Developing Expertise In Pool

[boogieman]

have the first edition of "The Pleasure of Small Motions". The first part of the revised edition that had an entire second section added to it is very good. The second part seems a little like filler. The original was little more than a booklet packed with goodness. The second part is anticlimax in my opinion. It seems to focus on not losing which is passive. Winning is active. If you focus on not losing and your opponent focuses on winning they are going to beat you more often than not. Winning is aggressive.

You don't have to be a jerk but it should be plain that you are at an event to win. I have ran over friends many times in competition. Afterwards some were a bit hurt. "You didn't give me a chance!" No I didn't. In competition I am focused on beating the competition. If I can do it without them ever hitting the cue ball or them never having a real chance of pocketing a ball, so much the better! A friend gave me a chance, I ran eight and out on him. He didn't deliberately give me any more chances.

There are times to play around and be social. Those times aren't when cash or a tournament placing are on the line. I am friends with many fellow competitors, friendly with almost all of them. None of us are cutting each other any slack because

Thanks, this sounds like the kick in the pants I need. I'm going to start working on this. I don't really care if people like me, but you're right about a lot of things. I don't want to make others unhappy, but I remember a few times I got my ass handed to me and it didn't make me unhappy at all, just made me enjoy the game and try to go deeper into it. Seeing someone play at top form is a treat. You're absolutely right though, people like winners just fine unless they are some kind of poor sports or a-holes. I'll give this stuff a try.

 

[Imac007]

There are different kinds of understanding. I read a book by a world champion once, his instructions boiled down to "just do it". Talking to another world champion that had written a book, he said it was all BS. He said he didn't know how he did things but he wanted a book out so he repeated what he had read in other books. He had figured out what worked and didn't understand why or how.

I discovered "helping english" on a viciously tight old snooker table. Impossible to run a ball down the rail and into a pocket without sidespin but the sidespin seemed backwards to me. I learned it wasn't the spin into the first inside rail that was important but the spin hitting the second inside rail. The balls always rattled both sides then fell. I never did quite understand why what I was doing worked but it did. Ever since then I have understood helping english was real but I reversed it on a pool table if I had no reason to do something else. Helping english wasn't needed on a pool table, reverse english even worked, but I could lock in a shot with helping english. Gave that little added bit of insurance.

Hu

We hear top players say that, during peak performances, they experience a feeling of being “one with their cue”. It’s one of those things we can all relate to because it’s part of commonality of experience, but depths of immersion can be different. Being able to relate and truly understanding the implications are two different things. Insights emerge when you look at what different disciplines from motor skill development, to our personal understanding of self have come to realize. There is a concept that is called extended self. A simple version applicable to playing pool can help us understand what we should know.

You go to the buffet at a restaurant and bring a plate and whatever else back to your table. Weaving yourself and what you are carrying back through tables and people the plate becomes part of your sense of “self”. Our clothes, footwear and coats are extensions as well. Even our cars as we put them on one leg at a time and weave our way through traffic are part of who we are. We manage to carry our cues around without taking out eyes and tripping everyone around us. The cue and other things easily become an extension of our selves. Mostly that process happens at an unconscious or subconscious level. With a pool cue, it’s mainly a subconscious thing. Starting with that idea let’s look at the idea of a player becoming one with his cue.

So, aren’t we already in a state of “one” with this adding of the cue to the envelope we call “self”? Yes, but not in the way becoming “one with the cue” means. We let the cue become one with us by shifting our awareness to include it as part of our relevant being. Now think about turning that on its head and becoming part of the reality of the cue. This is more about where and how we place our conscious perspective.

Think about eating. We have a fork, food and a hole to put it in. The fork is an extension. We connect the food to it but our perspective is really on getting it in our mouth. Without conscious effort we manage to eat without drawing blood.

Last year, in a session, with the local billiard academy founder, I was showing him the importance of learning how to shoot using the front of the ball. We started with a long straight shot. First he had to find the contact point on the front of the cue ball. Next I had him feel the connection through the ball from the cue to the front of the cue ball, not the face, and connect that to the object ball contact point. That line connects the contact points on the two balls. The table was a tight Diamond. He rattled the first shot but it went in. Then one after another they went straight in and the grin on his face just got bigger.

But what he said should resonate with what I’ve been trying to explain. He said “you know I’m not even aware of the face of the ball any more”. The cue ball had become “one” with the cue and he was hitting the object ball with the front of that combination.

Freddy the Beard, in his book, described how when two balls meet, each ball compresses creating a flattened area in the process. He then took carbon paper and attached it to the contact point area. Next the cue ball was shot at various speeds. The results are as shown.

During periods of peak performance my perception of shots from straight to about ¼ ball contact are experienced as a flat area on the ball, the contact point, sending the object ball at 90° to the flat part of the surface. My cognitive sense is that where the rounded part of the ball impacts the arc, is the pinnacle, and the ball path dissects the arc. Regardless, the perception is that I hit the other ball in a somewhat flat fashion pushing the ball to the hole, especially when both balls were closer together. In retrospect, the cue and cue ball were as one. My awareness was how I hit the front of the object ball with the cue ball almost slapping it into the pocket, similar to a tennis backhand contact.

Being “one with the cue” includes more than the cue and extends to include reaching out with the cue ball and hitting other balls. It’s immersive in nature. Even my hand is connected but without a sense of the physical distance from the ball. The cue is almost that unaware fork finding the mouth with the food. It’s a totally complete outward focus on achieving a result. English, draw, stun and follow are all just ways to move the cue ball around and the cue and its tip just part of helping the cue ball face achieve what was needed. Even the speed is more of an unconscious afterthought. I’d become one with the cue. We lose our sense of self, we become selfless. It’s a perspective of consciousness, a cognitive creation. In a real sense, you lose your SELF in the shot.

A German philosopher, Herrigal, wrote a book, Zen in the Art of Archery. In it he describes these experiences, studying the Japanese disciplines associated with the bow. Becoming one with the target in a selfless manner allows the archer to simply let the shot happen. The bow/arrow and archer become one.

This distills down to “just put it in the hole”. However, that‘s a journey without a map. Too many have their consciousness in their grip or where their eyes are looking, becoming one with parts of their anatomy or a cue line from an aiming system. When CJ Wiley says the cue ball is the target he’s telling you where his consciousness lies. He then goes on to talk about feeling a connection between the cue ball and object ball. TOI simply tells you about his connection and how he uses the cue ball to achieve his result, his description is of being one and feeling the angle.

Listen to Earl commentate on the Billiard Network. He’s always talking about the cue ball connection. He’s always telling about outside english on most shots. It’s about the cue ball connection to the shot. He’s so attuned to his cue that it’s only about how he attaches the cue ball to it that differs. Different food, same fork, same objective.

 

[straightline]

Got sidetracked and lost my train of thought while this moved on. Popped back in to mention that CJ Wiley mentioned being a pianist and that a metronome was a good tempo aid for pool. He didn't elaborate. Maybe Imac can coax it out of him. I'm sure there's still useful info in the realms of artistic performance.

