Guest Post: An Honest Beckster PUA Bootcamp Review

I was recently contacted by J. who asked me to publish the review below, in order to spread awareness of the conduct of a professional PUA coach named Beckster. I vaguely remember that he's active in the London scene, probably a mid-tier guy. Since there aren't many authentic PUA bootcamp reviews available online, I agreed to do my share to rectify this situation.

This is going to be an honest review of the Beckster PUA bootcamp that I attended a few months ago in London.  Just a bit about my current position and experience. I've been doing a lot of reading for a few months now. Only very recently have I gone out in the field. I've done only a few approaches in the daytime and nighttime. What I wanted to get out of the bootcamp was how to get rid of approach anxiety (too often I've seen women at the tube station and in supermarkets and I wished that I had the ability to strike up a conversation with them), how to make my conversation more interesting (I used to be painfully shy - I'm much better now but still shy and my conversations tend to be very straight to the point) and how to sexually escalate (I do not know how to do this especially how I've been fed the crap throughout my life about not viewing women as sex objects). It cost £790 for 2 days.


So we met up for the start of the bootcamp where I was introduced to Beckster and head trainers Tom Harkin, and Bullboy.  They gave us a structure and routines. It actually made me much more nervous because they didn’t give us nothing except some well known routines. Bullboy’s also talks on, escalation and day 2’s. After this we met Mark who is an actor who was there to teach us about speech, body posture and vocal tonality.  He was just making us shout like idiots outside while everyone was watching us. It was embarrassing.

We then had night game! Anyway, the group headed off to our night game venue (it seemed to be populated by wannabee puas) [Note: Do they still take guys out to Tiger Tiger? -- A.S.]. We had split into twos and threes and went around the club with our coaches. Tom gave me and my wing an (somewhat humorous) opening line/routine to use. I was not confident of using this because I didn't think it was that funny or appropriate. I saw Tom open twice and get rejected.

He then showed me some sets and told me approach (although my wingman went into the set with me, he seemed to act independently from me). I tried using Becksters routines but I didn't get very far. I had a word with Tom about what to do in which he replied to remember what we have been taught. I then asked him if he could show me again how to approach and engage a set and this time do better. He replied by saying he couldn't because he had already approached hundreds of sets the day before. I didn't like his attitude. I don't think he could help me, as for one, his personality is totally different to my personality and I was glad when I moved on to the next coach.

We moved onto Beckster who told us to warm up by opening sets with indirect openers. I had quite a lot of success with this method which increased my confidence a bit. I found the girls very friendly and pleasant - I wasn't expecting this. But honestly, it was no different to the way I open at the social event I usually go to and the interactions are similar as well. He then asked us to go in using his routines. I just got blown away every time I communicated interest.

I then proceeded to asked Bullboy if this was purely a numbers game. His response was duh! Of course this is a numbers game. We asked Bullboy to show us how it is done. He then proceed to grab a girl, spin her around into his arms without saying anything. He got a number but who knows if it would have gone anywhere because I know a number doesn’t mean shit. A guy named Riswan showed to coach us. I told him what happened about approaching with routines. He told us to approach semi direct (saying something like "you are fun and friendly and I had to come and say hello". I would agree that it's better to open something like this then stupid routines asking womens' opinions on a friend who's about to get married with a girl you have known for a month.

With the first girl he approached, he kinoed very quickly and playfully trying to kiss her although he didn't get very far after this because she gave him the backturn. He was also shut down by a few other women. I don’t need  clowns like Rizwan giving me the same type of advise and lines that a friend would give me, I could have just gone to a bar with my friend. After a while we moved onto our next venue which was a strip club. I tried to use Beckster routines on them but they weren’t receptive at all [How did the myth that you could pick up strippers with 'game' get started in the first place? They are there to earn money. -- A.S.].  They kept trying to get me and the other student to get a dance with them. I didn’t see any of the instructors doing any better either cause girls would ask them for a dance too. Becksters qualification routines didn’t work either. At the end of the night I could tell becksters stuff doesn’t work.

On day 2 we met up again to discuss the previous night on what we did right and wrong. After our reflection, Candice discussed our own individual style. She also had us practising dancefloor game (this would have come in handy the day before as we only had daygame today. Really dumb of Beckster to schedule this and not give us the opportunity to practice it). Then we had our day game session. Tom and Bullboy took us out to practice stopping each other in the street, we paired up and practiced on each other. They discussed with us the different types of openers such as direct, indirect, and situational. Tom gave us two methods of stopping a woman (The second method was bizarre).

Now, I stop women a lot to ask for directions in London (I can even get a woman to take out her earphones to give me directions). Tom did provide a structure but his was spiced up with a few cocky lines and tips. First we started with a few warm ups (i.e. asking for directions and then progressing). But after I asked for directions I could not progress the conversation. Then our coach told us to approach direct. He just pointed out women and told us to approach. But whenever I approached directly, I was blown out every time (every time I communicated interest). I got a few "thank you"s and then the women just walked off. Others just walked off (at the very point I said that they were beautiful).

He then gave us an example of what say but it was quite lengthy and difficult to recite (and I also felt what he said would only work in a few limited situations). The blowouts and negative reactions damaged my confidence a lot. I felt that this was not going to work - women just find direct street approaches creepy. I didn’t get any feedback on what to do. I was just told to keep approaching.  At this point I was highly demoralised. I was ready to quit game altogether. Soon after the weekend was winding down. We got a breakdown of our day game session and giving a full overview of the things we had learned and done over the weekend. They pretty much said to use their routine (which didn’t work) and keep approaching. Thats it!

Overall, I was thoroughly disappointed at the bootcamp. I felt that I didn't improve on anything and, if truth be told told, I went backwards. In terms on knowledge - I got very little. Right now, I don't really know where to go from here. After this experience I doubt very much the efficacy of PUA methods so I would advise everyone to not only avoid Beckster, but avoid all other PUA companies as they will all lie to you to take your money.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!

(Also, if you’ve got a comment that is off-topic or only tangentially related to this article, then please post in the most recent Open Thread. Thank you.)