What do the Top Players in the World AIM at?

[lfigueroa]

Hate to sound stupid, but what does "PSR" mean?

Sherm, I can't believe with all the time you put in on RSB that that one didn't stick!

Pre-Shot Routine

Lou Figueroa

 

[lfigueroa]

Pre-Shot Routine -- that series/sequence of things you do prior to the shot, including those things you do while in your stance, that add-up to your final cue delivery. When it comes to the PSR, Lou's talking consistency here, and it's a very solid point. Consistency leads to consistency, and methinks that's his point.

My addendum to this is that consistency leads to relaxation and relief of tension. This, in turn, leads to "sinking" into the zone.

-Sean

That's a good connection: consistency = relaxation. And perhaps confidence too. Ferinstance, at 14.1, if you know you can execute a rock solid PSR for every kind of shot, then you can occasionally choose shoot a shot here and there that, while technically a bit more difficult than another available shot, more quickly opens or unclogs everything else making the rest of the run easier.

Lou Figueroa

 

[lfigueroa]

I'm not sure it's true that "everybody aims AT something." It's enough to have a sense of the overlap between the balls.

Let's assume that you have the ability to stroke the cue along the line from your visual center to the desired tip-cueball contact point.

If so, then AIMING doesn't have to be about pointing the cue at anything. Aiming could be just about finding the correct position for your visual center.

Forget the stick. Move your eyes to where the shot looks right and you're done. The shot looking right is more about the overlap than anything, imo.

I think this is the value of all this pivot-based aiming stuff. The pivot don't mean squat. The key is to aim the shot without the bias of the stick: to get the visual center in the right place. Only THEN does the stick come into play to complete the straightforward physical task part of it. The pivoting part is just a rain dance, imo.

Players who aim this way might actually feel a little baffled inside when you ask what they aim at. They don't really aim at anything.

Personally I think the value of the pivot is just that it helps people get the cue stick in the same position each time for a more consistent stroke. Whether that end position is the optimal one for each given player is another story.

Lou Figueroa

 

[lfigueroa]

When a person says that it not about aiming it is about feeling the shot and just knowing when it will go in I think they are simply saying that they cannot explain how their brain takes into consideration the many factors that are or could be involved. For instance using English with a hard stroke make the cue ball deflect a significant amount. Using English with low soft stroke can make the cue ball curve to the side on which the English is placed. The player’s mind has to learn how to integrate these two opposing forces and this must be done over different distances using functional (continuous) integration of the opposing forces. These types of calculations are not the types of things that can be placed into words. None-the-less the variables can be identified and the player can work with each variable independently and then in an integrated way.

The player who thinks he has no aiming system is only saying that they do not have the words to describe how they calculate. If you think that you can pocket balls without aiming, walk to the table blind folded. Bet you can’t find the cue ball that is to be propelled.

In contrast to the million ball theory I would think that a person who understands the variables and how they work together to compound and or negate each other in a set of continuous relationships can improve more quickly, though they too may not be able to say, in words, what it is they do.

The PSR is used to set the stage for the mind to integrate all of the requirements. It is like a gun emplacement: A place from which the calculations are made.

Well, besides being called irascible, I don't believe anyone is going to accuse me of being inarticulate or not being able to express myself when it comes to the game. I think I can and have described what's going on pretty well.

Being blindfolded is not a proper analysis what I'm saying. How about this instead: spread out all 15 balls; walk up to the table; do the PSR thing; get into shooting position; close your eyes; and then shoot the shot. Repeat. What do you think happens?

Well if you've got a well established accurate PSR, what will happen is that you will run most if not all the balls. (If that doesn't happen it's a good sign that you need to work on your PSR When I tried this, what I found was pocketing the balls was actually pretty easy. What did suffer was my position play -- I was always off a bit, with the CB traveling a bit this way or that.