 

[Imac007]

Got sidetracked and lost my train of thought while this moved on. Popped back in to mention that CJ Wiley mentioned being a pianist and that a metronome was a good tempo aid for pool. He didn't elaborate. Maybe Imac can coax it out of him. I'm sure there's still useful info in the realms of artistic performance.

In a comment earlier in this post I wrote about tempo. My main point is that it is individual for each player. CJ says a metronome but not what tempo he chose. I’ve copied part of that earlier post.

“Each player when at their best has an essence to their shooting. SVB has a surgical precision. The stroke is deliberate and abbreviated. Even when he needs to let his stroke out it, the finish has a sense of finality. Jason Shaw has more of a laser like slicing action, while Filler is a sniper squeezing off round after round. Corey ranges from a delicate softness in his touch to dynamic power. Then Alex P’s stroke seems to join with what the balls needed to do. The stroke seems to emerge from the shot rather than the other way around. That essence has prompted many commentators to call him a pure striker of the ball. Each are descriptions of timing.”

 

[ShootingArts]

We hear top players say that, during peak performances, they experience a feeling of being “one with their cue”. It’s one of those things we can all relate to because it’s part of commonality of experience, but depths of immersion can be different. Being able to relate and truly understanding the implications are two different things. Insights emerge when you look at what different disciplines from motor skill development, to our personal understanding of self have come to realize. There is a concept that is called extended self. A simple version applicable to playing pool can help us understand what we should know.
(I had to crop for overall length. I may have inadvertly connected text that doesn't go together. Hu)

When I learned how to play pool it was with a brute force approach, I hit balls until I got the results I wanted. When I came back to pool after a few decades off I tried to learn to play pool "right". With hindsight that was a mistake. It was like trying to break down how the fork moves into individual parts and relearning how to use a fork. Same with driving a car. Remember how hard it was to drive a car when we started?

I put a barbox on my back porch. With all halls far away and shut down anyhow I have been hitting a bunch of balls on the back porch. As a result, I am no longer aware of grip. One evening I shot without paying attention to where I hit the cue ball or where I aimed on the object ball. Interestingly, I still made most shots the same as always but I noticed a higher percentage of shots that were frustrating me were falling now. I knew how to make these shots in my eye, arm, brain, computer as Ray Martin says, I wasn't so good at building the shot at the conscious level. Some shots we need to build, some we need to trust our experience and fire the shot.

The most awesome built shot I ever saw was fired by Johnny Archer. At least ten balls left on the table and he was wedged behind my ball with the cue ball about an inch off of the foot rail of a bar table. He figured angles with his cue hovering over the table and there was no doubt the shot was intentional. It took a lot of side spin to even get the shot started and it went eight rails to hit a ball frozen or near frozen on the head rail. Eight rails in that traffic and he hit the object ball correctly! The object ball was about a diamond out or a bit more and it ran out of gas in the jaws of the corner pocket.

My endstink won't get me eight rails in traffic. It will often get me one to three rails though. As a young lad razor thin cuts were a specialty of mine too. Oddly enough I am often overcutting ridiculously thin shots already now. Perhaps with a little tuning my percentage will go up on the near impossible cuts.

Our brains were many times more powerful than a computer. Only recently has a top fighter pilot been defeated by AI. Considering the full three-d aspect of a dogfight that is truly amazing. In theory there is nothing to prevent having a visor with a heads-up display to play pool. The hit location, optimum spin and speed, all generated by AI. Sure would take a lot of the fun out of things! Archery was mentioned. I was a pretty fair instinctive shooter. I gave sights a try, they worked but the art was gone. I got my first bow when I was seven. An accident, dad and mom thought they were buying us toys. It was a few weeks before they realized that these bows had an absolute range of over a hundred yards to propel an arrow. They sat us down and told us not to shoot each other with them.

When I played over 350 nights a year for ten years more or less I played off the wall. While it was true I usually played with one of a few sticks in my usual hall, I could adapt to any stick instantly. Thinking about things that become an extension of me, my street cars come to mind but also my race cars. I did the impossible a few times. One of the more spectacular, a friend had just put a new body on his stock car and painted it. His driver lost it coming out of turn two. His car was sideways, nose down on the track. I instantly flipped my car nose up, sliding next to his. Without window nets I could have reached out and slapped his driver. When his car finally slid down the track as it had to do I whipped my car back straight and never lost a position on the track. Didn't touch his car either. Normally I would have just given it a "friendly" nudge out of my way.

With a benchrest rifle I had up to seven windflags out to shoot 200 yards. All of the windflags were numbered and all went in a particular position. When a flag moved, I adjusted. No thought involved, it was like seeing a pothole driving down the street. Once I went to a major shoot and there were dozens of windflags out, hundreds even. My windflags were of a common make and I decided to not put them out adding to the clutter. I would just use those like mine. A mistake! Without my personal windflags I was blind as a bat!

Incidentally, while the author of zen and archery applied zen to his archery and tried to learn zen through archery, his master he learned from was not a follower of zen and did not use zen to shoot. The author spoke no japanese, the master no german. The interpreter told the man who later wrote the book what he thought he wanted to hear, or so the story goes!

CJ and I do much the same things for different reasons. If I don't need a certain spin on the cue ball for other reasons I might use a little inside or outside to alter the contact between cue ball and object ball. Like CJ, I see some things that others see as issues as tools to be taken advantage of. However, moving from center ball requires a greater level of precision than hitting center ball. He believes that none of us hit the balls perfectly so his solution is to deliberately increase the likelihood of error. Mine is to hit the balls where there is the most margin for error, we can be more imperfect before it affects the shot. Both work, I believe my way has a sounder mechanical basis.

CJ's theory, or at least what he is marketing, is that there is only one way to do things. My theory, and experience, is that there are many ways to the same goal, expertise in pool. We each find our own path.

This tome of a post was built over several days, hopefully it makes sense!

Hu

 

[boogieman]

When I learned how to play pool it was with a brute force approach, I hit balls until I got the results I wanted. When I came back to pool after a few decades off I tried to learn to play pool "right". With hindsight that was a mistake. It was like trying to break down how the fork moves into individual parts and relearning how to use a fork. Same with driving a car. Remember how hard it was to drive a car when we started?

I put a barbox on my back porch. With all halls far away and shut down anyhow I have been hitting a bunch of balls on the back porch. As a result, I am no longer aware of grip. One evening I shot without paying attention to where I hit the cue ball or where I aimed on the object ball. Interestingly, I still made most shots the same as always but I noticed a higher percentage of shots that were frustrating me were falling now. I knew how to make these shots in my eye, arm, brain, computer as Ray Martin says, I wasn't so good at building the shot at the conscious level. Some shots we need to build, some we need to trust our experience and fire the shot.

