Thought I should answer this point by point.
Hi Roadie:
You are entitled. Spidey liked this page.
Please bear in mind the page is clearly marked "©2012 About.com. All rights reserved." You may take a brief excerpt for review but copying the whole page is not a good idea as About would need to charge AZ a fee for usage. Please be careful going forward.
Fair Use.
There is a limit on the length of the bio and specific standards at About. They are specific as a company regarding what gets posted and what doesn't. Sean pointed out I should do more research before moving in to teach, perhaps you might do the same with About.
That has nothing to do with the fact that your answer to being asked for references was to post a link to your bio. You offered to give up the names of professional players you claim to have taught? What are those names?
I tend to get students the same way as other teachers, they come in because of site content or student references, not because of appeals to authority or certifications. I'd rather have them that way and I think the bio meets that expectation of mine.
Uh huh, ok..........well I suppose that if one does not have adequate references then one needs to use a little marketing-speak to puff up the attractiveness of the product.
I never said that. I never even said the Aim Primer or Contact Point articles were groundbreaking. I merely invited (civilized) discussion.
We are having civilized discussion. You posted a link to yoru article which in fine About.com tradtion has links to other articles you have written which is what led me to your hit-piece on other instructors. That wasn't a very civil piece, let's link to it for everyone else to read it and comment -
http://billiards.about.com/od/For-Advanced-Players/a/Pool-Teachers-What-Are-They-Really-Teaching.htm
An excerpt of from this article:
"When he contacted me for a private lesson he was at his wits' end (most of the lessons he'd paid for did nothing for his game or even worsened his shots) and he was reluctant to see me though my book and this About.com GuideSite appealed. He finally agreed to a two-hour lesson prefaced by a debriefing f from his previous lessons.
You see, I talked him into a lesson just so I could glean what good or bad things he'd heard from others to try to integrate their pool teaching with mine and solve his problem.
In his words, this is what was emphasized and taught in his many lessons. You may find some or much of this useful and some of you are devotees of some of these famous pool teachers. You can see below what others who charge as much or more than I do for lessons are teaching the last few years."
So here you set the stage to go on and use anonymous "Bill" as your justification for slamming the other instructors. One thing that you should have considered is that even if "Bill" had a problem that none of these other instructors had corrected (highly unlikely) that is only one case and not indicative of the quality of the instruction provided by any or all of them.
So you'd prefer I not come to the forum? Or not defend my viewpoints? Which one? People like you are making the "number one forum" less well traveled by people who don't want to be bullied. I'm getting private messages at AZ from people who want my help to play better pool and from those who say, "Don't let the few jerks on here slow you down." Just saying. I like you well enough.
I would prefer that you come to forum and be willing to discuss your articles with more humilty and appreciation for the "brain trust" that exists here. You obviously want something from this forum and I think it's some form of validation.
You use your pulpit to slam the instructor establishment and you call me a bully? Let's see if I go to google and I type in billiard instruction you come up in the third position:
"Billiard Instruction - Pool / Billiards - About.combilliards.about.com/od/specialtyshot1/ss/PoolEnglish_8.htmCached - Similar
Billiard instruction is what we specialize in at About.com. Don't mistake our hundreds of instructional articles for anything but the best."
So the SEO is working and YOU are one of the first choices for anyone looking for billiard instruction. And when they go to your site what will they find? Not a "guide" who is willing to send them to instructors around the country and the world but instead one who is tooting his own horn every second sentence and slamming the instructor establishment the rest of the time.
No links to Dr. Daves stuff, no links to Tom Simpson's site, no links to Pool Synergy, no links to AZB, no links anywhere but to your own articles....seems kind of incestuous and narcisistic in a way. So no, no one is bullying you Mr. Sherman. Merely pointing out that you are NOT being a good part of the billiard community. I guarantee you if we wanted to devote the time to it we could truly rip your articles to shreds because most of them contain inaccuracies and some contain advice that can't be taken seriously.
Your advice about how to "top jump" is particularly bad. Not only is it poorly written it's also something that is not useful and will cause any amateur to have the cue ball flying all over the room. But of course you don't have to pay for damage to the equipment do you?
Further, I didn't come here to post backlinks and ads. There are subtler ways of doing so. I came with a few threads and said, "I'm open for business. Let's discuss."
Then why are you posting them? You're open for business? What sort of business?
Instead of reading between my lines like some other people, why not ask me direct or send a private message? Why say I'm arrogant. Is it arrogance to name a few players and teachers when someone says, "Ah, but you are a rogue on your own and don't check your work with standards." Untrue.
Ask you what privately? You posted publicly that you can provide references then you backtracked and pointed us to your bio page. I didn't say you are a rogue I said you are an unfair critic, which you are. What you are to me is someone who got the position with About.com and is using that platform to write a ton of blog posts which are long on words and short on substance. You are lazy and stingy with diagrams and photos which makes your instruction even worse for the reader.
