7 Questions for Denkista

Video Interview

Interview hosted by Dr. Manhattan.

• Interview with Denkista 

Text Interview

00:00

– Hello everyone, today on the podcast we have Denkista. Tell us a bit about yourself: when you got into the game, how long you've been in it, that sort of thing.

– Hi, guys, today you've got me here sounding like Santa Claus. What can I say about myself? Around 2008, I think, somewhere around then, I got acquainted with the Mystery Method. I never really studied any Russian-language sources or anything like that. The topic was unfamiliar to me. I found, on a forum I guess, discussions with people who were using the Mystery Method. That's also where they sent me his book, not the one with the nice cover yet, but one of the earlier versions, the one with tables in it.

That's where I started talking too, asking questions, getting answers, and pretty detailed ones at that. Then it turned out those answers were coming from none other than Matador himself, who used to hang out there. I was honestly shocked by that.

Mystery had a Facebook page back then, before people started spreading that fake story that he had died of an overdose or something else. So before that happened, we even managed to talk with Mystery on Facebook. A normal, open guy, and so open that he really read into what you wrote and gave advice. If you approached him properly, he would respond properly. If he asked questions and you answered clearly and in detail, he would write back with the same kind of detailed reply. So all in all, those exchanges went really well.

I'm honestly still surprised that a person without any deep understanding of our mentality could still give such sensible advice. Though really, that's not all that surprising. In more civilized countries, everything is pretty similar, maybe with a few nuances.

– Who from RSD was there when you went to Poland?

– Yeah, Alexander was there, they were on a tour, and a few other guys were around too. He was young back then, open, fired up, easy to connect with. We got in touch on Facebook, met up, and went out together. Then they went on to Lithuania and played there too.

You'd think the RSD branch, which claimed there were huge differences from MM, would have been very different, but in practice there was no difference at all. Same toolbox. So there were absolutely no problems with Alexander. No one even thought there was any real difference, we just went out and played.

What pleasantly surprised me was that Alexander was also a great wing. There was no trying to steal the spotlight. Everything was smooth, neat, fun, and just really well done.

04:55

– Alright. Let's move on to the questions then. First standard one: what would you advise a beginner?

– A beginner? To stop being a beginner as quickly as possible. You need to go out and do the work. There is no magic pill, nothing like that exists. It all comes down to how you're going to work and what you're going to start with. Either you'll run around like you've been stung by a wasp, burning through sets and scaring off your target audience, or you'll carefully build your own image, your own circle. In short, you need to approach the game in a differentiated way, not only as a tool for reaching the final goal of getting a sexual partner, but first and foremost as a means of expanding your communication skills.

And how do you do that? There are tons of options. Everyone goes about it in their own way, but at the very least you need to go out, get out there, and do it many times. I'm not saying you need to go out for one day and push yourself till you're foaming at the mouth, but one to two hours a day, I think, is enough. If you do something regularly four or five times a week, it will pay off. Even if you keep running into the same things and keep changing them, it still gives you experience. Don't be afraid, stay curious, ask for advice, and take criticism well. And of course, test your material on people who understand this stuff at least a little. If the Begame project grows into something serious, this question will solve itself.

– I don't think it ever will. The group has been around since 2008, and not once have beginners shown up without asking that question. You join the group and the answers are all right there.

– Another problem now is information overload. Back in the day there was a forum, you came in, they offered you a limited number of options, and you more or less understood how it was supposed to work, then you went and got results. Now everyone talks about special tricks and alternatives. There are no alternatives. Development is actually pretty linear.

Another issue is that beginners blindly believe what they're shown on screen. They're shown a successful fragment, but no one sees what it led to. Sometimes an interaction that looks quite successful doesn't lead to any satisfying outcome at all. It gives you nothing.

– No one thinks about the fact that half the phone numbers are blurred out anyway.

– The universal answer is this: if you want to be successful, you need to hit the field every day. Consistency matters more. Regularity brings results.

You also need to be very clear about what goal you're pursuing. You shouldn't make "finding a sexual partner" your goal. That's a mistake, because that should come as a side effect of correct game, not as the end result itself. You don't need to walk around with greedy eyes in the field, trying to present yourself in the best possible light or pumping up some kind of "alpha maleness." What's the point? You're already a complete organism. Remove those internal blockages and everything will go much better. And to remove them, you need a system with a clear teaching structure. There may be many schools, but if we're talking about actually teaching from a pedagogical point of view, the best one is the Mystery Method. It really does teach.

10:20

– How do you build material from A1 to S3? What gambits are used before C1?

– To build material, you have to test it in the field. You need to take a lot of things and test a lot of things, see what works and what doesn't. Your material should fit what is actually going on in your life. If you've never been to Bali, there's no point in telling people what a world traveler you are and how much you've seen there. On the other hand, if you do have experience in something else, you should use it. You need to integrate it into your everyday life somehow. And if absolutely nothing is going on, observe people, read the news, watch a movie, go to some good nearby places where something interesting is happening.

Then sit down, read the material on the site where the gambits are, and that's it. Just think about how to use them in one situation or another. Retelling things word for word makes no sense, and memorizing everything doesn't make sense either. You need to think about how it should be delivered. In the end, whether it's information about yourself, another person, a gambit, or a routine, anything can be presented in a way that's interesting. Some people say it doesn't work. Everything works. It's not the material that's weak, it's the delivery. I'd say 80% of it is in nonverbals and in the delivery itself. You shouldn't count on some piece of material to magically fix the situation, even if you're only minimally active verbally.

Matador was this powerful, jacked, very masculine guy. He played very directive, and the amount of routine he used was minimal. From the way he described it, he did it through nonverbals. Once on the forum he gave one concise piece of advice: "Don't say what you can communicate without words: with a look, a gesture, behavior." So I don't think you can really put together some fixed set, some stack. Any stack, even a brilliant one, won't work if you don't develop the right delivery.

– The second part of the question: gambits. Which ones should be used before C1, that is, in the attraction stage?

– If we're talking about that, then the main part of it is this: I wouldn't even say it's about gambits exactly, or that you need to stock up on sound bites. Performances by different stand-up comedians online are a super trendy thing now. All kinds of comedians, Shcherbakov and the rest. Their sets are full of sharp lines, and you can borrow some of those into your speech.

But if we're talking about gambits, most of them should be kinesthetic. The spin test, the TV test, things like that. The classics. I use the classics very well. Nothing beyond that...

You can test them when you're in a good mood, but it's important to understand the principle behind why a particular gambit works. To understand that principle, you have to run it many times in the field and really see what kind of gambit it is. Then you understand which gambits actually work. Take the spin test, for example. Why is it useful? It helps you anchor yourself in the set, it checks the level of compliance, and during the spin test you can also use other tests: shake hands, look at the response, simple things.

– So basically, test everything!

– And know how to continue afterward. A gambit is not a wave of a magic wand. It's something that helps either force some event forward or check for compliance. In between those moments, you're just being yourself, showing interest in the person to the degree that they show signs of interest in you. Nothing more than that.

16:17

– Tell us about the OSCA sequence of steps. Why use it when M3 already exists?

– You first need to understand why OSCA was created. The OSCA concept was created to explain in some way what you need to do from the moment you open until the moment you're isolated with your target. There needed to be some universal framework that described both a one-on-one set and a group set. And it had to work both for people in their twenties and for older guys in their thirties, thirty-fives, forties. We needed something universal so you could track what stage you're at.

None of this is actually new. It's all described in the Mystery Method. OSCA developed as a second way of calibrating what's happening. There's nothing especially exotic about it. It's just a more detailed period from A1 to A3. It doesn't take much time, but the problem is that when sets merge, or on the contrary when you're dealing with a big set, beginners get scared and confused. What are they even supposed to do? Whose interest are they trying to win? The target's? Or should they work the whole group? And when can they start gradually demonstrating value, and when do they need to warm the group up instead? OSCA exists so there isn't this kind of confusion.

So it's a kind of congruent framework that's useful for explanation and teaching. Like any framework, that doesn't mean it's perfect or that you have to follow it rigidly. It's a teaching framework, nothing more. If you break it down step by step, all the same elements that exist in the classic Mystery Method are reflected here too. Open means you opened; exactly how you opened is not critically important. In OSCA, the next stage is Stimulate. It's best if the opener naturally combines those two phases. What is the task of Open and Stimulate? Roughly speaking, it's Lock-In, the moment when the set accepts you and starts giving you all its attention.

If it's a single set, then it's simple: there are no other spectators, only your target. High-status targets don't move around alone. They're always in groups. If there's a genuinely high-status target, you shouldn't just open that set cold. First you need, at minimum, to back yourself up with two solid triggers, the attraction switches Pre-selection and Leader of Men. In other words, for a high-status target, you need to demonstrate two key attraction switches so the set will accept you. Without that, it's better not to dive into a high-status set at all.

Now back to Open and Stimulate. Open is simply opening. Stimulate gives people something to react to, warms them up. They need either to listen to something or voice their opinion. In practice, Stimulate answers the question of what the set is supposed to do. It should be stimulated either to listen or to argue about something. That's why the best openers are the ones that set up an idea, some kind of conversation. For example, you can say that a friend of yours was invited to be on a show. Roland was on a show, right? Why not use that and turn it into a nice opener? The exact opener depends on the situation, of course. You have to account for the context: in a club, on the street, how you're opening there. Those are the finer points.

So the opener is not really an opinion, it's what sets the subject of conversation. For example, say a friend was invited onto "Let's Get Married." You can make it more provocative too: say he was invited as one of the contestants, and that his main target is Katya Sambuka or someone like that. What would you say to him, what kind of story or image could you create for him? We're wracking our brains over it right now, not sure what exactly to come up with, though we do have a couple of ideas.

I think the set will engage. Someone might say they don't watch that show and to hell with it. Or they'll give some other opinion. Either way, you can get some kind of reaction, and it doesn't matter whether it's positive or negative. Depending on that reaction, that little provocation, you can keep the conversation moving. Someone laughed? Great. Then you immediately use the classic "Smile" gambit, C-shaped versus U-shaped. Think about it: you started with some random show like "Let's Get Married" and then moved into talking about smiles. Then you can roll into a classic thread: your ex-girlfriend lives in California and studies different types of smiles, and she's getting good results with it. And then you tell the set about those results.

If the set responds well, then in effect the set has accepted you. But you still need to place yourself in a strong position, one where it's visible from the outside that the set is listening to you, not that you're just hanging around there. That's where you use the spin test, lock yourself into the set, and that phase is complete. You've reached the Lock-In position. At that point, when someone is listening closely, you can immediately start weaving in your stories. Subtle DHVs: an ex-girlfriend, and in California no less.

What happens next? Then you need to maintain it. Great, you've anchored yourself, excellent. Now you need to mix in a joke or two, throw out some challenges, and watch for interest. Once there are three signs of interest, three IOIs, you can use qualification. It all depends on the situation, but at that point your hands are free. Broadly speaking, it's just a framework for getting to qualification, to the state where you can flirt and show some interest in your target.

26:55

– Tell us about the 12 steps of comfort.

– The 12 steps of comfort are a very useful aid for building a comfort zone. This mostly concerns the steps of kinesthetics. You could call it a step-by-step instruction for moving comfortably from, say, that very first eye contact and the first high five to the well-known state of bliss. To kinesthetic closeness.

– So basically, tests for the level of compliance, just in a sequence of different orders.

– Right, but divided into 12 steps. You use them so you don't overload yourself and so you understand where you're crossing a line and where you're moving forward in sequence.

28:17

– How do you choose women for long-term relationships?

– Interesting question, thanks to whoever asked it. In general, you need to understand that the entire Mystery Method is built around the concept of solid game. Long-term relationships with a high-status partner.

First of all, you need to understand what you want from a long-term relationship. Is it some kind of intermediate stage, or are you specifically aiming for a family? If you are specifically aiming for a family, then the same markers of well-being described by the Mystery Method apply: health, love, and material well-being, money. First, you look at health: does the person show any warning signs in that regard, is something off or is everything fine, how attractive and well-groomed is she, if she smokes and drinks heavily, why would you need that?

Second: love. How harmonious is everything in that area? If the sex doesn't work out or something about it isn't satisfying, that's already a reason to think. Maybe she's simply not your person, and that's it.

The third point is well-being. You need to understand it through personality traits. What you can bring into this person's life, will she smash it to pieces, or will she turn it into comfort and coziness for you?

In any case, you won't find a perfect person. Naturally, you'll have to change some things in yourself and make some compromises. And even if such a person does seem to exist, you need to ask whether you're looking through rose-colored glasses. If you're looking at it critically, then you understand whether the person has similar views on life, on your prospects, on their own prospects, whether they have good upbringing. Whether the environment she grew up in is roughly the same as yours, whether your life values match, whether you both see family-building and future child-rearing the same way. All of that needs to be discussed. It's easy to calculate even at the comfort stage, when the person opens up and talks about childhood. You quietly filter everything you hear and draw a conclusion about whether you want to build a family with her or not. If you notice that you keep meeting the same kind of people, then you need to change your social circle and put yourself in different circumstances. Think about how you see the future with a girl as a member of your family.

32:55

– Any literature recommendations regarding game and relationships?

– It's simple. Don't read too much and don't watch all kinds of nonsense. You'll have to learn a lot through your own mistakes, and the tools for that are in the Mystery Method. There's also a technical toolkit in the book "Revelation."

You need to use what you already have at hand. Those two books are more than enough. It's better not to get involved with anything else, because you can piece together other people's beliefs incorrectly. So it's better not to read other stuff and instead orient yourself around the upbringing you've received. No need to read books about other people's relationships and all that nonsense. As for game, what's in the Mystery Method is enough. I think Begame right now is the best support system for those who don't want to overcomplicate things and want to get results as fast as possible with minimal effort.

35:08

– Does his girlfriend know about his pickup hobby, and if she does, how does she feel about it?

– The truth is that pickup has been so thoroughly demonized by now that, broadly speaking, what we're talking about today is far from pickup. It has long gone beyond the boundaries of pickup. It's a more progressive kind of social dynamics that simply has, as a side effect, the outcome of finding a person with whom you can build a family and keep moving through life.

It's more like anti-pickup. As we said yesterday: non-pickup. From experience working with people who got too deeply wrapped up in pickup and then lost their compass in life, I can say that the Mystery Method is precisely a way to put yourself back in order and return to what nature actually intended for you.

I'm deeply convinced that human nature is to continue the line in the best possible conditions, so that another, even more social human being can come into the world. Not just someone who's born and left to fend for themselves. No. A person who finds their place in society and contributes something useful both for themselves and for society.

As for what this actually is, it's not a hobby. It's a craft. I wouldn't call it a science either, although there are some scientific or near-scientific or science-pop foundations you can lean on. But it's more of a craft. You can do something, and what you can do is unique in its own way, even among people who do the same thing.

What you do is still unique, like any craft, like any art. That's how I see it. My wife knows about it and takes it perfectly normally, and I have absolutely nothing to hide. If anything, I think she only welcomes it.

– Cool. We're out of questions. It would be great to talk again sometime.