The most awesome built shot I ever saw was fired by Johnny Archer. At least ten balls left on the table and he was wedged behind my ball with the cue ball about an inch off of the foot rail of a bar table. He figured angles with his cue hovering over the table and there was no doubt the shot was intentional. It took a lot of side spin to even get the shot started and it went eight rails to hit a ball frozen or near frozen on the head rail. Eight rails in that traffic and he hit the object ball correctly! The object ball was about a diamond out or a bit more and it ran out of gas in the jaws of the corner pocket.

My endstink won't get me eight rails in traffic. It will often get me one to three rails though. As a young lad razor thin cuts were a specialty of mine too. Oddly enough I am often overcutting ridiculously thin shots already now. Perhaps with a little tuning my percentage will go up on the near impossible cuts.

Our brains were many times more powerful than a computer. Only recently has a top fighter pilot been defeated by AI. Considering the full three-d aspect of a dogfight that is truly amazing. In theory there is nothing to prevent having a visor with a heads-up display to play pool. The hit location, optimum spin and speed, all generated by AI. Sure would take a lot of the fun out of things! Archery was mentioned. I was a pretty fair instinctive shooter. I gave sights a try, they worked but the art was gone. I got my first bow when I was seven. An accident, dad and mom thought they were buying us toys. It was a few weeks before they realized that these bows had an absolute range of over a hundred yards to propel an arrow. They sat us down and told us not to shoot each other with them.

When I played over 350 nights a year for ten years more or less I played off the wall. While it was true I usually played with one of a few sticks in my usual hall, I could adapt to any stick instantly. Thinking about things that become an extension of me, my street cars come to mind but also my race cars. I did the impossible a few times. One of the more spectacular, a friend had just put a new body on his stock car and painted it. His driver lost it coming out of turn two. His car was sideways, nose down on the track. I instantly flipped my car nose up, sliding next to his. Without window nets I could have reached out and slapped his driver. When his car finally slid down the track as it had to do I whipped my car back straight and never lost a position on the track. Didn't touch his car either. Normally I would have just given it a "friendly" nudge out of my way.

With a benchrest rifle I had up to seven windflags out to shoot 200 yards. All of the windflags were numbered and all went in a particular position. When a flag moved, I adjusted. No thought involved, it was like seeing a pothole driving down the street. Once I went to a major shoot and there were dozens of windflags out, hundreds even. My windflags were of a common make and I decided to not put them out adding to the clutter. I would just use those like mine. A mistake! Without my personal windflags I was blind as a bat!

Incidentally, while the author of zen and archery applied zen to his archery and tried to learn zen through archery, his master he learned from was not a follower of zen and did not use zen to shoot. The author spoke no japanese, the master no german. The interpreter told the man who later wrote the book what he thought he wanted to hear, or so the story goes!

CJ and I do much the same things for different reasons. If I don't need a certain spin on the cue ball for other reasons I might use a little inside or outside to alter the contact between cue ball and object ball. Like CJ, I see some things that others see as issues as tools to be taken advantage of. However, moving from center ball requires a greater level of precision than hitting center ball. He believes that none of us hit the balls perfectly so his solution is to deliberately increase the likelihood of error. Mine is to hit the balls where there is the most margin for error, we can be more imperfect before it affects the shot. Both work, I believe my way has a sounder mechanical basis.

CJ's theory, or at least what he is marketing, is that there is only one way to do things. My theory, and experience, is that there are many ways to the same goal, expertise in pool. We each find our own path.

This tome of a post was built over several days, hopefully it makes sense!

Hu

Great post. I used to play by feel and self taught, I was pretty good at a personal level. In the late 80s and early 90s, there was no internet, no educational material for a teen to speak of. I started "book learnin' " later on and improved some. I took like a decade off from playing and tried to start the "book learnin' " style. I sucked. Gene helped me figure my aim and got me a better shotmaker on shots I was having trouble with. That's why I love his perfect aim system. It let me use my own style and my own system that I had to grind out through a million balls.

Within the last month, I lost badly at a Calcutta tournament and it really got in my head. I had nothing to fall back on. I was relying on the "book stuff" and the "correct stuff" and it let me down. I had lost feel for the stick and the CB. I basically saw that the book stuff had no connection to my body and had my conscious mind working in overdrive. I said to hell with it and just started playing how I used to. My stroke might look bad to a textbook author, but I can feel the ball and put it on a dime. Even a simple thing like wildly stroking my stick when I'm up before getting down on a shot gets me in the "feel zone." If I have to get up on a shot and re-evaluate and it feels off, I might take some crazy looking practice strokes while down at the table, wiggle the cue back and forth, windmill it a bit, whatever. But when I catch the connection between my body and the cue, I shoot and it goes in. I was having a direct message conversation with Imac007 and I equated it to watching a cat wiggle their butt to calibrate their body before jumping on a mouse. A cat has no textbook knowledge and it's "stroke" might be different from other cats, but all that matters is that it catches the mouse. It's got to get a feel for the pounce before it pounces. His post was great, it's something that's hard to put into words and he did it. I almost feel sorry for some of the youngsters brought up with all the correct info, sure they are great and become world class players, but personally I can't understand not getting a bit wild and getting the feel. Would your game be the same, and as enjoyable if you'd never had to juice the ball to bank on a dead rail? Would you enjoy pool as much without those close to the rail shots where you just have to draw with a jacked up cue? They aren't "ideal" but damn if they aren't a lot of fun to execute.

Once I started not caring about "proper" I took second place in a double elimination tournament. The field wasn't as skilled, but I count that as a win after the double elimination Calcutta, where I got eliminated after only 2 matches. Some of CJ's comments on his centerball post resonated with me, I'm not using touch of inside, but the part he talked about using the edge of your tip... it got me punching shots when needed, and got me more into the "feel zone" that I had fallen out of. The physics majors try to pick it apart, but if it works it works. Sometimes you can find truth if you're open to it, even if you don't follow the entire system. Those nuggets (and the ones in this thread) that let you into the mind of another player can have some great consequences if you adapt them to your game.

Sometimes developing expertise is getting the feel and sending some of the textbook stuff into the garbage can.

 

[CJ Wiley]

CJ's theory, or at least what he is marketing, is that there is only one way to do things. My theory, and experience, is that there are many ways to the same goal, expertise in pool. We each find our own path.

This tome of a post was built over several days, hopefully it makes sense!

Hu

Wow, that is as false a statement as I've ever seen and that's saying something after tens of thousands of encounters. I've said over and over that you can do what Imac007 is saying in several different ways. I have made reference to golfers either fading or drawing the golf ball compared to what pool players do with either spin, or altering the perception like I do from the inside of the ball.

Everyone has a right to their opinion, but what you said about me is blatantly wrong, I'm not sure what your issue is with me and frankly I don't care, saying these condescending remarks is foolish at best, or duplicitous.....either way, it's unnecessary, my only agenda is to help players see the game from another perspective that is proven to be effective, your agenda seems to be malicious, and demonstratively inaccurate.