Lastly, about the million ball thing: IMO, getting to be a great pool player is probably as hard as getting a PhD. (Probably way harder, judging by how many PhDs there are.) It takes years of study and hard work. And there is no DVD or system that is going to substitute. Aiming system DVDs are the equivalent of the late night come-ons that promise you instant wealth, success, or weight lose. But not too amazingly, the suckers are still out there forking over their dough in the hopes of easy money, owning property, losing 20 pounds while sitting in their easy chair, or learning a can't miss aiming system.

Is this a great country, or what?

Lou Figueroa

 

[lfigueroa]

Yeah, I get what you mean, to some degree at least. I think I got onto that long ago and just kinda "forgot" What Tate said helped me to realize that, too. Good thread, actually!

Yeah, it did go in a pretty good direction didn't it.

Lou Figueroa
(once we got rid
of the OP

 

[lfigueroa]

Played some 3c with Bill today in 3 innings he ran a 7,8,7 so I guess he figured out what to aim at.Im sure all the great advice he got here helped.

I ran a 110 Friday. Not getting *any* advice from Bill here didn't slow me up much either.

Lou Figueroa

 

[lfigueroa]

Please someone tell me how to aim to hit a baseball with a bat. I always sucked at baseball and used to strike out a lot as a kid when I played in the local athletic association (softball).

I don't even know if we had curve balls in softball as kids. How would you hit a baseball curveball?

Do you have to calculate the contact point on the bat? Do you see the contact point on the ball? How do you hit the ball on the middle portion of the diameter of the batt so it goes straight and does not pop up? From what I understand, a major league batter has to start his swing well before the ball is anywhere near him, because it is going so fast. How does he know where the ball will be at the time it crosses the plate? How does he calculate that?

Please tell me how to aim to hit a baseball. I want to be a good batter. I was always the bench warmer for half the game because I was bad. I'm sure the only reason I was a bench warmer was because I did not have this knowledge that all the good players on my team had. Please help me to hit a ball so I can regain my baseball dignity!

I am not sure, but I'm pretty certain it involves pivoting or swiveling

Lou Figueroa

 

[Johnnyt]

Well, besides being called irascible, I don't believe anyone is going to accuse me of being inarticulate or not being able to express myself when it comes to the game. I think I can and have described what's going on pretty well.

Being blindfolded is not a proper analysis what I'm saying. How about this instead: spread out all 15 balls; walk up to the table; do the PSR thing; get into shooting position; close your eyes; and then shoot the shot. Repeat. What do you think happens?

Well if you've got a well established accurate PSR, what will happen is that you will run most if not all the balls. (If that doesn't happen it's a good sign that you need to work on your PSR When I tried this, what I found was pocketing the balls was actually pretty easy. What did suffer was my position play -- I was always off a bit, with the CB traveling a bit this way or that.

Lou Figueroa

Setting up and then closing your eyes before pulling the trigger will help you trust your stroke. You won't change anything at the last instant. If your set right, aim and stroke is good, the ball has to go in. Johnnyt

 

[BRKNRUN]

As one of those guys that just "sees the shot" I can tell you that, for me, there is no ghost ball, or contact point, or overlap. Really.

It's more of a "go, no go" type of thing. You look at the shot and decide where you want the cue ball to end up. You decide where and how the cue ball needs to be hit to accomplish that. You go through your PSR. You're in shooting position and the shot just looks right. You really just see the whole shot and probably, at least for me, the most important part of it is seeing where and how my cue tip is going to hit the cue ball and refining my stroke speed during a couple of warm up strokes.

Lou Figueroa

How do you know it looks right????
Why did it look wrong before????

 

[lfigueroa]

How do you know it looks right????
Why did it look wrong before????

This is the memory thing -- it looks right because you've successfully shot the shot before and since you know you're set up the same way (consistent PSR) it has to go.

FWIW, here's something I wrote many moons ago. It covers some of the stuff already discussed in this thread, but the memory part is the third one.


