The Sense Of Adventure

I began writing this post on the plane to Kiev and have only just got back to finishing it off. I’ll be writing my review of Kiev next week.

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Kaiser and I are off to Kiev for a Jaunt and he had his laptop out. I thought to myself, “I can’t sit here and simply listen to music while he’s typing away,” (Kaiser was writing another guest post, this time for Lee Cho’s blog, proving once and for that hoes ain’t loyal).

I did plan on writing this post while chilling in a Ukrainian coffee shop but things and circumstances change. Speaking of things changing – what a segue – the weather forecast has taken a turn for the positive. I was looking ahead and predicting a mighty mall-stomping but it seems as if we will still look forward to streets of sunshine. *

* Writing this now I can tell you we didn’t have streets of sunshine, more like streets of cold greyness.

I’m feeling a small sense of adventure the same as I felt at the beginning of my Daygame journey, which at the point of writing, started roughly five years ago. I started that journey with three lifetime lays and (of course) zero Daygame lays. Now we’re up to 81 lifetime lays and 58 Daygame lays. In that same time I’ve made up my mind to quit my 9-5 and try going it alone and start my own business. All in all it has been a massive five years.

I think it’s the turning of the weather which draws my attention back to those first few weeks and months of Daygame. Cool crisp autumn leaves, increasing chill and creeping nights remind me of ten sets in two hours and the euphoria from taking a single flakey number. There was a real rush from approaching for the first time and getting those digits made me feel positively snowy.

Then once I’d done my ten sets I was absolutely spent; something which most guys seem to experience. I had a student recently who had never approached properly before and he described how after a session (of not approaching) he had returned home feeling emotionally drained. It was great coaching him and watching him go into his first few sets: first asking for directions, then giving hit and run compliments, before building out into the whole model.

When I was at that point in my journey I was an absolute obsessive in terms of consuming as much pick-up content as I could. There were textbooks, blogs and memoirs to read as well as a host of YouTube videos to be watched. I can certainly say that I caught the bug, and would go through the next piece of content with the same gusto as a Netflix binge. I’d learn about some new technique and then remember it halfway through a set. I’d do whatever it was, then after I’d tell my wing (excitedly) “I tried the [X]!”

I can safely say that at that time I did not have a life outside of pick-up! It’s ironic because of how many guys said that having a life outside of pick-up is one of the most important factors in succeeding at Daygame. But it’s that obsessive phase that gets your feet off the ground and I’m sure most guys would agree that to begin with you should dedicate an unhealthy amount of attention to this to get good.

Really, it would be interesting to me to know how someone’s experience would be different these days purely through the different guys they would follow. I “grew up” on Torero and Krauser (back when Tom’s currently paywall protected content was free) but I guess that nowadays people will be watching guys like James Tusk, for example. I don’t know, maybe they might even be learning from me.

I’ve actually gone back and started to re-listen to Tom’s old podcast while doing cardio or walking to the shops. It adds to the nostalgia but it’s also useful in terms of coaching. Tom’s always been known as a great Daygame coach and so I’m trying to glean as many tips as I can from listening to him. It’s a different experience coaching a beginner compared to an intermediate guy and with the former you have to be quite prescriptive, so it’s important to go and get that perspective.

It’s funny, in a way, re-listening to some of those podcasts because they remind me of the “anything’s possible” belief that I had when I started Daygame. Not got logistics? Bang her in a toilet, for example. Obviously now I understand the probabilities behind these things but back then I had a real sense of wonder at what was possible.

Really what I’m saying with this whole ramble is that new Daygamers should treasure this time. Eventually you will look back at how you failed constantly but were secretly loving it.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown

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