 

[Imac007]

When I learned how to play pool it was with a brute force approach, I hit balls until I got the results I wanted. When I came back to pool after a few decades off I tried to learn to play pool "right". With hindsight that was a mistake. It was like trying to break down how the fork moves into individual parts and relearning how to use a fork. Same with driving a car. Remember how hard it was to drive a car when we started?

I put a barbox on my back porch. With all halls far away and shut down anyhow I have been hitting a bunch of balls on the back porch. As a result, I am no longer aware of grip. One evening I shot without paying attention to where I hit the cue ball or where I aimed on the object ball. Interestingly, I still made most shots the same as always but I noticed a higher percentage of shots that were frustrating me were falling now. I knew how to make these shots in my eye, arm, brain, computer as Ray Martin says, I wasn't so good at building the shot at the conscious level. Some shots we need to build, some we need to trust our experience and fire the shot.

The most awesome built shot I ever saw was fired by Johnny Archer. At least ten balls left on the table and he was wedged behind my ball with the cue ball about an inch off of the foot rail of a bar table. He figured angles with his cue hovering over the table and there was no doubt the shot was intentional. It took a lot of side spin to even get the shot started and it went eight rails to hit a ball frozen or near frozen on the head rail. Eight rails in that traffic and he hit the object ball correctly! The object ball was about a diamond out or a bit more and it ran out of gas in the jaws of the corner pocket.

My endstink won't get me eight rails in traffic. It will often get me one to three rails though. As a young lad razor thin cuts were a specialty of mine too. Oddly enough I am often overcutting ridiculously thin shots already now. Perhaps with a little tuning my percentage will go up on the near impossible cuts.

Our brains were many times more powerful than a computer. Only recently has a top fighter pilot been defeated by AI. Considering the full three-d aspect of a dogfight that is truly amazing. In theory there is nothing to prevent having a visor with a heads-up display to play pool. The hit location, optimum spin and speed, all generated by AI. Sure would take a lot of the fun out of things! Archery was mentioned. I was a pretty fair instinctive shooter. I gave sights a try, they worked but the art was gone. I got my first bow when I was seven. An accident, dad and mom thought they were buying us toys. It was a few weeks before they realized that these bows had an absolute range of over a hundred yards to propel an arrow. They sat us down and told us not to shoot each other with them.

When I played over 350 nights a year for ten years more or less I played off the wall. While it was true I usually played with one of a few sticks in my usual hall, I could adapt to any stick instantly. Thinking about things that become an extension of me, my street cars come to mind but also my race cars. I did the impossible a few times. One of the more spectacular, a friend had just put a new body on his stock car and painted it. His driver lost it coming out of turn two. His car was sideways, nose down on the track. I instantly flipped my car nose up, sliding next to his. Without window nets I could have reached out and slapped his driver. When his car finally slid down the track as it had to do I whipped my car back straight and never lost a position on the track. Didn't touch his car either. Normally I would have just given it a "friendly" nudge out of my way.

With a benchrest rifle I had up to seven windflags out to shoot 200 yards. All of the windflags were numbered and all went in a particular position. When a flag moved, I adjusted. No thought involved, it was like seeing a pothole driving down the street. Once I went to a major shoot and there were dozens of windflags out, hundreds even. My windflags were of a common make and I decided to not put them out adding to the clutter. I would just use those like mine. A mistake! Without my personal windflags I was blind as a bat!

Incidentally, while the author of zen and archery applied zen to his archery and tried to learn zen through archery, his master he learned from was not a follower of zen and did not use zen to shoot. The author spoke no japanese, the master no german. The interpreter told the man who later wrote the book what he thought he wanted to hear, or so the story goes!

CJ and I do much the same things for different reasons. If I don't need a certain spin on the cue ball for other reasons I might use a little inside or outside to alter the contact between cue ball and object ball. Like CJ, I see some things that others see as issues as tools to be taken advantage of. However, moving from center ball requires a greater level of precision than hitting center ball. He believes that none of us hit the balls perfectly so his solution is to deliberately increase the likelihood of error. Mine is to hit the balls where there is the most margin for error, we can be more imperfect before it affects the shot. Both work, I believe my way has a sounder mechanical basis.

CJ's theory, or at least what he is marketing, is that there is only one way to do things. My theory, and experience, is that there are many ways to the same goal, expertise in pool. We each find our own path.

This tome of a post was built over several days, hopefully it makes sense!

Hu

I think the idea of extended self is great because it offers us a different perspective on what might be going on when we visit the zone. In another sense I think it is the flip side with “While it was true I usually played with one of a few sticks in my usual hall, I could adapt to any stick instantly.” being your version of becoming one with the cue, not having it become part of you. This is about you becoming one with the cue, not the cue becoming as one with you. The subtle difference is that you are adjusting to the cue line, the connected cue runs the show, utilizing what you bring to the party. It might seem that it’s just semantics but my personal experience is that there is a difference. When the self is in charge other factors emerge. The self has baggage. Past results, emotions, wanting to will the ball in the hole, and other control issues. Keep it simple is easier when experienced from the world of the cue and cue ball, than from the self.

I mentioned in another post about how I experienced that flat sense of my contact. This likely results from the only true instruction I ever received. I asked an older player how to aim. He took a pack of paper matches and placed them around the rails at 90° to the edge. Then he showed me the contact point on the object ball, that he said was the target. Then he had me try to hit the end of the paper match just peaking out over the rail edge. If I contacted the end, the match would be driven at the 90° angle off the rail. If I hit just in front of it the compressed cushion would let me hit the match but it would be turned by the sliding contact. The table was a snooker table and the edge of the cushion is flat, a squared target. The match ends represented the contact point on the object ball.

In math the way to calculate the area under a curve involves taking an infinite number of triangle areas and summing them. Despite the curve when the base Is tiny its a right angle triangle. The same with a rounded surface. Put two balls frozen to each other and look closely. The areas touching are basically infinitely small. The Freddy the Beard carbon paper test shows a flattening of the impacted contact point. The driven path is 90° to the rounded peak, a small virtually flat surface pushing into an increasingly flat contact are creating a 90° launch pad from which the object ball is propelled. That flat pad merges with and is part of the tangent line. For me these two perceptions combine to enhance a feeling of a somewhat flat contact being experienced from above enough to sense the ball front.

Of course the contact point is not usually dead in line with the cue. That is the first step in developing a 3D game connecting the front of the ball to various impact points. The front of the ball is never blocked by the rail. When the cue becomes one with the cue ball, conscious awareness moves to the front knowing what part needs to contact the object ball to send it on a particular path.

