PickUp 101

The Sport of Body Language

Ever seen a great athlete at the top of his game? How about a great ladies' man working the room? Chances are you've seen the same thing with both. You can tell just by the way they use their bodies exactly how well their game is going, and you can tell everytime who the winner is going to be. PickUp 101 instructor Zack is here to tell you today how you can learn from the athlete and the ladies man just how to change your game and become a star today.

Body language never lies, not just in the game of pickup, but also in the game
of athletics. On some level, we all possess this awareness and understanding
of the value placed on confident body language-but, because most men grew up
playing sports and not practicing coolness with beautiful women, we are often
more likely to accurately comprehend this phenomenon in the arena of
athletics.

Allow me to use one of my favorite sports to elaborate upon the subtle,
predictable and transferable indicators of confident body language-Anytime,
and I mean anytime I go golfing and am paired with golfers with whom I have
never played before, I can instantaneously tell who will be gunning for par
and who will be spending time searching for their ball in the woods.

How can I accurately evaluate this BEFORE ever seeing a golfer's swing, you
ask?

Body language and physical confidence. Specifically, the body language of the
golfer's SET UP when merely standing over the ball. In the same way that a
woman can evaluate if you're cool or not before you've ever spoken a word, I
can tune in to the body language of golfers and unconsciously recognize the
subtleties and nuances of a good golf set up with just a quick glance.

Once your antennae are up and you are focused on the body language in sports,
you know in the blink of an eye, who is an athlete and who is not.

I'm sure you can remember those days back in summer camp when teams were being
picked for Kick Ball and there was this new crop of kids that you had never
seen before-but, as the Captain, you had to choose who you wanted on your
team.

Was it really difficult to tell who was going to be up at the top of the order
and who was going to be riding the bench?

Of course not — you knew instantly and intuitively who the best
players/athletes were just by the way they were standing up against the wall
and waiting to get picked for the team.

Guess what, when you are standing up against the wall at the bar (hopefully,
not for too long), to determine if you will be chosen for a woman's proverbial
team, she can size you up in just a heartbeat, based simply on your body
language.

I digress, back to adulthood and the body language of the confident golfer
athlete. For those of you who have ever played golf, received golf
instruction, or have seen a picture of a golfer in a magazine (I know, you
don't see them in Maxim very often), you know the importance of starting from
the ground up and getting set up for the swing.

Just look at golfing greats like Tiger Woods and Ernie Els over the ball and
you will likely be able to tell that they are the body language golfing
equivalents to James Bond.

So, unless you've been living under a rock during the past 10 years, you have
probably watched Tiger Woods play at least a little golf on television. Time
and time again, he just LOOKS like the best golfer on the course and I'm not
even talking about his actual swing. Just watch him walk down the fairway,
read a putt, talk to his caddie and at the most fundamental level, SET UP to
hit a golf shot.
 
However, if I showed you a side by side picture of the SET UP of Tiger and an
average golfer, you would probably FEEL a visceral difference between the two,
but you might struggle to put a finger on or articulate what this difference
is.

Does this sound anything like what a woman might say when she is asked to
observe the difference between a man with confident body language and one with
ordinary body language? Too many times to count.

Another great golf example of body language is Ernie Els who carries himself
in a different kind of confident way. His nickname is the Big Easy and it has
nothing to do with New Orleans and everything to do with the relaxed and
flowing nature with which he gracefully moves on the golf course and in life.

While we have looked at the sport of golf to this point, this same body
language confidence could also be applied regarding athletic success across
all sports. When seeing Michael Jordan come off the bench after a timeout at
the end of a game, based just on the way he walks back onto the court, you
KNOW he is going to make the shot. The same could be said for Derek Jeter when
he calmly steps into the batter's box in a clutch playoff situation-his inner
body radiates poise and you KNOW that he will come through with a hit.