#####
I played pool for a long time looking for "The Secret." I knew that if I could just discover The Secret I would play great pool. For the longest time, I thought The Secret might be a certain grip, a certain bridge, a particular approach to the table, maybe just the right head height or position over the cue. But, The Secret always eluded me.

Now I've come to understand that The Secret, as a single entity, doesn't really exist. Instead I've learned that success at pool is contingent on at least three general principles.

Lou's First Principle of Pool

Playing great pool is the result of reliably reproducing the same mechanical setup every time you approach the table. In turn, the same mechanics will produce the same stroke each time you shoot. You can't learn to play great pool if your mechanics are different each time you setup. It's not a certain grip or head height. It's a process that starts with how you hold your pool cue and ends with your final shooting position. The problem with concentrating on and changing one particular element in the process is that, if you're not paying attention, you can easily alter something else, and change your results. Or, if you're not setting up in a consistent manner, there's no way to directly attribute any improvement to a particular modification, like a higher or lower head position. We've all had those sessions when, for a brief moment in time, we thought to ourselves "I'm ready for the tour." Balls go in from everywhere and we effortlessly move the cue ball around the table with astounding position. It's because, I believe, we all have a great stroke inside us. But, we don't do things the same every day, or even from shot to shot.

A major problem to advancement at this game is that it can be very easy to accept "good enough." How many times have you hit a shot a little off and it still goes and you go on your merry way without further introspection? Or how about the situation where you don't get exactly the position you want -- but still have "good enough" position for the next shot. We just don't stop and take the time to analyze why what we wanted to happen, didn't happen. We fall into the trap of just accepting that the cue ball went a little right or left, or maybe back a bit, when what you wanted was to kill it cold. We accept good enough rather than to take note and tackle the root cause. I mean, nobody's perfect, right?

But let's face it: there's a reason the object ball goes off to the right or the left (and still goes), when you wanted it to track perfectly straight. And there's a reason that the cue ball comes back to the right or the left, when you wanted it to track straight back. But we settle for good enough and go on without pausing to reflect and dissect the nuances.

Part of this is poor, or uneducated shot conceptualization and the fact that many players think they know what's going to happen on a given shot, when they really don't. After all, this is a game of hypothesis. You look at the shot and hypothesize that if you hit the ball at a certain point, with a certain spin, with a certain speed, one ball will go in the pocket and the other will land on a given spot on the table for another shot. You get down and shoot and test your hypothesis. If a player thinks they do know exactly what's going to happen on any given shot, they should immediately waltz over to the billiard table, or just throw a couple of balls on a pool table, and try a little straight rail. Many players may be shocked to discover what they don't know.

But at this game, it's the nuances that kill you. And those slight deviations in the object ball or cue ball path are what eventually come back to haunt us by manifesting themselves on the bigger shots.

And so the Secret, such as it applies to a great stroke, is to find the process that creates those great results and repeat them consistently.

Lou's Second Principle of Pool

Great pool is a result of setting up and executing your stroke with great precision. Perhaps many of you have seen the poster "View of a Cue" which is basically a foot and a half cue ball overlaid with graph lines that breaks the cue ball down into something like a 120 spots. The Secret is not about hitting the cue ball low or high or to the side -- it's about consciously choosing one of those 120 spots and shooting at it with the right speed and elevation to produce exactly the results you want.

I think any player can make the cue travel on a perfectly straight track several different ways. Put another way, you can produce a perfectly straight stroke using a wide variety of stroke mechanics -- different stances, bridges, grips, head heights, crooked or bent bridge arms, grip arm alignments, etc. But it has to be a straight (or even crooked stroke for that matter) that produces the desired/expected results for your hypothesis. I think that's part of the secret.

You have to find the setup that makes the balls do what you expect them to do and then be able to reliably reproduce that setup on every shot. Returning for a moment to the issue of "good enough," if you expect the ball to come straight backwards on a draw shot, and it goes sideways, you have no basis upon which to learn. If you want and expect the cue ball to track perfectly straight on a follow shot and it goes sideways on you, the same problem exists. So your starting point has to be here.