Beyond that consciousness expands in a linear fashion to include the object ball contact point. In full flow the ball seems to almost draw closer with a cognitive sense of being bigger. Spaces evaporate as the distance between the cue hand and the cue ball, then the space from cue ball to object ball and finally distance from the object ball to pocket, seem to shrink as the balls and pocket all grow bigger. Of course all this is part of a cognitive construction, a personal reality. It happens when we create an attention spotlight that fills with the bigness and finding small details that emerge when things become closer. Those spaces and other surroundings get pushed into peripheral awareness.

Welcome to the party CJ. Just wondering if any of what I’ve written here is resonating on your end?

 

[ShootingArts]

Wow, that is as false a statement as I've ever seen and that's saying something after tens of thousands of encounters. I've said over and over that you can do what Imac007 is saying in several different ways. I have made reference to golfers either fading or drawing the golf ball compared to what pool players do with either spin, or altering the perception like I do from the inside of the ball.

Everyone has a right to their opinion, but what you said about me is blatantly wrong, I'm not sure what your issue is with me and frankly I don't care, saying these condescending remarks is foolish at best, or duplicitous.....either way, it's unnecessary, my only agenda is to help players see the game from another perspective that is proven to be effective, your agenda seems to be malicious, and demonstratively inaccurate.

CJ,

You read a lot into my post that wasn't there, including emotions. Other than this wild rant that I have to wonder if is fueled by more than my posts, I have no reason at all to have any emotional investment in our posts. I still don't since your post is totally barking up the wrong tree.

What I have read over and over is you saying that all top pro's do things your way. Lately you have allowed that Dennis O used touch of inside or touch of outside depending on table conditions.

If I had malice of any kind towards you I would pick apart some of your recent statements that are physically impossible. Instead I accept that true or false it is probably your sincere perception. One of the smartest men I ever knew had very little formal education and believed in witchcraft and other things most would scoff at. Never the less, when he said what to do or what would happen he was correct. Sometimes it is necessary to sort the wheat from the chaff. Obviously every word you speak or write doesn't have to be correct for you to have real skills and information of value.

The only reason I haven't joined your site was a feeling we had some very fundamental differences and a question whether there would be real information there or more teasers without real information like your short videos on youtube. You have put a little more substance in your forum replies lately and I thought that I would either join for a few months or a quarter if you accept paypal as much to thank you for that information as for any value I found on your site.

I'll continue to read your stuff and comment when inclined. You will save yourself a lot of angst if you just read what I write instead of trying to put tone that doesn't exist to my words. The only thing I feel towards you is a mild interest. AZB is pretty dead right now so you may not have the only show in town but definitely one of the few.

Hu

 

[CJ Wiley]

CJ,

You read a lot into my post that wasn't there, including emotions. Other than this wild rant that I have to wonder if is fueled by more than my posts, I have no reason at all to have any emotional investment in our posts. I still don't since your post is totally barking up the wrong tree.

What I have read over and over is you saying that all top pro's do things your way. Lately you have allowed that Dennis O used touch of inside or touch of outside depending on table conditions.

If I had malice of any kind towards you I would pick apart some of your recent statements that are physically impossible. Instead I accept that true or false it is probably your sincere perception. One of the smartest men I ever knew had very little formal education and believed in witchcraft and other things most would scoff at. Never the less, when he said what to do or what would happen he was correct. Sometimes it is necessary to sort the wheat from the chaff. Obviously every word you speak or write doesn't have to be correct for you to have real skills and information of value.

The only reason I haven't joined your site was a feeling we had some very fundamental differences and a question whether there would be real information there or more teasers without real information like your short videos on youtube. You have put a little more substance in your forum replies lately and I thought that I would either join for a few months or a quarter if you accept paypal as much to thank you for that information as for any value I found on your site.

I'll continue to read your stuff and comment when inclined. You will save yourself a lot of angst if you just read what I write instead of trying to put tone that doesn't exist to my words. The only thing I feel towards you is a mild interest. AZB is pretty dead right now so you may not have the only show in town but definitely one of the few.

Hu

I would appreciate it if you never read anything I write again and I'll definitely lead the way, this is the last post I'll ever read of yours and you are officially dead to me.

 

[CJ Wiley]

Welcome to the party CJ. Just wondering if any of what I’ve written here is resonating on your end?

Yes, I just started reading some of your posts earlier and find them interesting. We all experience the game differently but there are consistent themes, I understand where you're coming from. Personally I have never aimed at a "contact point" or a "ghost ball," so I'm curious how players do this.

When you were talking about extending you tip to the object ball mentally I can relate, however, I extend towards the center or edge every time and use my tip placement to allow this to happen. Shane uses the side of his shaft and ferrule to create the angles, I can do this too, and teach it when players want to play with outside English instead of the inside perception like my mentors and I did/do.

It's important to be able to adjust to different cloth speeds, deflection rates, pocket speeds and humidity, I can tell you have a lot of experience playing the game, and would be likely to bet you're a very accomplished player.

 

[boogieman]

Yes, I just started reading some of your posts earlier and find them interesting. We all experience the game differently but there are consistent themes, I understand where you're coming from. Personally I have never aimed at a "contact point" or a "ghost ball," so I'm curious how players do this.

When you were talking about extending you tip to the object ball mentally I can relate, however, I extend towards the center or edge every time and use my tip placement to allow this to happen. Shane uses the side of his shaft and ferrule to create the angles, I can do this too, and teach it when players want to play with outside English instead of the inside perception like my mentors and I did/do.

It's important to be able to adjust to different cloth speeds, deflection rates, pocket speeds and humidity, I can tell you have a lot of experience playing the game, and would be likely to bet you're a very accomplished player.

There are definitely some great posts in this thread, I've started from the beginning and am on page 6 now. Tons of stuff to get you thinking out of your own comfort zone and lots of "thought experiments" to tickle your grey matter. If you have time and want to stir your neurons a bit, it's worth the time.

 

[Imac007]

There are definitely some great posts in this thread, I've started from the beginning and am on page 6 now. Tons of stuff to get you thinking out of your own comfort zone and lots of "thought experiments" to tickle your grey matter. If you have time and want to stir your neurons a bit, it's worth the time.

Glad that someone is looking at the thread as a resource. During covid re-reading some of the posts has kept my mind in the game. Every time I read them something tweaks my mind in new ways. Some triggered new insights. It’s surprising how often several perspectives when combined give birth to new insights.

Just saying that triggered an instance where combining spot on the wall and magic spot, forced me to solve the problem of no wall. Even with that insight to guide me I had to deal with the fact when you play a ball off 3 cushions many tables react differently. That led me to figure out how to calibrate a table quickly. Building on those insight allowed me to transition that work with ball paths to deepen a safety game plus position options.

CJ’s posts about aiming with TOI forced me to come to grips with the fact that language is description. What seemed to be contradictory information wasn’t. CJ was simply describing a shot and his perceptions. A previous description was probably narrating experience with a different shot. Each was just a description and true from its perspective.

