I make a couple of notes giving a general description of the girl and what the result of the set was.

At this point I’ve got a stack of data with a lot of specific information. The mission now is to collate that and make it applicable. First I’ll go through the EBI column and look for recurring problems, or at least recurring themes. For example, if I made an assumption and it turned out to be correct, I’d react with a pleasantly surprised “yeh?”. It happened in a few sets, so I wrote down a major learning point of replacing it with “hmm” and “uhuh”. I’ll do the best I can to consolidate the major learning points, but at most I’ll give myself three to take into the next session. I’ll also consolidate the other, smaller, errors into a minor learning points section which can be as long as needed.

Here’s the summary from my last analysis:

Major Learning Points:

• Deliver your tease and remember to pause; only run with it if it gets a good reaction.
• Go very slow and simple when closing i.e. simply ask how to spell her name if it’s difficult, get the number, wish her a nice day, and leave.
• Plow when she’s having a forebrain/hindbrain conflict (this was taken from a couple of sets where the girl was hesitant between staying and going)

Minor Learning Points:

• Don’t say “ahh”

I’d be very interested to know how you analyse your own infields. What do you look out for? How do you distill the lessons for future use? How often do you record yourself? What equipment do you use?

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown