Natural Talent?

???

Slim Limpy said:
You can go to any gym, any sports club, any self-defense system gym/club, any soccer club, any varsity sports team in a high school or college setting--baseball, football, soccer, volleyball--and find obsessively motivated athletes--lifetime minor league baseball players, you name it, and you will find motivated, driven, privileged, talented players with all kinds of unlimited talent they are trying to develop, but even with all that practice, motivation, purpose--they never get out of the minor leagues in their chosen sport or activity. All the practice in the world even with great coaches and training staffs only goes so far for the vast majority of individuals in any given sports setting particularly when your competition (who may have more developable inherited/innate talent than you) has access to equally great coaching and training facilities.
Click to expand...

But Slim- while this is true, it simply doesn't prove that there is some mysterious 'natural talent' that is holding them back.

Much of this come to belief. What one believes in their heart they are capable of. Many times people can compete at the highest levels technically, but they are unable to take the win or hold up under the heat because they simply don't believe they deserve it.

There are other factors, but my point is that just because players are missing something needed at the highest level, doesn't mean it is luck of the draw. And those that believe in the myth of natural talent deprive themselves of taking accountability for their own journey and maximizing their abilities.
 
I think one of the basic questions in trying to become the best player you can be is, "what am I going to get out of it?"

When I learned as a kid, my basic motivation was an internal feeling of satisfaction that I got when I could control the table, instead of it controlling me.

Rightly or wrongly, I always thought that I was playing the table...not an opponent.

When I get to the table, it is me against the table. Each shot is a separate shot. There are right ways to shoot it and wrong ways, depending upon the layout. It is up to you to shoot the ball and do it the right way. If you do it the wrong way, that is your fault...not your opponents. Admittedly, there are shots that you have no control of all the various factors, but most shots have more than one "correct" way to do it.

I'm not trying to be the world champion, I'm just trying to play "mistake free" pool. If I hit every ball like I envision it in my mind before I shoot, I'm happy.
 
Arete said:
Think of confidence like this...

Level 1- "I can't" thinking
Level 2- "I could" thinking
Level 3- "I will" thinking
Level 4 "I can" thinking

Earlier someone mentioned the growth mindset vs the fixed mindset. Those are extremely important when it comes to confidence.

Growth mindset- With effort I will get better
Fixed mindset- We are how we are


Imagine two kids who are just starting to play.

Player 1- Has a confident mindset

Player 2- doesn't


Here is how their learning might go.

Player 1- Starts in the I can phase. This already triggers better subconscious instruction when it comes to lining up, etc. His confidence is likely to help him get close.

But he misses. With a confident mindset he stays in the "I can" level. He tells himself that he missed right and he then aims left with full expectation of making the shot. This belief does wonders for how close he gets. The kids gets close and looks like a natural.

Lets say the kid still misses though and instead of getting close he misses all over the place because his fundamentals are horrible. A kid with a confident mindset will lose the "I can" level but he will only drop to the "I will" level and he seeks a solution. His optimism allows him to pick up learning the fundamentals relatively quickly and with each shot his internal dialog is that of "I can" and "I will"... something like this... "I can hold my arm straight and I will learn how to make this shot." The confident kid remains optimistic and this allows him to pick the game up much easier looking like a natural. His thinking produces positive images and those go a long way in both learning and the motivation to keep after it.


Player 2- For demonstration lets say that player 2 starts in the "I can" level also even though he is not a confident kid. Let's say he gets close too on his first couple of shots. But this kid easily gets frustrated though because he thinks he should make the shot like he sees others doing but he can't. He tries to adjust too and he also is all over the place. Only this unconfident kid gets frustrated even more and his thinking jumps right into the "I can't" level after only a short period of trying. But lets say a high level guy comes over and gives this kid the same advice that he gave the other one because physically they have the same problem. This kid might jump up to the "I could" level if he thinks it might work but being an unconfident kid he still has doubt. Because learning takes a little time he has a few more misses and being the unconfident kid he is he automatically takes his level of think back down to the "I can't" level. On top of that, he read about how genes create talent and he jumps to the conclusion that his genes are wack and he is stuck as untalented. He now has an excuse. He also heard people say "if you can't make balls within the first year you will never be good" and so after a year of playing with poor results due to, what was because of low confidence and doubt, he concludes that he is bad and will never be any good because of his genes, which were never even really the problem. Now this kid is stuck there in the "I can't" level for a very long time. People offer him advice and he tries it but he with doubt that it will work because "his genes suck", so the advice never works. It's a self-fullfiling prophecy but to him it only reinforces his belief that he was cursed with "the bad genes". That doubt creates images in his mind and those images instruct his subconscious on what to do, so even with good advice and lots of effort he will still struggle because his confidence needs some work.

This is a very brief explanation but I hope it's clear.
Click to expand...


To digress, I think all of the above touches on some very good points but also lead to reasons for the popular decline of pool.

Many commercial rooms have double and triple shimmed their GCs or introduced Diamonds. Playing pool is now tough -- everyone now has to play off the gold tees and ski the black diamond slopes.

Gone are the days of tables with huge yawning pockets and no one can go out to casually play and be Tom Cruise as "Vincent" for a night and show off for friends and girls with minimal talent.

Lou Figueroa
 
Slim Limpy said:
This is an issue that I've never seen discussed on AZ (maybe I didn't see those threads though) in all of it's various facets yet: the distinct motivations that control the average obsessed amateur pool player, no matter what level of skill they have obtained. Usually on AZ this discussion gets boxed in to the obvious external motivating factors: gambling, mastery over the opponent and the external environment in order to win: sharking, choking, fear of losing (confidence), etc.

