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Men in training
Burnaby Now
Published: Saturday, September 08, 2007In his three years as an attraction coach, Lee estimates he's taught about 200 men from all over the Lower Mainland and sometimes beyond - Fred flew in from Kelowna just for the course. Lee's students use public places to practise on women, including city streets, supermarkets, bookstores and Burnaby malls - Lougheed, Metropolis at Metrotown and Brentwood. Lee has no formal credentials in seduction or psychology and charges $1,000 to $1,200 for a typical three-day "foundation" course. Advanced levels cost more but he's still cheaper than other schools, he says.
His course is not a typical session on how to pick up women with manipulative lines memorized from scripts, Lee says. He teaches the "natural and direct method," which encourages men to be honest, authentic and socially comfortable in all situations with women.
"It's not new," Lee says to his protgs. "It's what guys like Casanova and Don Juan did in the past. We're just rediscovering it."
Lee uses a mix of popular psychology, personal experience, scientific studies and neuro-linguistic programming in his courses. For Lee, neuro-linguistic programming means getting men in the right frame of mind to be confident and relaxed enough to approach women. Lee does this by having them close their eyes and remember a time they were completely comfortable and confident with a woman. But the technique doesn't end there. He also teaches men how to use it to seduce women by telling stories with patterns and embedded commands that put the listener into a particular "state."
For example, Lee would ask a woman questions about love to get her feeling amorous: Have you ever been in love? What did it feel like? How did you know?
"By you describing it, you would have to experience it," he says. "In other words, I put you in the mood to fall in love." Once the woman is feeling enamoured, he would insert himself in the picture with a more suggestive question such as: "Wouldn't it be great if we fell in love?"
Two days earlier, Rick and Fred are sitting around a table in Lee's class, sharing their woes over women. They speak of getting "let's-just-be-friended" in somber tones.
"I was the guy friend," says Rick. Fred has a similar tale. "I don't think they thought of me as being sexual," he says.
"I'm a Catholic school boy," says another, and a tall, lanky fellow with pleated pants, says cold Vancouverites are a sticking point for him.
According to Lee, men have lost their male role models.
"Many men have become wussies today, they're spineless," he says, adding they need to relearn how to be alpha men - comfortable, confident leaders.
Lee also focuses on basic social skills to talk with women while creating "a real connection with her emotional self."
"Women are more emotional," Lee says in an interview with the NOW. "They respond more to stories and to talking about their emotional feelings and experiences, whereas men, we're more logical and we prefer to take things in a more analytical way."
