Friday, July 22, 2011

Buying and Selling

You have to sell a fake, and it has to be bought.

It has to be something your opponent wants, or wants to avoid.

You can't just put something out there and hope it looks like the genuine article and assume someone will take it.

A successful fake must look real, read - attractive or dangerous, if it looks like a fake and it is not particularly attractive or dangerous it does not work.

You have to understand what real things look like, and what looks real to people. And also how different things look real to different people.

You can't sell fakes until you first learn how to sell reality.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Because people react to fakes by flinching - a defensive, protective reflex, by definition then a successful fake is nothing more than the fakers unwillingness to commit. If the fake is successful, what is then gained? One still must attack, turning what should have been a single motion into a sequence of motions where the opponent is learning more about your state of mind than you are about his physical geometries. 'Playing the line', often considered, incorrectly, to be a fake, is different.

Maija said...

Perhaps a better general description would be 'techniques to open the line'.
'Fakes' to me cover options that provide an entry AND enough time for an exit when there is no opening - so fakes in the sense you described, but not necessarily. In other words, anything that creates an opening - generally obtained by 'telling a lie'.
My logic would say that to do this I need to create something that my opponent wants, or wants to avoid, but something to change the status quo.
I disagree that it has to be a sequence of motions, you can throw 2 (or more) 'ideas' continuously moving forward, and in a single motion if you learn to articulate your body ... in fact even further than that, your voice (sounds or words) and your eyes.
My big point is that it's your opponent's reaction that is the point, so you have to understand what people do, and why people react how they do, before you can lie to create it.

Josh Kruschke said...

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. - Sun Tzu.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu

Maija said...

@ Joshkie - That's one of my favorite quotes