How did I elevate myself above anyone? You're putting words in my mouth.
Am I? You wrote in your article;
"In other words, I think Bill got more out of our first session together (I kept talking, he kept shooting, and we went about four hours in all) than he had from all of the above "lessons" combined. You can read what all the top teachers are sharing these days in the first part of this article.
I write that last part as humbly as I know how. I'd like to teach a few pool teachers out there. Others I respect and I can recommend good local teachers if I'm not in your part of the world soon for a private lesson or group clinic..."
To me this reads pretty much as if you are saying you are better than all the other instructors and slamming their teaching methods.
I said I am not certified by BCA because I cannot sign off on everything in their system. That's called integrity, not hubris. I've already explained that certification provides instructors with more possible income.
Oh really? What exactly can't you sign off on? Tell us all pleae what the BCA Instructor program does that is so offensive to you? Actually integrity would be to go there and get your certificate, work your way through to master level and change from within. Sitting on the outside throwing stones won't change them and makes you look foolish. Wouldn't it better to be able to say that you went through the course and these are the things that you don't agree with? The BCA instructors meet yearly in person and communicate throughout the year about teaching methods. I suppose that has no value to you?
I'm sure you're aware that current certified BCA instructors feel the same way. Others have dropped BCA re-certification and are moving on to other realms.
Um no, I am not aware of that. I am not an instructor and don't claim to be. I have not insight into what the general feeling among them is.
I have thousands of links, you're being assumptive.
Well in going over many of your articles I didn't find one link to other resources. Maybe you can show us all where those links are? Seems to me the vast majority of your links are to your own articles and other About.com pages.
And no, if I am being meticulous about educating my readers I wouldn't send them to the flame wars where so many are rude to others and contradictory, even self-contradictory. Don't you understand how brave Dr. Dave is?
Yes I do. He comes here and is a part of the community, taking part in the discussions and providing links back to very useful content that relates to the discussion. He takes the heat that comes with him being mocking and judgemental as well. But on net his contributions are super and his content is well done and well organized. Yours is like a minefield of inaccuaracies in comparison. But Dr. Dave links back to the source, be that a thread on AZB, another website, a video, or wherever on the net the topic is being addressed. YOU do not do this as far as I can see it.
If you don't like the climate here then why are you here? If you consider AZB to be only flame wars and incivilility why have you come here?
A lot of instructors, even BCA instructors, don't want to talk about aiming, at all, with anyone. There's so much aggression and confusion over the subject.
What does this have to do with me asking you to provide the credentials you said have?
I have also not encountered a single coach, instructor, or professional player that wasn't willing to discuss aiming with me. So I don't know who you have been talking to but I suspect you won't reveal those names either. And yes, there is aggression and confusion surrounding this subject because for most it's an afterthought and something that people commonly think comes with table time. It has taken us quite a while to realize that aiming isn't quite as easy as beginner books make it out to be. But again this has nothign to do with the aiming discussions.
Everyone's brave on a forum. If I saw you in person, you would likely be far more courteous to me than you are being. I hope someday we can shoot pool together and chat, maybe even give each other lessons, but I expect respect from you as a person, regardless of whether you don't like my bio page.
Why would you ever think I wouldn't tell you the same things in person? On the contrary I would whip out my Ipad and confront you article by article until you gave up. And you would give up Mr. Sherman because much of what you write is simply indefensible. No wonder that you get into arguments with established instructors because you are often just wrong in your advice.
I don't think you are a bad person per se. I think that you are driven by your ego and the fact that you have a position to preach to a large audience and tell them whatever you want with hardly any chance of critique. In fact I would not be criticizing you now had you not come here and invited it. I have occassionally seen your articles during searches and I used to glance through them until I realized that they are mostly fluff with no lnks to other resources. So now when I see anything with about.com coming up in a billiard related search I skip it and move on to other places. As I am sure that most savvy billiard enthusiasts have learned to do as well. Earlier you said to someone else that you know you are an exceptional instructor. Let me clue you in on something Mr. Shepard, characterizations like that are best bestowed by others in appreciation of the work you do. It never comes across as well when you self-promote your own importance. That only really works for guys like Muhammed Ali who can back up the talk and have the hardware to prove it.
If you don't then a bit of humility goes a LONG LONG way.
And writing stuff like this is not humble in the least:
"I'm not wanting to boast or denigrate all those fine teachers and players. But I am saying that no one looked at his fundamentals. He was missing pool shots taken both toward the right and left to his left for 15 years, which is why he flew across the U.S. to meet with all those people.
As I began this two-part article last week, "Pathetic or marvelous? Good advice or bad? You decide." - Matt Sherman, (self-titled) Pool Legend