Learning engineering drafting, different views are presented from multiple perspectives. Front, side, back and top views allowed us to pull together a 3D rendering of a whole object. CJ‘s multiple perspective eventually allowed a fuller picture to emerge. I learned how, using a deliberate inside cue line I needed to initially aim, through center ball, at the undercut side of the pocket before finding the inside line. He also said at one point that you need to feel the overcut that subsequently sends the ball into the centre of the pocket. That said, I discovered that TOI was just a perspective. Einstein taught us about relativity, an understanding of perspective and its effects.

His speed of light analogy of riding on a light wave wasn’t his only thought experiment. He also had one with a train.
”Einstein imagined a stationary observer who witnessed two lightning bolts simultaneously striking both ends of a moving train. He concluded that an observer standing on the train would measure the bolts to strike at different times.” A touch of inside or a hair as CJ is quoted is a measurement, subject to the relative perspective.

That measure starts at the undercut centre ball line then moves nearly parallel to the inside line labeled as TOI. That is a single location, on the ball surface, used as a measure. But only one of the two lines applies side on the ball, the starting reference line through ball center is a zero side line. Any point on the surface whose force line passes through the cue ball center is a zero side line. So the force lines that don’t pass through the cue ball center are the ones that apply side on the cue ball. The measure of how much side is determined by how close or far the force line is from the cue ball center. A second measure distance for side emerges from that insight. The first measure point is the cue ball center, the interior centre. The second point is the shortest distance from there to the off centre force line, the perpendicular line from the ball center to the line, is the true measurement. TOI is a surface measure. This other measure, is call the torque line, and needs to be measured from where the perpendicular meets the force line.

CJ suggests that the offset from the ball center line to the inside line should be about an eighth of a tip. Since TOI was using a virtual parallel shift, the center line tip offset and the torque line distance were virtually the same. Moving our perspective from the ball surface to the ball center torque line location still sets the location the cue line needs to pass through but you are bound to that spot and not the ball surface. Starting from there and shooting the cue ball to the spot that cuts the ball into the ball centre Is the desired cue line. When that line is compared to the undercut reference line there is an interesting insight. Regardless of the length of the shot, the proper cue line passes through the center of the ball to ball undercut line. This left me with a simple way to play TOI without a hammer stroke or adjustments for shot length.

Descriptions are just like maps, they are not the real thing, just words combined to put together a picture, an attempt at a shared understanding.

From drafting perspectives we can extrapolate the whole, just as CJ’s perspectives allowed us to get a picture of what is happening with TOI. It turns out there was an available added insight which I call convergent english. Plus the added insight from Dr Dave that inside english with draw or follow limits cut induced throw to no more than 1°, I found a cueing method that virtually eliminated the problem of throw. Knowledge without application is just data. Applied knowledge opens the door to wisdom.

ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS. THANKS CJ

 

[CJ Wiley]

CJ’s posts about aiming with TOI forced me to come to grips with the fact that language is description. What seemed to be contradictory information wasn’t. CJ was simply describing a shot and his perceptions. A previous description was probably narrating experience with a different shot. Each was just a description and true from its perspective.

Learning engineering drafting, different views are presented from multiple perspectives. Front, side, back and top views allowed us to pull together a 3D rendering of a whole object. CJ‘s multiple perspective eventually allowed a fuller picture to emerge. I learned how, using a deliberate inside cue line I needed to initially aim, through center ball, at the undercut side of the pocket before finding the inside line. He also said at one point that you need to feel the overcut that subsequently sends the ball into the centre of the pocket. That said, I discovered that TOI was just a perspective. Einstein taught us about relativity, an understanding of perspective and its effects.

His speed of light analogy of riding on a light wave wasn’t his only thought experiment. He also had one with a train.
”Einstein imagined a stationary observer who witnessed two lightning bolts simultaneously striking both ends of a moving train. He concluded that an observer standing on the train would measure the bolts to strike at different times.” A touch of inside or a hair as CJ is quoted is a measurement, subject to the relative perspective.

That measure starts at the undercut centre ball line then moves nearly parallel to the inside line labeled as TOI. That is a single location, on the ball surface, used as a measure. But only one of the two lines applies side on the ball, the starting reference line through ball center is a zero side line. Any point on the surface whose force line passes through the cue ball center is a zero side line. So the force lines that don’t pass through the cue ball center are the ones that apply side on the cue ball. The measure of how much side is determined by how close or far the force line is from the cue ball center. A second measure distance for side emerges from that insight. The first measure point is the cue ball center, the interior centre. The second point is the shortest distance from there to the off centre force line, the perpendicular line from the ball center to the line, is the true measurement. TOI is a surface measure. This other measure, is call the torque line, and needs to be measured from where the perpendicular meets the force line.

CJ suggests that the offset from the ball center line to the inside line should be about an eighth of a tip. Since TOI was using a virtual parallel shift, the center line tip offset and the torque line distance were virtually the same. Moving our perspective from the ball surface to the ball center torque line location still sets the location the cue line needs to pass through but you are bound to that spot and not the ball surface. Starting from there and shooting the cue ball to the spot that cuts the ball into the ball centre Is the desired cue line. When that line is compared to the undercut reference line there is an interesting insight. Regardless of the length of the shot, the proper cue line passes through the center of the ball to ball undercut line. This left me with a simple way to play TOI without a hammer stroke or adjustments for shot length.

Descriptions are just like maps, they are not the real thing, just words combined to put together a picture, an attempt at a shared understanding.

From drafting perspectives we can extrapolate the whole, just as CJ’s perspectives allowed us to get a picture of what is happening with TOI. It turns out there was an available added insight which I call convergent english. Plus the added insight from Dr Dave that inside english with draw or follow limits cut induced throw to no more than 1°, I found a cueing method that virtually eliminated the problem of throw. Knowledge without application is just data. Applied knowledge opens the door to wisdom.

ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS. THANKS CJ

That's right, we have a saying in neuro-linguistic programming "The map is not the territory".

I have several ways to explain these techniques and it helps to be at a pool table at the same time. What I'm doing is almost inverse to what most players have learned to do. Instead of aiming the center of the cue ball at a contact point, I'm aiming a specific point on the cue ball relative to the center of the object ball.

When the cue gets to a half ball cut or more I shift to the edge of the object ball as my reference (Alignment) point, so I can make any shot on the pool table using the center or the edge of the object ball. I can do this using the edge of my shaft like Shane Vanboening does too, however, I like putting the "touch" of inside on the cue ball because it does have it's advantages, especially on worn cloth with tight pockets.

It's fascinating how people process information differently and I take on the challenge to match their paradigms when it's possible. There's a lot more to developing the Touch of Inside or Touch of Outside game, like I've stated many times, it's not just an aiming system, it's an overall playing system.

Play Well, OO7, reminds me of my old friend John Coleman, the MI6 "committee of 300" player from the early 90s.

 

[Imac007]

That's right, we have a saying in neuro-linguistic programming "The map is not the territory".