Once you've got that, I think you eventually get to the point of "feeling" the shots by paying attention, using each shot to learn. IOW, using each shot as an experiment for which you first hypothesize about the expected results. You shoot the shot and then compare your results to your hypothesis. Then, the next time the same shot comes up, you develop a new hypothesis based upon your previous experiment. Something like: the last time I shot this shot the cue ball didn't take as wide an angle off the rail as I anticipated. So I'll cheat the pocket; use more english: use more speed; hit lower on the cue ball; whatever, and try and get that wider angle. Then, several thousands and thousands of shots later, viola! (With apologies to Smorg.) You don't even have to think about making the ball.

Lou's Third Principle of Pool

Great pool players have great memories. Each and every shot, you've got to guess what's going to happen with the object ball and cue ball. Then, you must pay attention and see if your results matched your hypothesis. And, if they didn't, how they differed.

I believe being a good pool player is a lot like being a good card player. It takes a good memory. You have to remember what happens when the shot looks "on" to you -- to compare your "hypothesis" about a given shot with the actual results. You've got to be paying attention, every time you shoot, both before and after. Did you over cut the ball? Under cut it? Did the cue ball draw more or less than you anticipated? Was the cue ball's angle off the cushion wider or narrower than you predicted.

The next time the shot comes up, you recall the previous outcome, adjust accordingly, and observe the results vs your new theory. Then, it just becomes a matter of increased refinement. Doing this in a practice session speeds up the learning cycle because you don't have to wait for any given shot to come up again (after all, some shots may only come up once a session, or even once a week).

I believe memory also affects how we view our improvement, or lack of it. Unless you're keeping records (a good idea, but frankly, how many of us are that anal?) it's difficult to accurately remember how well you played a week, month, or year ago. And, as you progress, it becomes harder and harder to objectively appreciate any progress you might have made because of your own continually rising expectations. There was a point at which I felt I was playing well when I got my banks close. Now, it's more like I'm having a bad day if they all don't go (OK, almost all of them). I've forgotten my old expectations.

Your perception about how well you're playing can also be impacted by who you're playing and selective memory. If you're playing a runout player, a scratch in the side, he puts a four-pack on you, and you're likely to feel that you played poorly berating yourself about the scratch in the side, long after the match is over. If you're playing a weaker player and win 9-2, you probably won't even remember that same scratch in the side and might even feel you played exceptionally well.

Lastly, on this subject, I don't believe I've ever met a pool player who didn't "used to play better." I think that that's more a case of colored memory, fondly recalling being in dead stroke sometime, long ago, and somehow believing it was a constant state of affairs.

Don’t we all wish.
#####


Lou Figueroa

 

[mikepage]

Well, besides being called irascible, I don't believe anyone is going to accuse me of being inarticulate or not being able to express myself when it comes to the game. I think I can and have described what's going on pretty well.

Being blindfolded is not a proper analysis what I'm saying. How about this instead: spread out all 15 balls; walk up to the table; do the PSR thing; get into shooting position; close your eyes; and then shoot the shot. Repeat. What do you think happens?

Well if you've got a well established accurate PSR, what will happen is that you will run most if not all the balls. (If that doesn't happen it's a good sign that you need to work on your PSR When I tried this, what I found was pocketing the balls was actually pretty easy. What did suffer was my position play -- I was always off a bit, with the CB traveling a bit this way or that.

Lou Figueroa

Clearly some part of your psr is getting on the right line, and to do that you must have a means to assess the quality of a line. If it looks right or looks wrong, you're using something to assess that. And that something MUST take into account the positions of the cueball, object ball and pocket.

It's like you're saying you don't need to cook with olive oil or basil or garlic to make a good Italian meal; you just use good marinara sauce.

 

[lfigueroa]

Clearly some part of your psr is getting on the right line, and to do that you must have a means to assess the quality of a line. If it looks right or looks wrong, you're using something to assess that. And that something MUST take into account the positions of the cueball, object ball and pocket.

