Pleasures of Small Motions

Donny Lutz

Donny Lutz

Ferrule Cat
Silver Member
"The Pleasures of Small Motions" by Bob Fancher has been mentioned on previous threads,

Most comments were positive, but a few rather negative.

I disagree a bit with Fancher on a couple things, but I still think the book is loaded with useful information.

So, if any of you have copies that you don't want, I'll take them! I'll give them to my students as a surprise bonus with lessons.
 
Posters recommended this book to me many, MANY TIMES!

Anyway, i bought it, read it, found it to be a complete and worthless waste of time.

Mike
 
I'm about 1/4 of the way thru it, jury is still out. But for $13 on Amazon, if it provides nothing, I'm not out much.
 
Well,

it s a good *beginner* if you start to seriously pay attention for the mental part. Fancher tried to keep it easy and understandable.
And like Donny i disagree also with some points. But it s worth to read imo.
 
I've read it and I found it to be pretty interesting. It was written and presented in a very understanble manner. It allowed me to understand all the different thoughts going through my head and how to organize it all better. Having the doctors' perspective was really helpful with just getting my head around all the thoughts that go along with playing pool.

I would say it's definitely helped me with my game and I won't be giving my copy away to anyone. Speaking of which, I better get that back from my teammate that I let borrow the book. (he said it was good, and it helped him as well)

Sorry Donny, buy your own :p
 
Good book.

Made much more sense to me than "The inner game of tennis" which i thought was way too simplistic.
 
Why?

DrCue'sProtege said:
Posters recommended this book to me many, MANY TIMES!

Anyway, i bought it, read it, found it to be a complete and worthless waste of time.

Mike
Click to expand...

You have a right to your opinion, but it doesn't mean much unless you tell us WHY you think it's worthless.

Did you read the whole book, or just stop reading when you got to something you didn't understand? Not accusing you, but I know that's what many people do...
 
I bought and read the book a few years ago. It had some things in it that has stuck with me. Most of the book bored me to tears and too many fancy-schmancy words were used whereas it could have been presented in more layman's terms.

FTR though, the mental part of the game is not my shortcoming of the game of pool.

Just one man's opinion though. I'm probably in the minority here.

Maniac
 
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Best book ever, keeping my copy. Been shooting the liver out of folks since i read it. If you dont have any skills to begin with it wont help you as it would with PLayers that have been playing a while
Donny Lutz said:
"The Pleasures of Small Motions" by Bob Fancher has been mentioned on previous threads,

Most comments were positive, but a few rather negative.

I disagree a bit with Fancher on a couple things, but I still think the book is loaded with useful information.

So, if any of you have copies that you don't want, I'll take them! I'll give them to my students as a surprise bonus with lessons.
Click to expand...
 
Donny Lutz said:
"The Pleasures of Small Motions" by Bob Fancher has been mentioned on previous threads,

Most comments were positive, but a few rather negative.

I disagree a bit with Fancher on a couple things, but I still think the book is loaded with useful information.

So, if any of you have copies that you don't want, I'll take them! I'll give them to my students as a surprise bonus with lessons.
Click to expand...


I thought there was good info in it. My only problem was that I really felt that I had to dig through it to find it all. It seemed to me like it had a lot of fluff in it but others seemed to really like the fluff. To each their own.

But there were a few jewels in there, no doubt.

I would be happy to donate my book to you if I still had it but I loaned it out and I doubt I will ever see it again.
 
DrCue'sProtege said:
Posters recommended this book to me many, MANY TIMES!

Anyway, i bought it, read it, found it to be a complete and worthless waste of time.

Mike
Click to expand...

Donny Lutz said:
You have a right to your opinion, but it doesn't mean much unless you tell us WHY you think it's worthless.

Did you read the whole book, or just stop reading when you got to something you didn't understand? Not accusing you, but I know that's what many people do...
Click to expand...

Donny:

You might not remember, but back some time ago (a couple years?), "DrCue'sProtege" posted a request that we the readership steer him to the exact paragraph and exact sentences that most of us (the readership who've read the book) found useful.

In other words, he didn't want to read the book, but instead wanted everyone else's "Cliff Notes" on it.

A rather ironic request, considering the book is about the mental game. :D

-Sean
 
Did he say he hadn't read it yet? Playing devil's advocate, maybe he was challenging people to show what part of the book is supposed to be useful, because after reading it he didn't see what the fuss was about.
 
CreeDo said:
Did he say he hadn't read it yet? Playing devil's advocate, maybe he was challenging people to show what part of the book is supposed to be useful, because after reading it he didn't see what the fuss was about.
Click to expand...

True, that could be open for interpretation:

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?p=2801173

EDIT: btw, read through some of the OP's answers / follow-up posts in that thread. Quite entertaining!

-Sean
 
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I'll just throw this out there:

The book really opened up my eyes to a very simple concept, something that slowed down my progress for a long time. Actually, it stopped my improvement completely. It was really quite simple too.

I think I've already shared this before, but I'll mention it again. What I realized I was doing wrong was I was spending way too much time worried about the balls (and maybe the table). I always sort of thought I could concentrate my way to playing good pool. I would do something like focus intently on the exact spot I had to hit the object ball, and the exact spot I had to hit the cue ball, and stare down the exact spot I had to hit the pocket. If I was playing bad, I would tell myself to bear down and start focusing more on the balls.

So when I read this book, it was like I had a complete epiphany and I realized I wasted all this energy focusing on things that were outside of my control. At that point, I began concentrating on me, on my body, on my cueing action, on how the cue ball felt when I hit it. I started getting better.

I now worry much less about the balls and I focus more on me. It's very simple I know but I overlooked this for quite a while.

So, I liked the book. I need to take another look at it.
 
I have read it and I believe it helped my game.
I am curious what points you disagree with.
Thank you in advance for answering.
 
Wasn't begging for freebies

ShanksMcShankly said:
I've read it and I found it to be pretty interesting. It was written and presented in a very understanble manner. It allowed me to understand all the different thoughts going through my head and how to organize it all better. Having the doctors' perspective was really helpful with just getting my head around all the thoughts that go along with playing pool.

I would say it's definitely helped me with my game and I won't be giving my copy away to anyone. Speaking of which, I better get that back from my teammate that I let borrow the book. (he said it was good, and it helped him as well)

Sorry Donny, buy your own :p
Click to expand...

I wasn't asking anyone who likes the book to give it to me. If you'll read my post, I was suggesting that those who DON'T like the book might give their copy to me (rather than discard them) so I could in turn give them to my students for free.

I already bought my own copy, thank you, but I can't afford to buy more copies to give away for free.
 
Sorry Donny, I wasn't trying to imply that you were some cheap nit or something. I just wanted to make sure you knew that you can't have mine :cool:

I think it is very good of you to think of your students like that and try to give them materials that would really help. I commend you sir :thumbup:

It looks like there are a few people that didn't quite find it so helpful. Maybe they'll find the goodness in their heart to send you their copy for the good of shooters who could use the knowledge. Good luck brother :grin-square:
 
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