New blog series! “Rokker shares his views on…”

Hey guys, to keep this blog regularly updated with interesting material, an idea for a new series popped up in my head. It’s called “Rokker shares his views on…”, and is a series where I will share my views on different community related topics. Topics of discussion will be (amongst others) “Canned Openers vs. Improvised Openers, what’s the best way to go?”, “Direct or indirect game?”, “Does looks matter?” and a bunch of other interesting topics.

Basically, I'll share my viewpoint on different ways to look at the game, and how I game. To make this even more interesting, I would love to hear from you guys what you want to read about and I’ll write up my thoughts about it.

My first topic for the series will be “Canned Openers vs. Improvisation, what’s the best way to go?”, so without further ado:

Rokker shares his views on…
“Canned Openers vs. Improvised Openers, what’s the best way to go?”

It is true that the opener is just a way of starting a conversation, and that the opener is not a big deal, and once you get some solid skill down you can open with pretty much anything. That being said, guys aren’t opening nearly enough sets per night when they are starting out – and as a consequence usually think that opening is their biggest sticking point when they come to us to do a bootcamp or when they take a 1on1 with me (well duh, you gotta open to learn how to open!). They usually mention that they don’t know what to say to start a conversation (and neither did I when I started out) so we supply them with canned openers so they can start getting experience. Once they learn how to open technically correct with the canned opener, they can now switch to improvised openers and still open well (and we encourage them to do the switch) because they know the fundamentals of a good opener.

So canned openers definitely has a purpose when you are starting out, and instructors usually use canned openers on bootcamps to show students that the material works (so the student can use the same material and focus on delivery and sub-communication instead of trying to come up with cool shit to say), but the more experienced you get, the more and more you can improvise your opener. However, sometimes it’s nice to open with a canned opener even at instructor level; especially if you have an off night where you are out of state and need to snap out of it.

So I still use canned openers sometimes (they are all constructed by myself though, might be something to note), when I’m feeling out of state or when I see a set and need to say something in a split-second (if like a hot moving set just walks by). That being said, my improvisational openers wouldn’t be nearly as good as they are now if I hadn’t practiced canned openers first, as I would have no reference what a good opener could sound like or what reactions to expect from a good opener.

There’s also something to be said about using “the short set method”, and “short setting the room”. It’s a technique where you open pretty much every set in the room (social proof), but only stay in for a little while to build recognition and social proof (the subject is a post in of itself, but something we teach at bootcamps and 1on1s, very effective especially for overcoming approach anxiety). Using this method definitely helps your improvisational opening skills, so I absolutely recommend you to do it.

So to conclude, I think canned openers is a great resource for beginners and I definitely recommend them to use them. The more experience you get, and the better understanding you get for what works and what doesn't (especially what you are sub-communicating), the more you can switch to improvisational openers and shake it up a bit. In the end, opening becomes such an easy part of PU that you don't even think about what you open with. More often than not I have no idea how I opened the set... like I literally forget because it's not something I think about, I just do it (lol Nike should pay me for saying that!).

- R