Warm up strokes

Quote:
Originally Posted by FranCrimi
... I don't recall any pro who takes the exact same number of warmup strokes on every shot. ...

For Tony Drago I think that number is zero, but I wouldn't recommend that a beginner copy his style. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgMwxbU8b-w


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Bob Jewett
SF Billiard Academy



I saw several warmup variances. For example: At video points --5:45, 8:12 and 8:33 --- those are a few examples of where he changes up a bit --- although in a very narrow range, which is his style.
 
Fran...I have to respectifully disagree with your comment here. We instructors, imo, should NOT be trying to teach students what pros do or don't do. We want to teach the masses how to teach themselves how to create a "bulletproof" setup and delivery system...one that, once defined and practiced correctly, can become an unconscious physical and mental process, able to be "called up", on demand, under pressure, and performed in one try. The easiest way to learn that kind of process is to first identify it (write it down), and then train it into your subconscious. It's quite difficult to train something that isn't the same every time. The human mind and body can train itself to do very complicated (or simple) actions, as a subconscious motor function, once the process has been defined, and is practiced the same way each time.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

FranCrimi said:
I think people start to get in trouble with warmup strokes when they are down on the shot and still deciding what to do. To my knowledge, pros do vary their warmup strokes, depending on the shot, and what they need to do to prepare to shoot it. I don't recall any pro who takes the exact same number of warmup strokes on every shot.
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FranCrimi said:
I think people start to get in trouble with warmup strokes when they are down on the shot and still deciding what to do. To my knowledge, pros do vary their warmup strokes, depending on the shot, and what they need to do to prepare to shoot it. I don't recall any pro who takes the exact same number of warmup strokes on every shot.

But the important thing is to be committed to your decision before you get down on your shot. Then your warmup strokes will be all about preparing for the shot rather than deciding what to do. I believe that some shots do require a little more warmup than other shots ---For example: For a particular finesse shot, a player may need to stroke a few extra times to calibrate his back hand grip tension, and so-on.
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May I name two for you my love:

Allison
Karen

Always exact
randyg
 
Scott Lee said:
Fran...I have to respectifully disagree with your comment here. We instructors, imo, should NOT be trying to teach students what pros do or don't do. We want to teach the masses how to teach themselves how to create a "bulletproof" setup and delivery system...one that, once defined and practiced correctly, can become an unconscious physical and mental process, able to be "called up", on demand, under pressure, and performed in one try. The easiest way to learn that kind of process is to first identify it (write it down), and then train it into your subconscious. It's quite difficult to train something that isn't the same every time. The human mind and body can train itself to do very complicated (or simple) actions, as a subconscious motor function, once the process has been defined, and is practiced the same way each time.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
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I agree that repeatability is important, and by studying the pros I've learned that each player has his (or her) own repetoire of warmup patterns that he basically repeats for similar types of shots. But it depends on the shot, and what he feels he needs to do to get ready for it.
 
Allison uses more warm up stokes for longer shots and for thinner cuts as do a zillion other good players. It may be best to practice the same amount but when truly playing you certainly don't wanna be counting warm ups. If all your shots in competition have the same number of warm up strokes, great.
If you take an extra stroke or two here and there that's fine too. IMO



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LIAdzJnFQM
 
mattp said:
Allison uses more warm up stokes for longer shots and for thinner cuts as do a zillion other good players. It may be best to practice the same amount but when truly playing you certainly don't wanna be counting warm ups. If all your shots in competition have the same number of warm up strokes, great.


If you take an extra stroke or two here and there that's fine too. IMO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LIAdzJnFQM
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Not really. IMO also.
randyg
 
mattp...When "truly playing" one would hope that you have no conscious thought process on how you are doing things. To get to that point, one must do disciplined practice...which means doing it the same way each time...on purpose. BTW, Allison may "rewire" her warmup process (repeat it without getting up), but she does not vary what she does each time.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

mattp said:
Allison uses more warm up stokes for longer shots and for thinner cuts as do a zillion other good players. It may be best to practice the same amount but when truly playing you certainly don't wanna be counting warm ups. If all your shots in competition have the same number of warm up strokes, great.
If you take an extra stroke or two here and there that's fine too. IMO



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LIAdzJnFQM
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Fran...Again, I must respectfully disagree. We don't see shots as hard or easy...therefore the setup is the same. It should be unconscious anyway. In the long run, it boils down to "are you ready...or not"!