It's like you're saying you don't need to cook with olive oil or basil or garlic to make a good Italian meal; you just use good marinara sauce.

I think that first off I'm using my starting position -- I think every pool player has a place (and foot position) that they naturally put themselves, to look at a shot. Then it's a matter of doing the analysis of what you want to accomplish on a particular shot, executing your PSR, and lowering yourself into shooting position, using the cue ball, object ball, and pocket to orient yourself. And I think unconsciously your brain can and does tell your bridge hand where to plop itself down to be accurately lined up. If you're sitting at a desk right now, make a bridge that lines you up to a pen, or lamp, or something -- there are no lines or ghost ball s involved -- it's just the magic of your eyes, wetware, and hand.

Lou Figueroa

 

[JoeW]

Well, besides being called irascible, I don't believe anyone is going to accuse me of being inarticulate or not being able to express myself when it comes to the game. I think I can and have described what's going on pretty well.

Being blindfolded is not a proper analysis what I'm saying. How about this instead: spread out all 15 balls; walk up to the table; do the PSR thing; get into shooting position; close your eyes; and then shoot the shot. Repeat. What do you think happens?

Well if you've got a well established accurate PSR, what will happen is that you will run most if not all the balls. (If that doesn't happen it's a good sign that you need to work on your PSR When I tried this, what I found was pocketing the balls was actually pretty easy. What did suffer was my position play -- I was always off a bit, with the CB traveling a bit this way or that.

Lou Figueroa

I was trying to say that we are all inarticulate when it comes to describing what it is that we use to aim. If you touch your nose with your finger you have to “aim” your finger at your nose and then guide it along the right path while trying to hold your nose in one position. I doubt that anyone can say how they go about aiming their finger at their nose. We just do it based on experience. None-the-less, the brain is calculating how to bring two moving objects together in a three dimensional space.

Except for the use of mathematical equations, which is a language unto itself, we do not have words in English or any other language I am aware of, to describe how we aim. It is a limitation that comes with our use of language.

If you close your eyes when you shoot, you have already aimed. Your ability indicates that some people can retain and use the results of their calculations for a longer period of time.

In agreement with you I think the important aspect of the aiming process is the identification of the variables and then working with these variables that need to be used. I doubt that using 42% of this and 61% of that and placing cue ball at such and such an angle is the way to execute some particular shot. The brain, which does not use such words, learns to estimate the proportional mix of variables. I doubt that a great player uses words like “low left English” they simply “see” the shot. Words get in the way when it is an “if – then” physical situation.

My point about the blind fold was to indicate that in some way your eyes coordinate with your body to arrive at a particular way in which to place the cue ball. For lack of a better word this is called aiming and though we may not have the words to describe what we are doing the brain is making many calculations which none of us can articulate very well. If we know what the variables are and we gain experience with these variables we can improve the brain’s ability.

 

[BRKNRUN]

This is the memory thing -- it looks right because you've successfully shot the shot before and since you know you're set up the same way (consistent PSR) it has to go.

FWIW, here's something I wrote many moons ago. It covers some of the stuff already discussed in this thread, but the memory part is the third one.


#####
I played pool for a long time looking for "The Secret." I knew that if I could just discover The Secret I would play great pool. For the longest time, I thought The Secret might be a certain grip, a certain bridge, a particular approach to the table, maybe just the right head height or position over the cue. But, The Secret always eluded me.

Now I've come to understand that The Secret, as a single entity, doesn't really exist. Instead I've learned that success at pool is contingent on at least three general principles.

