Disney - I'm afraid I can't be of much help.
Lorna - I agree with some of your points, but to rebut (cos I love a good debate, me :) )
Yes, the time and place is important. They teach these courses in places like this because it's easier to meet women here - in the same way they teach you to drive on back roads and suburbs, rather than the M25. If it's about being confident and approaching women and being interesting, then doing it in a country pub on a Tuesday evening isn't going to help the situation. Once they've learned the lessons and put it into practice, their confidence grows and they can take it back home with them.
Being in the right place at the right time isn't enough though. It's also acting in the right way and being self-assured enough to talk to a woman rather than stand over in the corner staring dolefully into your pint because 'women don't want nice guys' - which is a common misconception used to placate guys who think they're nice but really just put all women on a pedestal and lack the ability to approach them.
Secondly - I was in a club in England last year with some friends. Two of the girls were sat together chatting, and some random bloke comes up, plops himself down and stares at one of them. Then after a couple of minutes, he leans forward and says to one of them 'My name's Dave, I work in the City, I think you're lovely, do you wanna drink?' - the first girl says 'Sorry, I have a boyfriend'
So he turns immediately to her friend and says 'My name's Dave, I work in the city, I think you're lovely, do you wanna drink?'
At which point they both get up and go to the toilet together.
I chatted to my friend who'd been the experimental 'bait' who I mentioned earlier. She and her friend stood up from our table and stood a few feet away so they were separate from us. And within two minutes, three guys came over and said hello. They chatted for a couple of minutes, then my friends moved away from them and stood somewhere else. Another couple of blokes descended on them. And cue a repeat - moving on back to our table. They were underwhelmed. 'These guys are so boring!' said one of them. 'One of them was telling me how much he earned. What a drunken wanker!' said the other. Men use alcohol to give them the courage to break the ice, but overdo it and end up dribbling and babbling.
Whereas the trainees on this course, whilst being taught a few 'seduction tricks' like the beer spilling, are basically taught to dress well, look confident, have interesting stories to tell. They did very well with the women. When my friend spoke to one of the trainees, he was sober, funny and apparently really sweet. She fancied him even though she knew he had done the course.
And no - men don't, in my experience, try and pull women to be seen doing so. They do it so they can have sex with women, which is it's own benefit. If I meet a woman I don't go round bragging about it to other men, their opinion isn't really important, and I'd look like a moron. Do you go out with friends to meet men and take them home for the benefit of other women?
If this course teaches men self confidence and lets them practice it in a target-rich environment, then doesn't that make them a long term better potential than if it taught them how to get women blind drunk and try and seduce them? Or worse?
Surely it's better to meet someone like this than someone getting drunk and drooling on your shoulder, or trying to slip something into your drink, or never having the confidence to come over and chat to you?
If they're honest and confident and dressed well and interesting, I don't really see the harm. Women learn how to do makeup when they're young, and ask on here and in real life about what to wear for dates. They discuss what clothes to wear when going out to a club. Men don't talk to each other about stuff like that. We know it's vaguely important but if we're not confident enough to think we can meet and chat to a woman, then we default to t-shirts with cartoon characters, and jeans.
I was trying to work out how different that was to women on here being told to be more confident, to show your wrists at men in order to be seductive (I'm still not sure how that works) and I still haven't come to a conclusion. These trainees are shy men who don't have the balls to talk to women, who are taught how to grow a pair and treat women like equals who have libidos and want to be spoken to by someone funny and attractive, not pandered to by a drunken obsequious bloke who's obviously desperate for sex. The men pay a lot of money to be taught something which is kind of obvious to many women.
One fundamental difference between men and women is that a woman - any woman - can have sex if she wants to by going to a club and making eye contact with men. Eventually some bloke will come over and try and seduce or chat to her. It's just that she may have to lower her standards a lot. Men have to make the effort, go over and talk to them, try and be attractive, interesting, humorous, charming. We can't just stand there in jeans and t-shirt, and expect women to come over and try and seduce us simply because we have a penis. A woman can smell bad, look bad, be boring and eventually some drunken guy will try and have sex with her, as long as the men outnumber the women. It's just unlikely it'll lead to a relationship.
If you give an infinite number of men an infinite number of typewriters, eventually one of them will try and have sex with it.
Lastly, I spat my coffee out when I read your comment on a course teaching men to pull women that it 'encourages personal growth in the wrong areas'...
:)
Sorry for the long post, I am open to flaming by enraged feminists who think that men learning to be more self assured and attractive and to speak to women as equals is a bad thing.