I have several ways to explain these techniques and it helps to be at a pool table at the same time. What I'm doing is almost inverse to what most players have learned to do. Instead of aiming the center of the cue ball at a contact point, I'm aiming a specific point on the cue ball relative to the center of the object ball.

When the cue gets to a half ball cut or more I shift to the edge of the object ball as my reference (Alignment) point, so I can make any shot on the pool table using the center or the edge of the object ball. I can do this using the edge of my shaft like Shane Vanboening does too, however, I like putting the "touch" of inside on the cue ball because it does have it's advantages, especially on worn cloth with tight pockets.

It's fascinating how people process information differently and I take on the challenge to match their paradigms when it's possible. There's a lot more to developing the Touch of Inside or Touch of Outside game, like I've stated many times, it's not just an aiming system, it's an overall playing system.

Play Well, OO7, reminds me of my old friend John Coleman, the MI6 "committee of 300" player from the early 90s.

I’ve read everything I could find on NLP after finding Frogs into Princes in the early 1980’s. What twigged me to it was a skiing book or article by Denise McCluggage in which she talked about anchoring and triggering in NLP. You might find Dawna Markova’s NLP stacks interesting. She is an NLP Practictioner who researched learning styles. She started with the insight of the dominant sensory mode insight of Bandler/Grinder and determined that the dominance they noted was in consciousness. However, there are three levels of consciousness in play. She discovered that each level was dominant in a different sense, using VAK designators. No two levels were the same. The conscious level was a parts party, the subconscious was an assembly area building chunks made up of the parts, the unconscious experienced things as wholes, gestalts, symbols.

What she discovered was that if you pulled the subconscious sense to the foreground in consciousness the other senses become background and/or peripheral. The effect was experienced as a mild trance like state. As consciousness moved towards the unconscious content the trance deepened. Pool is a hand/eye coordination skill. When teaching I often determine the conscious dominant sense NLP style. Once I know that sense using dialogue I draw relevant execution details from the subconscious or unconscious level forward into consciousness, either feeling or visual depending on primary waking consciousness preference. This triggers a trancelike state. When that is accompanied by peak performance an anchor for the process is attempted. That needs to be at the player level as I can’t be there to trigger the state. My personal stack is AVK.

if you read my descriptions of play the predominant visual elements pop. The clarity of description reveals the dominant auditory mode in consciousness. Obviously there are few auditory cues that are relevant during execution, so the subconscious details are the easiest for me to access for description. Both the auditory and Kinesthetic can be distractors. The auditory, being dominant in waking consciousness can easily pull me out of my performance stance. Conversations nearby sometimes permeate and the result is distraction. We have the skill to block these out. we get engrossed in a book, tv, or videogame and can cocoon ourselves against our surroundings until someone jars us out of our state. We have coping strategies already. We bookmark where we are in a task to answer a door, phone, etc. My unconscious, kinesthetic, can disrupt me too. Someone behind me is sensed pulling my awareness away. I definitely need to get up and wait for the area to clear. Same with noise. Coping involves paying attention to whatever is distracting until it subsides, gets boring, etc. It needs to subside. When the unconscious sense floods our conscious with its content it can overwhelm. Emotions belong in the realm of my feeling unconscious. If I react to something emotionally, I have set up a trigger to reduce my activation level. Some adrenaline is welcome and addictive. A flood can be disabling. I’ve created a trigger that washes over my body with calm soon after a triggering event. These are my perceptions based on my particular AVK profile.

I’ve posted the insights from that perspective because they have broader applications for players with other styles. I’ve included some generalizations that allow them to plug in their attentional style and extrapolate how to use the information. Here is a link to a quiz that helps discover that style profile. https://www.easychangeworks.com/articles-nlp/markova-quiz.htm

Update: sadly the linked website no longer exists.

 

[boogieman]

That's right, we have a saying in neuro-linguistic programming "The map is not the territory".

I have several ways to explain these techniques and it helps to be at a pool table at the same time. What I'm doing is almost inverse to what most players have learned to do. Instead of aiming the center of the cue ball at a contact point, I'm aiming a specific point on the cue ball relative to the center of the object ball.

When the cue gets to a half ball cut or more I shift to the edge of the object ball as my reference (Alignment) point, so I can make any shot on the pool table using the center or the edge of the object ball. I can do this using the edge of my shaft like Shane Vanboening does too, however, I like putting the "touch" of inside on the cue ball because it does have it's advantages, especially on worn cloth with tight pockets.

It's fascinating how people process information differently and I take on the challenge to match their paradigms when it's possible. There's a lot more to developing the Touch of Inside or Touch of Outside game, like I've stated many times, it's not just an aiming system, it's an overall playing system.

Play Well, OO7, reminds me of my old friend John Coleman, the MI6 "committee of 300" player from the early 90s.

CJ, the thing I love about you is you can explain this stuff. To an outsider or "physics guru" it sounds off. But the thing is, you're describing the truth in a way that makes sense. When I aim, I do it by feel. Gene's perfect aim helped me find the aim point after a decade or so away from the table, it's honestly great, but I'm still using what's in my brain, it just helps me get my eyes right and seeing correctly, be it conscious or subconscious to get the hit. I don't think in terms of fractions of a ball, but when I put your thoughts/descriptions to the test, they work. You've found a way to describe and put into words the way we aim when we're successful. Sure, it sounds better to follow the physics guru's instructions, but you tell us the same damn thing but in a way we can access it at the table.

Do you think it's helpful to let your conscious mind evaluate the fractions on every shot, or once you know the shots, do you let the subconscious take the wheel? I guess I'm asking, once you know/feel the shot, do you personally think consciously about the fractions each shot, or do you just shoot the true shot you know is true from the work you put in learning it? I know your system works, I just am curious if you personally evaluate the fractions consciously before shooting or just shoot them?

If you evaluate, is it because of discipline? If you don't, is it due to complacency, fatigue, or something else?

EDIT: This Safe Start is a safety thing they do at work, it's a huge course, but I've come to realize it works for pool too. Here's a little info graphic card they give you. It's about injuries, but think in terms of missing a shot or game:

 

[CJ Wiley]

I’ve read everything I could find on NLP after finding Frogs into Princes in the early 1980’s. What twigged me to it was a skiing book or article by Denise McCluggage in which she talked about anchoring and triggering in NLP. You might find Dawna Markova’s NLP stacks interesting. She is an NLP Practictioner who researched learning styles. She started with the insight of the dominant sensory mode insight of Bandler/Grinder and determined that the dominance they noted was in consciousness. However, there are three levels of consciousness in play. She discovered that each level was dominant in a different sense, using VAK designators. No two levels were the same. The conscious level was a parts party, the subconscious was an assembly area building chunks made up of the parts, the unconscious experienced things as wholes, gestalts, symbols.

