I watched the movie ;-)
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I tried watching the DVD with an open mind. But frankly, very quickly, the DVD became painful to watch. There is a thimbleful of basic info, followed by endless loops of shot demonstrations, often repeated a second time, and a couple of break and runs, all edited without a miss.
Here’s the good stuff: Stan teaches you a PSR. He tells you to offset your body, establish contact with the cue with your bridge hand and slide into the shot in a consistent manner. Good solid stuff, no doubt, but hardly news worthy. (Having just watched the video of his 183 ball run at the DCC, it is surprisingly similar to Darren Appleton’s PSR.) He even goes into a suggested shot routine (eye movement and warm up strokes) which was also some good stuff.
And I think that’s why some folks find success with the systems outlined on the DVD: they are adding some consistency to their pre-shot and shot routines. That, and what all this edges and centers stuff does is: *it forces you* to look -- and I mean *really look* -- at the cue ball and object ball. It is something tyros and advanced players can benefit from. So, all of that taken together is probably worth some serious improvement to a wide range of players. But that’s about it.
The bad part is that there is movement of the cue after you’re down. Or even with the air/body pivots, alignments that may or may not benefit you as an individual player. IOW, they may work for Stan, Landon, and Stevie, but not necessarily for many others. (I think that actually, for the camera, they could make it work shooting between their legs
This is most evident where Stan demonstrates the changing position of the V of his bridge hand and you sit there and wonder: how on God’s good green Simonis covered Earth does he think that is going to equally apply to all the pool players in pooldom.And, in all probably, that little pivot is going to mess with your cue delivery. If you don’t believe me take a close look at the *huge* sideways movement of his cue, hand, forearm, elbow, and bicep when Stan demonstrates for the use of BHE. None of that is good for a good consistent repeatable and accurate stroke that won’t break down under the heat.
The systems themselves reminded me, by and large, of some of the 3C systems I’ve seen diagrammed over the years. You know: the ones where you put all kinds of numbers on the diamonds and corners, check the path/line the balls are on, do some rudimentary math, and viola! You can’t miss the shot. Of course that only works under perfect conditions and after you’ve done some major experimentation.
And so you have a DVD that contains a modicum of basic system info -- which I think Dr. Dave has done an excellent job of summarizing -- and then an endless loop of Stan, Landon, and Stevie, shooting shot after shot demonstrating how, if you make the right choices, you will not miss and the system will work for you.
The chapter on banks is… problematic. Banks are fired in by all participants, after you are told the right formula for various positions on the grid, but without any insight into how those formulas were arrived at for the appropriate aim point on the rail. And, of course, according to the DVD, the system works flawlessly not only for banks, but jump shots, break shots, caroms, and paper thin cuts (with an adjustment and a surprising amount of small print that basically explains how you’re on your own on these shots.) I was surprised it wasn’t claimed that it was perfect for masse shots too
And so, bottom line: the systems can and will be whatever the player wants them to be.
Sometimes the pivot is obvious; sometimes not; sometimes the body turns, sometimes it does not; bridge length -- pick one; amount of pivot -- till it looks right; back hand English can be used with gay abandon, to a point, if you pivot just so; and, according to the DVD, of course you can use the systems for everything from the lag shot to five ball combo kick banks (just kidding on that last one, but just barely).
IOW, if you work with it long enough you can make it work, but only because you’ve played with it so long that you eventually make all the necessary intuitive adjustments for any kind of success. Oh yes, and it seems that if you get outside the realm of a minimal use of English, to “get the cue ball off the object ball,” you are, once again, on your own. There is a very quick screen that does come up to mention (almost in passing), that English can be important for positional play. Who knew?
If you think the DVD is going to provide you with a definitive proof that these systems are scientifically and/or geometrically precise -- you can lose that thought right now, it’s not there. If you think you’re going to learn some aiming system that is going to make you a successful player in short order, forget that too -- to make these puppies work you are going to have to study, memorize, experiment, and put in loooooong hours (you’ll probably need to make a phone call or two, and probably sign up for a lesson or three). And you need to realize that all that system induced movement before and after you get into shooting position could send you down a path -- which depending on your devotion to the system -- from which you may never emerge and could possibly (probably) keep you from ever being as good a pool player as you might otherwise be.
Which brings me to this: overall, there is a part of me that wants to say that, perhaps, there is some (much) key info kept purposely fuzzy, because there is *no way* you could put this out in the marketplace and expect people -- that had no prior knowledge and understanding of the system -- to succeed. If you want “to believe” after watching this DVD you are almost compelled to contact Stan, because IMO, it certainly does not stand alone as advertised.
One last thing: I have no doubt that Stan really and truly believes in what he’s teaching. IOW, I do believe his work on these systems is a sincere effort to further pool knowledge and help the players watching it. But, I think he’s gone too far down the aiming system Rabbit Hole and perhaps can no longer see that his systems are highly inexact, or at least presented in an inexact manner on the DVD, and for many a dead end, or worse, a problem inducing course of endeavor.
For me, in all honesty, if Mosconi hisself came back from the grave and told me this was the greatest thing since sliced bread I’d tell him to go back and take a nap. This one is not a keeper, for me, and if anyone wants to buy a lightly used copy for $30, shipping included, please PM me for a PayPal address.
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As to the pivoting, we already talked about all that in another thread. Catch up.
Lou Figueroa