Lou's First Principle of Pool

Playing great pool is the result of reliably reproducing the same mechanical setup every time you approach the table. In turn, the same mechanics will produce the same stroke each time you shoot. You can't learn to play great pool if your mechanics are different each time you setup. It's not a certain grip or head height. It's a process that starts with how you hold your pool cue and ends with your final shooting position. The problem with concentrating on and changing one particular element in the process is that, if you're not paying attention, you can easily alter something else, and change your results. Or, if you're not setting up in a consistent manner, there's no way to directly attribute any improvement to a particular modification, like a higher or lower head position. We've all had those sessions when, for a brief moment in time, we thought to ourselves "I'm ready for the tour." Balls go in from everywhere and we effortlessly move the cue ball around the table with astounding position. It's because, I believe, we all have a great stroke inside us. But, we don't do things the same every day, or even from shot to shot.

A major problem to advancement at this game is that it can be very easy to accept "good enough." How many times have you hit a shot a little off and it still goes and you go on your merry way without further introspection? Or how about the situation where you don't get exactly the position you want -- but still have "good enough" position for the next shot. We just don't stop and take the time to analyze why what we wanted to happen, didn't happen. We fall into the trap of just accepting that the cue ball went a little right or left, or maybe back a bit, when what you wanted was to kill it cold. We accept good enough rather than to take note and tackle the root cause. I mean, nobody's perfect, right?

But let's face it: there's a reason the object ball goes off to the right or the left (and still goes), when you wanted it to track perfectly straight. And there's a reason that the cue ball comes back to the right or the left, when you wanted it to track straight back. But we settle for good enough and go on without pausing to reflect and dissect the nuances.

Part of this is poor, or uneducated shot conceptualization and the fact that many players think they know what's going to happen on a given shot, when they really don't. After all, this is a game of hypothesis. You look at the shot and hypothesize that if you hit the ball at a certain point, with a certain spin, with a certain speed, one ball will go in the pocket and the other will land on a given spot on the table for another shot. You get down and shoot and test your hypothesis. If a player thinks they do know exactly what's going to happen on any given shot, they should immediately waltz over to the billiard table, or just throw a couple of balls on a pool table, and try a little straight rail. Many players may be shocked to discover what they don't know.

But at this game, it's the nuances that kill you. And those slight deviations in the object ball or cue ball path are what eventually come back to haunt us by manifesting themselves on the bigger shots.

And so the Secret, such as it applies to a great stroke, is to find the process that creates those great results and repeat them consistently.

Lou's Second Principle of Pool

Great pool is a result of setting up and executing your stroke with great precision. Perhaps many of you have seen the poster "View of a Cue" which is basically a foot and a half cue ball overlaid with graph lines that breaks the cue ball down into something like a 120 spots. The Secret is not about hitting the cue ball low or high or to the side -- it's about consciously choosing one of those 120 spots and shooting at it with the right speed and elevation to produce exactly the results you want.

I think any player can make the cue travel on a perfectly straight track several different ways. Put another way, you can produce a perfectly straight stroke using a wide variety of stroke mechanics -- different stances, bridges, grips, head heights, crooked or bent bridge arms, grip arm alignments, etc. But it has to be a straight (or even crooked stroke for that matter) that produces the desired/expected results for your hypothesis. I think that's part of the secret.

You have to find the setup that makes the balls do what you expect them to do and then be able to reliably reproduce that setup on every shot. Returning for a moment to the issue of "good enough," if you expect the ball to come straight backwards on a draw shot, and it goes sideways, you have no basis upon which to learn. If you want and expect the cue ball to track perfectly straight on a follow shot and it goes sideways on you, the same problem exists. So your starting point has to be here.

Once you've got that, I think you eventually get to the point of "feeling" the shots by paying attention, using each shot to learn. IOW, using each shot as an experiment for which you first hypothesize about the expected results. You shoot the shot and then compare your results to your hypothesis. Then, the next time the same shot comes up, you develop a new hypothesis based upon your previous experiment. Something like: the last time I shot this shot the cue ball didn't take as wide an angle off the rail as I anticipated. So I'll cheat the pocket; use more english: use more speed; hit lower on the cue ball; whatever, and try and get that wider angle. Then, several thousands and thousands of shots later, viola! (With apologies to Smorg.) You don't even have to think about making the ball.

