Yep....for too many years I've watched players struggle with various aiming systems, only to end up not improving. They waste a lot of time. Like you, with CTE, I'm getting enough positive feedback and proof through testimonials to know that my system is actually helping players improve, dramatically. It's a good feeling.
:smile:
This has been my overriding point all of these years. I went from a "meh, I don't need to even care about this" person to a "are you kidding me this is the nuts" type person literally overnight after being asked to meet Hal Houle by a friend of mine. I didn't want to spend time with Hal, I just wanted to be polite and play hooky from work and look for action.
But Hal opened my eyes to ways to aim that were different and weird and incredibly effective. I honestly wasn't aware of the depths of vitriol that had been heaped on him and those who had already met him and were telling everyone how great the systems were. Once in a while I would open an aiming thread - way before AZB - and quickly close it thinking I didn't really need to discuss aiming.
So after meeting Hal and getting the first hand information, more than I could digest, I simply related the experience and affirmed that what he had to teach was the real deal. And that's when the attacks and insults started in.
My point has always been why not leave people alone to try whatever is presented and if it works for them and helps them then great. If not then they can always go back to whatever they had been doing. But the more people who try something the more opportunity there is to find out if it really works, how or why it works, and most importantly, if it can be modified or simplified to work even better. The one thing that is absurd and classless in my opinion is for people to denigrate others for daring to teach aiming systems and to denigrate those who want to try to learn aiming systems. This activity is reprehensible to me.
The whole point of aiming systems is to get the player aligned to the shot accurately. If that doesn't end up being what happens then the system will fall out of favor and be discarded. But if it does happen then it leads to higher skill levels and more enjoyment of the game. Why would anyone make a point of trying to dissuade anyone from attempting to reach a higher skill level and having more fun and success in pool?
I mean in the absence of formal aiming "systems", even GB is an aiming system, the pool student is left with the default brute force trial and error million ball way of figuring out how to aim. So that is ALWAYS there and thus there is a HIGH PROBABILTY that anyone who discovers or develops any other way to aim is going to be an improvement over the brute force method. That's simple logic imo. So why not give them a chance and let the crowd filter out what ends up being the best balance between precision and complexity?
Personally I like how the conversation is shifting away from "are aiming systems real" to "which aiming system is best". In another 10 years maybe the precise objective aiming systems will be the default way people learn to aim in pool instead of brute force or imaginary balls. Then imaginary balls can SUPPLEMENT the objective methods in the way that they do now for SOME aiming system users.
Anyway, count me in for the Aiming Systems are GOLD crowd. (as if I needed to say that.)