Good body language transcends sport and can come in all shapes and sizes, so
even if your personality and body language doesn't necessarily reflect the
dominant and aggressive Tiger Woods/Colin Farrell type, you could instead be
the smooth and effortless Ernie Els/George Clooney type.

Enough talk about athletes and celebrities, let's get down to the nuts and
bolts by dissecting the finer points of the confident, athletic golfer's SET
UP and how it relates to powerful and winning body language with attracting
women:

1) First, you must have your weight balanced and evenly distributed between
your heels and toes.
2) You should then be standing tall and taking up space
with a nice wide stance (if you are hitting the driver) whereby, your feet are
slightly wider than shoulder width apart.
3) From there, you should have a tallness in your legs with a slight flex in
the knees so that you're your lower body FEELS relaxed, yet dynamic.
4) Your hips should be open in a vulnerable position, your chest is out and
your shoulders are back.
5) Moving right along, the arms should hang naturally at your sides and be
fully extended without any signs of tightness.
6) Next, when gripping the golf club, there should also be a strong, softness
with your hands to further ensure that you are tension-free. (Golfing legend
Ben Hogan used to say that he could actually tell how good a golfer was by
looking strictly at his hands and how he placed them on the club).
7) Additionally, your head, neck and back should be in alignment and at a
slight angle.
Finally, you should keep your head still, jaw relaxed, making solid eye
contact with the ball and be sure not to fidget or shake with any part of your
body.

Once in this position, ideally, you could stand this way for hours and always
feel ready to hit the ball down the fairway at a moment's notice. Does this
description of the confident golf setup seem like it could slightly resemble
alpha male body language with women? I think so.

But, would any new golfer be able to tune into these intricate details,
naturally knowing what to do or even understanding them from looking at a
picture in a magazine? Probably not! The same goes for men learning the art of
self-assured, attractive overall body language. This bodily form of everyday
confidence IS a learnable skill that can be conveyed through instruction,
practice and awareness.

In examining the importance of body language in athletes, we should also
consider the flip side of the coin. Bad body language can often be easy to
spot and once this chink in the armor is detected, any betting man could
accurately determine the likelihood of a negative result or performance in the
athlete, just by looking at him.

Once observed, we then intuitively interpret this bad body language as
revealing feelings of insecurity, discomfort and doubt. On a practical level,
professional golfer Sergio Garcia went through a rough patch in his game when
he would literally stand over the ball, nervously gripping and re-gripping the
club over and over again for periods of 30-60 seconds, before he actually
swung it.

After watching this body language disaster (reminiscent of the guy at the bar
who is anxiously swaying from side to side, pecking and leaning in incessantly
when talking to a girl), do you really have to know ANYTHING about golf to
predict that Sergio wasn't going to win any golf tournaments until he got this
significantly noticeable physical quirk fixed?

Of course not, confidence is manifested through the body and you don't need to
be golf instructor extraordinaire, Butch Harmon to ascertain the golf
confidence level of Sergio Garcia. In the same way, a woman doesn't need to be
super-socialite Paris Hilton to detect if you are a man who has confident body
language-Rosie O'Donnell could tell just as easily.

Hopefully, now you can understand why I don't need to see a golfer take a full
swing to know how good he is or why a woman doesn't need to hear a guy say to
her "Who lies more, men or women?" to tell how cool he is.

It's always appeared difficult to hone in on the many subtleties of both solid
body language in sports and solid body language in pickup, but once you are
more aware of them, they can be learned and practiced (in the mirror, at the
bar, at the bookstore, the office, or even on the driving range), until the
day arrives when you are ready to play your game.

These skills will often feel uncomfortable or awkward at first because they
are new to you, whereby you are not used to consistently using your body in
this way. But, over time these postures, positions and movements will become
fully internalized, unconscious and automatic.

So, eventually, it won't matter if you are on the tee at the 18th hole of the
Masters with a one stroke lead or you are talking to Heidi Klum at a fashion
show, your body will be confidently prepared for any situation.