Blackjack, I also think you should put the video back up. Just because I didn't find it helpful doesn't mean that others won't. And maybe others will see the issues I have with it as well, which can lead to further discussion, which I'm not against.
Jeff - I'm guessing you sleep on the couch a lot? :wink:
A little diplomacy never hurt. So if a guy takes his time to help you and you think he is off base in some of his comments, why not just ignore that part, or disagree politely, and concentrate on the one or two things you might have learned from his FREE advice. You are telling me there isn't ONE thing in his video that you learned and you didn't know before? I mean, even if it is just reinforcement of good practices that you are already aware of, being told it again is never a bad thing. BJ said you need to walk around the table. You said that even though you don't do that you are doing it in your mind very quickly. Really? I nearly fell off my chair! If you learn nothing from his video but this one thing, you should be grateful. You cannot survey the table from one perspective and claim that is the same thing as actually walking around the table. A guy who runs 200 balls has to walk around the table but the guy who runs 10 doesn't need to?
I think you have been a little defensive in these admittedly somewhat direct reviews you received (hey, these guys are pool players, not UN diplomats). There is a natural tendency for the student to try and show the teacher that he is really better and more knowledgeable than the teacher believes. It happens all the time and I've caught myself doing that. I suppose that is along the lines of that tea cup parable. Guess what, no matter how good you are it isn't going to impress the instructor. He doesn't really care. He simply wants to show you where you need to improve. If he is wrong about something, then ignore that point and move on to the next issue, and don't assume you know more than he does. If a guy doesn't know your game and makes bad assumptions, make some more videos and play better. Let him review your new video and learn more about your experience level. Why not make that video you were talking about where you talk out loud about your intentions?
Example: sparkle said draw a line from the foot spot to the side pocket corner. Any ball completely below that line is an "excellent" break shot. I remember the rule as being from one of the head balls to the side pocket corner, but I well could have that wrong. Also, is it really an "excellent" break shot? Well, you went ahead with a diagram showing curved lines and stun shot tangents, supposedly disproving sparkle's rule of thumb, and then questioning how that rule of thumb could have been around so long. Did you consider that any break shot that moves 3 or 4 balls into the clear might just be an "excellent" break for a 200 ball runner? Your diagram doesn't consider that you don't have to hit your break shots so hard that they are all following the tangent line into the pack. If you hit the upper or lower balls in the pack in a way that the cue ball can get clear, a natural follow is just fine. That's probably why the rule of thumb has been around so long. Now, being a rule of thumb, you should take it to the table and play around with the limitations for you and see how close to that line you can be. My follow up questions for sparkle would have been 1) Do you really consider a break ball near that line still to be "excellent" and why, and 2) Do you ever hear people use the top ball as the reference point instead of the foot spot, because that's what I recall. That keeps the discussion going and I might learn something.
As it is, you have a few excellent players who probably won't give you advice from here on out, which is too bad. I'm sure it was never your intent.