Lou's Third Principle of Pool

Great pool players have great memories. Each and every shot, you've got to guess what's going to happen with the object ball and cue ball. Then, you must pay attention and see if your results matched your hypothesis. And, if they didn't, how they differed.

I believe being a good pool player is a lot like being a good card player. It takes a good memory. You have to remember what happens when the shot looks "on" to you -- to compare your "hypothesis" about a given shot with the actual results. You've got to be paying attention, every time you shoot, both before and after. Did you over cut the ball? Under cut it? Did the cue ball draw more or less than you anticipated? Was the cue ball's angle off the cushion wider or narrower than you predicted.

The next time the shot comes up, you recall the previous outcome, adjust accordingly, and observe the results vs your new theory. Then, it just becomes a matter of increased refinement. Doing this in a practice session speeds up the learning cycle because you don't have to wait for any given shot to come up again (after all, some shots may only come up once a session, or even once a week).

I believe memory also affects how we view our improvement, or lack of it. Unless you're keeping records (a good idea, but frankly, how many of us are that anal?) it's difficult to accurately remember how well you played a week, month, or year ago. And, as you progress, it becomes harder and harder to objectively appreciate any progress you might have made because of your own continually rising expectations. There was a point at which I felt I was playing well when I got my banks close. Now, it's more like I'm having a bad day if they all don't go (OK, almost all of them). I've forgotten my old expectations.

Your perception about how well you're playing can also be impacted by who you're playing and selective memory. If you're playing a runout player, a scratch in the side, he puts a four-pack on you, and you're likely to feel that you played poorly berating yourself about the scratch in the side, long after the match is over. If you're playing a weaker player and win 9-2, you probably won't even remember that same scratch in the side and might even feel you played exceptionally well.

Lastly, on this subject, I don't believe I've ever met a pool player who didn't "used to play better." I think that that's more a case of colored memory, fondly recalling being in dead stroke sometime, long ago, and somehow believing it was a constant state of affairs.

Don’t we all wish.
#####


Lou Figueroa

No disrespect intended here....Any time you run into a player that says they use zero aiming methods it is just a matter of asking the right question(s) that will pull out the aiming methods they (have) used.

You have obviously played pool long enough that these methods are now second nature and you don't think about them.....thus you "forget" that they exist.

There is a "method" to gaining "feel" :wink:

 

[mikepage]

Sherm, I can't believe with all the time you put in on RSB that that one didn't stick!

Pre-Shot Routine

Lou Figueroa

What's RSB stand for?

 

[mikepage]

I think that first off I'm using my starting position -- I think every pool player has a place (and foot position) that they naturally put themselves, to look at a shot. Then it's a matter of doing the analysis of what you want to accomplish on a particular shot, executing your PSR, and lowering yourself into shooting position, using the cue ball, object ball, and pocket to orient yourself. And I think unconsciously your brain can and does tell your bridge hand where to plop itself down to be accurately lined up. If you're sitting at a desk right now, make a bridge that lines you up to a pen, or lamp, or something -- there are no lines or ghost ball s involved -- it's just the magic of your eyes, wetware, and hand.

Lou Figueroa

that's what I mean by "sense of the overlap." ;-)

 

[lfigueroa]

No disrespect intended here....Any time you run into a player that says they use zero aiming methods it is just a matter of asking the right question(s) that will pull out the aiming methods they (have) used.

You have obviously played pool long enough that these methods are now second nature and you don't think about them.....thus you "forget" that they exist.

There is a "method" to gaining "feel" :wink:

OK, so what are the right questions?

I'm trying to as forthcoming as possible about this. And it does seem that I'm not alone in being someone who does not use an aiming system like: ghost ball, rail road, tunnel, chain ball, square ball, arrow, line, light, reflection, shadow, spot, sectional, 4ES, 3ES, geometric, or (dare I say) it CTE (with apologies to Todd Leveck).