What she discovered was that if you pulled the subconscious sense to the foreground in consciousness the other senses become background and/or peripheral. The effect was experienced as a mild trance like state. As consciousness moved towards the unconscious content the trance deepened. Pool is a hand/eye coordination skill. When teaching I often determine the conscious dominant sense NLP style. Once I know that sense using dialogue I draw relevant execution details from the subconscious or unconscious level forward into consciousness, either feeling or visual depending on primary waking consciousness preference. This triggers a trancelike state. When that is accompanied by peak performance an anchor for the process is attempted. That needs to be at the player level as I can’t be there to trigger the state. My personal stack is AVK.

if you read my descriptions of play the predominant visual elements pop. The clarity of description reveals the dominant auditory mode in consciousness. Obviously there are few auditory cues that are relevant during execution, so the subconscious details are the easiest for me to access for description. Both the auditory and Kinesthetic can be distractors. The auditory, being dominant in waking consciousness can easily pull me out of my performance stance. Conversations nearby sometimes permeate and the result is distraction. We have the skill to block these out. we get engrossed in a book, tv, or videogame and can cocoon ourselves against our surroundings until someone jars us out of our state. We have coping strategies already. We bookmark where we are in a task to answer a door, phone, etc. My unconscious, kinesthetic, can disrupt me too. Someone behind me is sensed pulling my awareness away. I definitely need to get up and wait for the area to clear. Same with noise. Coping involves paying attention to whatever is distracting until it subsides, gets boring, etc. It needs to subside. When the unconscious sense floods our conscious with its content it can overwhelm. Emotions belong in the realm of my feeling unconscious. If I react to something emotionally, I have set up a trigger to reduce my activation level. Some adrenaline is welcome and addictive. A flood can be disabling. I’ve created a trigger that washes over my body with calm soon after a triggering event. These are my perceptions based on my particular AVK profile.

I’ve posted the insights from that perspective because they have broader applications for players with other styles. I’ve included some generalizations that allow them to plug in their attentional style and extrapolate how to use the information. Here is a link to a quiz that helps discover that style profile. https://www.easychangeworks.com/articles-nlp/markova-quiz.htm

Now I know why your writing style stood out to me, you are well studied on linguistic patterns and how modalities influence our experiences, in this case pocket billiards.

I was 23 when I first read 'Frogs into Princes,' and 'The Stucture of Magic' by Bandler/Grinder. My main teacher was Jan Marszalek in Dallas, she was an amazing teacher, with skills at the time I considered magical. We spent a lot of time together, she definitely taught outside the box of regular NLP. She had spent a lot of time with Bandler, who was also an interesting, and eccentric character. I flew to Orlando Florida and studied hypnosis with him, which started to open up a world that I hadn't been aware enough to know existed!

My best friend, John Emerick, who wrote 'Be the Person you want to Be' introduced me to NLP, he has mental skills that are beyond incredible!

One day I told him I had read 'Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H Erickson, MD' which had two parts, and confessed the second book was over my head (I was still 23 at the time) - He laughed and said "you know those two books are actually taken from four, 600 page volumes?!?"

"you gotta be kidding me, who in their right mind would read 2400 pages on therapeutic hypnosis?"

He responded "I did!" - he explained he'd read them sitting under a palm tree in Hawaii where he had lived a number of years.

The rest is history - he now has a 8500 ft house in Honolulu and sold his last company for over 100 million.....he one he's operating now is worth even more......it's true, what the mind can conceive, our lives can achieve!

The Game is the Teacher

 

[CJ Wiley]

CJ, the thing I love about you is you can explain this stuff. To an outsider or "physics guru" it sounds off. But the thing is, you're describing the truth in a way that makes sense. When I aim, I do it by feel. Gene's perfect aim helped me find the aim point after a decade or so away from the table, it's honestly great, but I'm still using what's in my brain, it just helps me get my eyes right and seeing correctly, be it conscious or subconscious to get the hit. I don't think in terms of fractions of a ball, but when I put your thoughts/descriptions to the test, they work. You've found a way to describe and put into words the way we aim when we're successful. Sure, it sounds better to follow the physics guru's instructions, but you tell us the same damn thing but in a way we can access it at the table.

Do you think it's helpful to let your conscious mind evaluate the fractions on every shot, or once you know the shots, do you let the subconscious take the wheel? I guess I'm asking, once you know/feel the shot, do you personally think consciously about the fractions each shot, or do you just shoot the true shot you know is true from the work you put in learning it? I know your system works, I just am curious if you personally evaluate the fractions consciously before shooting or just shoot them?

If you evaluate, is it because of discipline? If you don't, is it due to complacency, fatigue, or something else?

The greatest players in the world all play subconsciously using what they would call instinct, feel and/or touch. They understand the physics at such a high level it surpasses normal physics and geometry into a level that would be better described as Quantum Physics, and Cosmic/Sacred Geometry. This doesn't mean any regular laws are broken, after all, physics is the science of objects in motion. However, understanding the game at that level won't allow you to perform better, in many cases it will keep you at the same level your entire life.

The game of pocketbilliards at the highest level is perfect because the physical geometry is perfect, you have two squares that make a rectangular surface, the shots are angles, usually triangles and the balls are perfect spheres, the cue is a straight line. Understanding how to unlock this perfection is the challenge we all have if we want to attempt to master the game. This can't be done with "normal/logical" thinking, it's much too complex to "figure out," because the subconscious is much like a quantum computer, able to defy normal guidelines.

The way we all experience this at times is when we go "into the zone" and play by feel and instinct, allowing the perfection of the game flow through us......we have the experience of being connected to the game, like an artist or musician connect to their area of self expression.

I only have to create 8 angles to play pocket billiards at the highest level, this won't sound like enough when looking from a pure geometrical perspective, however, it's like sophisticated classical music which may have one theme and several variations on that theme.

Like I mentioned earlier, the human mind is incredibly sophisticated, so when I consciously align to any shot "center to center," or "center to edge" I am giving my subconscious a referential index to create the angle I need to create to make the shot. So, to answer your question, I do evaluate the angle, from the starting alignment position, then allow my instinct, to create the angle, and one more important factor is I FEEL the shot hit the pocket and watch what specific part it contacts Every Time. This completes the shot in your mind which is the reward your subconscious needs, if you don't do this it's like shooting a gun or bow and never seeing where the bullet or arrow lands.....this should be boring and unfruitful for your subconscious, yet many pool players do this routinely without ever realizing they are making a fatal error!

The Game is the Teacher

 

[Patrick Johnson]

...physics at such a high level it surpasses normal physics and geometry into a level that would be better described as Quantum Physics, and Cosmic/Sacred Geometry

Peyote pool - those were the days...

pj
chgo

 

[Bob Jewett]

Peyote pool - those were the days...

Related to which, I was told that one of the top 10 players from the late 60s-70s played quite well on acid.

And about peyote.... Lophophora williamsii is a very slow-growing species. Leave it alone. Echinopsis pachanoi, pictured here

is obviously not a slow-growing species. It is forbidden to grow it as other than an ornamental plant, however, at least in the US.