KJing in Field

I have been thinking a lot about KJing recently, particularly in-field KJing. A lot of guys like to go out and talk theory while they are in the field. When I'm out with my best wings, we don't talk theory in the field. In fact, we don't talk much at all. The only talking is a little bit of encouragement pre- and post- approach (eg. "Good job, that was awesome" when someone tries a ballsy approach and gets blown out).

What we do is go out and open sets. If someone isn't opening sets, we push him to start opening. There is no standing around and talking for an hour about the "nuances" of pickup. I like that shit as much as anyone else (actually, its fascinating), but it wastes good time where I could be improving.

Lately, I have noticed this change as I spend more time "out." I'm not sure that I'm getting better results for the increased sarging time. I've been thinking about why this is the case.

In my short time in the community, I have seen too many guys who "have it all figured out" but aren't getting much in the results department. A lot of these guys have been in the community for a long time, but haven't done much. They go out a couple of times a week, and open a couple of sets each time. They give their wings copious "advice," which is arbitrarily conceived and pushes the guy out of state (if he ever got there in the first place).

With that said, I have one wing who has really impressed me recently. He has been going out for a long time, and seemed to have relatively few results over that period. Some of the guys in the community wrote him off... However, he has been pushing himself, and going out every day. I have seen him make some solid approaches recently, and if he keeps it up he is going to get good. I think that he has gotten much more comfortable with approaching women and talking to them.

I don't mean to be harsh - I just have yet to hear of a guy who "figured it all out" and used that conscious knowledge to become a master. I think that it usually happens in the other direction. The guys who are good seem to be (at first) fairly light on theory, and fairly heavy on actual fieldwork. They go out and push themselves over and over again. Gradually, they improve, and figure out what is working (this is by looking at patterns over hundreds of approaches). Once they get a system working, they go back and put it into words. Without the practice, those words mean zip.

There is an exception - guys who learn a system. However, I don't think that the system is what is making them good. Rather, they get good by repeating that system ad infinitum. Over time, they make it their own, and they learn its nuances. They figure out the little things that you can't quite explain. Mastery ensues.

I'm also not going to write off professional help; its important to get coaching. Proper instruction can drastically decrease the learning course. However, it takes a good coach to identify the true points for improvement; a mediocre coach can't distinguish the symptoms from the root causes. You still have to practice - its just that you will practice the right things.

What I am knocking is the conception is the belief that conscious knowledge leads to mastery. TD talks about this a fair amount, and I think he's dead on.

So, because I've gotten a bit burned out recently and need a slight change of direction, I'm going to reiterate my plan and regroup.

My goal is progressive desensitization. I want to be able to approach any woman at any time and get her interested/attracted.

In order to do that, I need to increase my approach rate. Every time that I go out sarging, I will set a high but reachable goal for the mission. The default mission will be to make at least ten approaches. The only exception to this is when I hook a set and it runs long enough that I don't have time to make ten approaches. Considering that there are about three hours in a sarging night, I will reduce the approach count by one for each set that runs past half an hour (half an hour spent winging counts as well). If there aren't ten approaches in the venue, I will sarge it out and then go home or bounce (this is another problem - I spend too much time in field for the results that I'm getting).

As a corrolary, wings are there for support, and not as a crutch/excuse/distraction. I will not talk to my wings about theory, unless we are finished with our approaches for the night. In that case, we should consider that going home may be a better use of our time.

Finally, at least 30% of my sarging will be solo sarging. I need to break wing dependency. I should be able to run and hold a set either with or without wings.