When I was competitively running, I was kinda like you at the table. I ran and ran and ran because I liked to. I wasn't running against the competition, only against my own limited capacities. Even though I pushed myself to my limits, I was not really competitive unless someone tried to pass me up in the last 1/4 mile or so. That's the only time I ever risked my health to go faster. In my head I was saying, "no way is this guy gonna be better than me".

Pool seems to be the only sport I am familiar with (this is common in chess, though, I am told, due to it's mental nature--but I'm not a chess player) in which the serious players normally aren't able to separate the competition elements from the pleasurable aspects of the game as a sport. It's not a characteristic of the players; there's something about pool that makes players equate their personal worth and value as a pool player to the quality of their game. "If I can't get better why am I even playing this game?" It's why bangers and leaguers are so disparaged by AZ members. This doesn't happen in bowling or softball for instance. Bowler's don't judge each others "value" on whether their game reflects badly on the competitive nature of the sport. Bowlers don't usually get mad at the gutterballer team they're playing against and lost to because suddenly three of their players had good games. Pool makes people make serious negative internal judgements about themselves based on their level of play. If amateur golfers did that to themselves and took it seriously, golf would never have gained the popularity it has today.

There's something about pool that doesn't allow players to just enjoy the activity of playing pool without the burden of serious competition. And where do you find these players that actually do often just play pool for the pleasure of whacking the balls around a little? In leagues of course which are regularly disparaged for every reason known to man on AZ.

This is definitely a guess at this point, but it's also the reason pool players exaggerate their skill level both to others and themselves so often--their game is representative of their personal worth and value because they can't separate the competition element from the game as entertainment and pleasure. "If I can't get more competitive, I must be just a loser."

So relating this back to your original quote I copied, I think that there are many players who seek worth and value out of pool rather than pure pleasure. Everybody who engages in any sport probably wants to get better, whether you play pool or some card game at work during lunch break, but nowhere do I see people tying their self value to a sport like competitive pool players. If your purpose is to enjoy the sport (for whatever reason other that the purely competitive aspect) you don't necessarily need to get better to enjoy the sport for whatever physical and mental benefits it offers.

And if you try and try and still can't be more "competitive", then learn to just enjoy the sport or activity for what it does offer you. Winning isn't always the best approach to take.

I have a table at home, so most of my play is practicing at home. I do practice however, but it's because I like practicing. Not very rigidly, but I will concentrate on my shortcomings if my mentor says I have to learn something. I don't ever expect to be able to read a table like a good player with good spacial awareness, but when I finally figured out what was going on, that's when my research started to develop a plan to compensate for this situation. Luckily, I'm a good enough shot where I'm never going to embarrass myself on a GCIII at the pool hall.

Not everybody has the necessary skills to be highly competitive in pool. So, to the OP, try and pinpoint what your limiting factors are and if you can't fix them, then accept them and work around them. Learn to play to your strengths and don't get caught up in a competitive cycle where you lose all the time--that's a death trap--you'll just quit again.
Click to expand...

You left out a very important part of what I said when you quoted me. The part you left out is highlighted in red below.

I'm not trying to be the world champion, I'm just trying to play "mistake free" pool. If I hit every ball like I envision it in my mind before I shoot, I'm happy.

If I am playing the table at a "mistake-free level", my opponent will have to be playing at the same level. The table layout changes from shot to shot. At least two balls have to move...the cue ball and an object ball. If I am playing and hitting the shots like I am envisioning them before I shoot them, it doesn't matter what my opponent does...I will still be controlling the table. Somebody has to make the first mistake. I try not to be that person.

I've seen people win that aren't the best ball runners or even shooters. They were just capable of controlling the game.

I like playing people that play really well, they push you to play better. Even though I am playing the table, they usually will leave you difficult layouts if they give you a shot at all. That is when you have to play mistake free and take advantage of it.
 
Last edited:
measureman said:
After playing this game and watching 100s of others for 55 years I believe some have natural ability to play.
I've seen guys that have played for just a couple years run a 100 balls and multiple racks of 9 ball from time to time.
I've seen guys that have played for decades that struggle to run a rack of 14.1 or 9 ball.
You see it in other games and sports.
What separates John Elway,Peyton Manning,Joe Montana and Tom Brady from most of the quarterbacks in history?
Natural ability.
Click to expand...
I agree wholeheartedly with your analyzations. Is is just crazy to think that there are naturally born talented people, who are not recognized or not into the topic as a profession, and it is in everything around the world.

I have one friend out of all friends, he doesn’t own a table, he doesn’t practice, and he can’t explain how he does it. When I asked, he just mentioned that he would aim toward the object ball and toward the pocket and shoot it, and it just get into the pocket. He can pull off a lot of different shots. Just not trick shots because he doesn’t care enough to get into it. What is crazy is that he doesn’t even worry about stance, wrist, elbow, hips, shoulder, or grips…. He can literally extend more than half a table, he can shoot with 1 hand, he can shoot with hand around the back. He can pocket them all. The longer we keep on playing, the more accurate he gets at shooting, pocketing and driving the cueball. He beats all of his friends in a game where a bridge extensions is forbidden.

Now, for me, I keep missing shots, I keep being confused as of where is to aim for. I keep being confused to whether where is my line of shot should start and so on. I tried learning the most fool proof line of shot by the Dead center cueball system and most of the shots at long range I would keep missing, like 1/4 of a Diamond, or just enough to have the object ball waggling on the pockets throat.

I tried CTE system and I also face the same issues….it is strange
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top