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

FranCrimi said:
I agree that repeatability is important, and by studying the pros I've learned that each player has his (or her) own repetoire of warmup patterns that he basically repeats for similar types of shots. But it depends on the shot, and what he feels he needs to do to get ready for it.
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Hey Scott, "To get to that point, one must do disciplined practice...which means doing it the same way each time...on purpose." Totally agree.
However, I did post a link that clearly shows the very skilled Allison occasionally altering the number of warm up strokes in relation to the type of shot. I'm not saying this is or isn't ideal but it is a fact.
 
Scott Lee said:
We don't see shots as hard or easy...therefore the setup is the same. It should be unconscious anyway. In the long run, it boils down to "are you ready...or not"!
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Good point Scott.

We should have confidence in our plan and know where our target is, before executing our pre-shot routine. There would then be no reason to alter our routine for different shots.

If our routine changes, it indicates we are thinking about something else beside being on target. Why would you want to begin your routine if you have unanswered questions or are not confident in your plan? Is it a good time and place to try to answer lingering questions when you are performing your warmup strokes? I don't think so. I'd rather answer them while standing.

Just because a good player does something, doesn't mean it would be beneficial for us to to the same thing. Keep it simple.
 
Mark Avlon said:
Good point Scott.

We should have confidence in our plan and know where our target is, before executing our pre-shot routine. There would then be no reason to alter our routine for different shots.

If our routine changes, it indicates we are thinking about something else beside being on target. Why would you want to begin your routine if you have unanswered questions or are not confident in your plan? Is it a good time and place to try to answer lingering questions when you are performing your warmup strokes? I don't think so. I'd rather answer them while standing.

Just because a good player does something, doesn't mean it would be beneficial for us to to the same thing. Keep it simple.
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I don't think we should teach pool wearing blinders. The top players show us how it's done. When it comes to performance in our sport, they are our measurement of success. We may not always agree with a certain thing a particular pro does, and that's fine, but when we see that they all have something in common, we should take notice and give it a little respect. It makes perfect sense that on certain shots your warmup may change. It's totally logical and it doesn't have to mean that you still have unanswered questions. Not at all.
 
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I'm Not An Instructor But...

This idea of having the same number of practice strokes for every shot I find very interesting. The main reason is because I actually tried it for a while before I finally had to give up on it. I actually did it for about a year, so it was totally incorporated into my game and I think it was detrimental to my game and here's why: Every shot I had this voice in my head counting to me, "1, 2, 3, 4, pause shoot". It became too overwhelming for me.

I was having a very hard time "quieting" my mind. So, I finally gave up on the set number of practice strokes and I feel like I'm playing better now. I do think the set number of practice strokes helped me out initially because it helped me focus on my PSR. But after a while it became an almost OCD like trait. I had to get rid of it.

As far as seeing a lot of pros that take the same number of practice strokes on every shot - I haven't seen that at all. I have seen Allison come close to this at times but the fact that she deviates from this pattern on certain shots tells me that she just has a natural affinity for taking a certain amount of practice strokes on many shots, as opposed to talking her way through a predetermined number of practice strokes every time. I think there is a REALLY big difference there.

The only person I have actually seen take the same number of strokes every time is Vivian Villerreal and with her I would argue that this does not help her game. I have seen her miss a lot of balls that I think she could have made had she not been so beholden to her reputation as taking the same number of practice strokes every time. All the pros I have seen take more time on the difficult shots and while the concept of treating all the shots the same sounds good; I don't think it is that easy to fool ourselves into actually believing this.

Just today I was driving down the freeway through a tight construction zone. I don't usually even have to pay much attention to my driving but the lanes were so narrow and the traffic so great that I had to give my driving a little extra attention. I think this is closer to what the pros do on the table.

I know many will disagree with my assessment.
 
BasementDweller, I think your analogy is great and you nailed it. Sometimes when the shot is tougher we approach it differently. I don't know if this is right or wrong but we do approach it differently.
 
BasementDweller said:
This idea of having the same number of practice strokes for every shot I find very interesting. The main reason is because I actually tried it for a while before I finally had to give up on it. I actually did it for about a year, so it was totally incorporated into my game and I think it was detrimental to my game and here's why: Every shot I had this voice in my head counting to me, "1, 2, 3, 4, pause shoot". It became too overwhelming for me.