I really don't think I'm forgetting anything and am willing to play 20 questions with you if you really believe this.

Lou Figueroa

 

[lfigueroa]

that's what I mean by "sense of the overlap." ;-)

I guess I don't understand, because that's not what I'm saying -- "overlap" to me means visualizing the overlap at the moment the CB and OB contact and using that to aim. Would you care to explain, WINK.

Lou Figueroa
when did Mike
get so snarky...

 

[JoeW]

While I am certainly not a great player I am an observer of human behavior who attempts to put into words the things many people already know but cannot describe. Using words to describe what is difficult to say can often reveal underlying principles that can be used by many other people who are not aware of how things work. Here is an example observation that I have not seen (or remember seeing) others describe.

To strike the proposed contact point the player must know where that contact point is in three dimensional space. One way to estimate this point is from the standing position. However there is more to it than that. First one should hold that estimated contact point for a few seconds before bending over. This allows the brain to fix it in space. Quiet eye research has shown this to be quite useful. There is more to it for the pool player. When playing pool we have to move to a shooting position and this is not the same sight picture as the one seen from the standing position. Therefore, it is probably best to hold the visual contact point as one bends over to get in the shooting position and then hold that picture for another second or two. Now the player turns to stroke mechanics with a firmly embedded visual of the shot to be accomplished.
This type of thinking suggests that the player is using two different vantage points to establish a contact point while allowing the brain sufficient time to integrate all of the information available.

Captions help us to remember and use a new or different concept so let me call it “The quiet eye and a slow transition to a shooting position quiet eye.” I think there are some people who use this type of aiming process though they may or may not be aware of the idea that they use it in a very consistent manner.

One of the conclusions from this type of thinking is that when one considers the way the brain functions the slow transitions assist with the establishment and fixation of a reliable aim point.

Certainly one can, with sufficient training, move the whole process more quickly and some do not even use the technique. Currently several instructors teach a student to “step into the shot” but they leave out the “why” one steps into the shot.

There are other ways to enhance aiming such as the visualization of an object moving along a path, the visualization of two colliding balls, and the use of intermediate aim points (as in golf) that can also be articulated but are of little use until one works with them and then gets that Aha moment when we say, “I see what you mean.”

In the old Billiards Digest Magazine article titled, “How the Pros Aim” or something like that Jeannet Lee says that she tries to see the smallest possible dot on the object ball. As I remember some of the others agreed. I have taken this at face value and then asked, “How do you find that smallest dot possible?”

 

[BRKNRUN]

OK, so what are the right questions?

I'm trying to as forthcoming as possible about this. And it does seem that I'm not alone in being someone who does not use an aiming system like: ghost ball, rail road, tunnel, chain ball, square ball, arrow, line, light, reflection, shadow, spot, sectional, 4ES, 3ES, geometric, or (dare I say) it CTE (with apologies to Todd Leveck).

I really don't think I'm forgetting anything and am willing to play 20 questions with you if you really believe this.

Lou Figueroa

It usually only takes one or two....What makes it look right? What made it look wrong?

This was is a clip from your prior post....

"You look at the shot and hypothesize that if you hit the ball at a certain point, with a certain spin, with a certain speed, one ball will go in the pocket and the other will land on a given spot on the table for another shot. You get down and shoot and test your hypothesis."

I am pretty sure that falls into the catagory from your list of "spot" aiming.

You also mention the outcome of "overcut" and "undercut" which suggests "fractional" aiming is perhaps getting in there somewhere.

Again.....You have probably hit so many balls that this is all second nature to you.....so now you can get down on the shot and say to your self...."It looks right"

I am pretty sure being able to get down on a shot and just tell yourself it looks right is the goal of almost any pool player....However....until then...there are "various" methods to help players "test" his/her hypothesis

I (like I belive you do as well) believe more devotion should be spent on PSR and foundation fundamentals.....Grip, Stance, Posture, Alignment.

"aim" IMO is just a small portion of the fundamental "Alignment"....