I was having a very hard time "quieting" my mind. So, I finally gave up on the set number of practice strokes and I feel like I'm playing better now. I do think the set number of practice strokes helped me out initially because it helped me focus on my PSR. But after a while it became an almost OCD like trait. I had to get rid of it.

As far as seeing a lot of pros that take the same number of practice strokes on every shot - I haven't seen that at all. I have seen Allison come close to this at times but the fact that she deviates from this pattern on certain shots tells me that she just has a natural affinity for taking a certain amount of practice strokes on many shots, as opposed to talking her way through a predetermined number of practice strokes every time. I think there is a REALLY big difference there.

The only person I have actually seen take the same number of strokes every time is Vivian Villerreal and with her I would argue that this does not help her game. I have seen her miss a lot of balls that I think she could have made had she not been so beholden to her reputation as taking the same number of practice strokes every time. All the pros I have seen take more time on the difficult shots and while the concept of treating all the shots the same sounds good; I don't think it is that easy to fool ourselves into actually believing this.

Just today I was driving down the freeway through a tight construction zone. I don't usually even have to pay much attention to my driving but the lanes were so narrow and the traffic so great that I had to give my driving a little extra attention. I think this is closer to what the pros do on the table.

I know many will disagree with my assessment.
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I think you did a great job in explaining it. I was playing in my 14.1 league the other night, and the CB was buried in the middle of the pack where I had to bridge over 3 balls --- and shoot a shot that was only a few inches from the cb --- plus the League Operator was called over to watch the hit. I can assure you that my warmup for that shot was quite different than if I were warming up on a 2 foot straight in stop shot.
 
FranCrimi said:
I think you did a great job in explaining it. I was playing in my 14.1 league the other night, and the CB was buried in the middle of the pack where I had to bridge over 3 balls --- and shoot a shot that was only a few inches from the cb --- plus the League Operator was called over to watch the hit. I can assure you that my warmup for that shot was quite different than if I were warming up on a 2 foot straight in stop shot.
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That's not a bridge. You're dead stroking, thats all. This example does nothing to prove what Scott said is wrong, because he is right. Dunno how he knew because that information is only pass down from gen to gen. Dunno how it leaked.
 
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The whole point is to develop an UNCONSCIOUS process that is bulletproof. That, by nature, has to begin with a conscious process. Basement Dweller was apparently never able to get past the conscious process part. That's not to say that he couldn't with the right training. While I will readily admit that it still boils down to a 'different strokes for different folks' concept, and anybody can make anything work for them, with enough practice...there are just easier ways for the majority of us.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

C.Milian said:
That's not a bridge. You're dead stroking, thats all. This example does nothing to prove what Scott said is wrong, because he is right. Dunno how he knew because that information is only pass down from gen to gen. Dunno how it leaked.
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C.Milian said:
That's not a bridge. You're dead stroking, thats all. This example does nothing to prove what Scott said is wrong, because he is right. Dunno how he knew because that information is only pass down from gen to gen. Dunno how it leaked.
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It was definitely a bridge. There were definitely warmup strokes. Nice try, though.
 
I started to try. But I'm not as well versed in the field. When I overcome this fear of possibly saying the wrong things, I'll give my input.
 
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Scott Lee said:
The whole point is to develop an UNCONSCIOUS process that is bulletproof. That, by nature, has to begin with a conscious process. Basement Dweller was apparently never able to get past the conscious process part. That's not to say that he couldn't with the right training. While I will readily admit that it still boils down to a 'different strokes for different folks' concept, and anybody can make anything work for them, with enough practice...there are just easier ways for the majority of us.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
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I agree with this.

I'm now wondering if I were to tape myself how many warm up strokes would I find. I bet they are pretty close to the same on most strokes. The trouble I was having with this method (not your exact method I know) was getting from the conscious to the unconscious. At some point I just had to let go in order to quiet that voice in my head. I would think a lot of people that attempt this method would run into this problem somewhere down the line. However, like I mentioned previously, if you don't have much of a Pre-Shot Routine to begin with this step-by-step approach my really help. It at least got me on my way.

At any rate, I'm not an instructor so I don't like to jump in on these discussions without mentioning that. The only reason I did jump into this one was because I have personally tried to incorporate the set number of warm-up strokes into my game.


- One last thought: I really am just a basement dweller and I don't get out much to compete (hopefully this will change soon). So maybe I could have stuck with the set number of strokes during practice and not worry so much about it when I'm out playing competitively.
 
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