Center Pocket Music, the long-awaited CTE Pro One book, by Stan Shuffett.

[JB Cases]

I apologize if that offended you. I'll remove it if you want me to.

I was responding to a Spider post where he said if you learn CTE you won't have to work on your game for 20 years. That reminded me of you saying you don't have everything working properly because of bad stroke habits and so I made that comment. Maybe a bit snarky and uncalled for, but it wasn't intended to be malicious. I got to thinking, though. How is that much different from what you just said in another thread, "I promise you that it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that you fidget like Pat Johnson does. One of these days I might release the video I have of Pat's fidgeting...... probably not because I told him I wouldn't AND it's on a hard drive in drawer somewhere and not worth looking for."? So you are making fun of PJ's stroke (something you guys have been doing collectively for years) and "threaten" to put it out there. The inference is that it is so bad you had to keep it secret. Is that something you consider "decent conversation" or are you a troll as well?

Here's the bigger issue: You are not the best ambassador of CTE because after all this time you still are not pocketing balls automatically. You can tell a guy that CTE is great but if you aren't pocketing everything like Stan does then what good is it? Hell, if I learned a system that gave me objective aiming points and that's ALL I had to know other than a straight stroke, I'd be making every shot I tried. "Objective aiming points" means it is easy to do, right? Aim at points that nearly everyone can see. Simple. But after all these years why aren't the balls going in the pocket automatically? Even Stan said that CTE will straighten out your stroke, so what gives?

I came up with something recently and have been trying it out. Tell me where I'm wrong. When you distill it down the claim is that CTE does the aiming for you. In other words, simply follow the instructions, make sure you are seeing the lines as directed, and you don't need to do anything else but shoot straight. You are aligning the cue per CTE instructions and CTE geometry is making sure the ball goes in the pocket. You don't need to have any prior experience regarding "when a shot looks right" and you don't even need to look at the pocket. Even if you never picked up a cue before, if you can follow the instructions the ball will find a pocket. This comes back to your experience. You've been doing it many years and yet it still doesn't seem automatic. That's not meant to be an insult, but an observation.

Actually I wasn't "making fun" of PJ 's AIMING. I was describing it because he wants to make it out like what he does and CTE are the same, pure feel. I never said a single word about Pat's stroke or pocketing ability. He is a solid 600+ player IMO. You don't need to remove anything and I wasn't taking personal offense. I am taking offense to the fact that you take every opportunity to cast aspersions by using the religious dogma smear.

Dan this isn't a matter of faith. I am a diehard atheist. Not an agnostic, I don't believe in any deities, higher powers, magic etc.... It is a matter of practical useful and consistent results on the pool table.

I really don't have any way to help you to experience what I and many others have experienced with CTE and other objective aiming systems. All I can do is to provide my narrative of my observations.

Is using a ruler objective or subjective? Have you ever had multiple rulers where the spacing isn't the same? Have you ever practiced excising your eyes? Have you ever used a brock string? How good are you at picking the center of an object? How would you find the center of a square just using your eyes? The point will always remain that the more tools a person has at their disposal the more opportunity that they have to achieve successful results.

 

[JB Cases]

I apologize if that offended you. I'll remove it if you want me to.

I was responding to a Spider post where he said if you learn CTE you won't have to work on your game for 20 years. That reminded me of you saying you don't have everything working properly because of bad stroke habits and so I made that comment. Maybe a bit snarky and uncalled for, but it wasn't intended to be malicious. I got to thinking, though. How is that much different from what you just said in another thread, "I promise you that it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that you fidget like Pat Johnson does. One of these days I might release the video I have of Pat's fidgeting...... probably not because I told him I wouldn't AND it's on a hard drive in drawer somewhere and not worth looking for."? So you are making fun of PJ's stroke (something you guys have been doing collectively for years) and "threaten" to put it out there. The inference is that it is so bad you had to keep it secret. Is that something you consider "decent conversation" or are you a troll as well?

Here's the bigger issue: You are not the best ambassador of CTE because after all this time you still are not pocketing balls automatically. You can tell a guy that CTE is great but if you aren't pocketing everything like Stan does then what good is it? Hell, if I learned a system that gave me objective aiming points and that's ALL I had to know other than a straight stroke, I'd be making every shot I tried. "Objective aiming points" means it is easy to do, right? Aim at points that nearly everyone can see. Simple. But after all these years why aren't the balls going in the pocket automatically? Even Stan said that CTE will straighten out your stroke, so what gives?

I came up with something recently and have been trying it out. Tell me where I'm wrong. When you distill it down the claim is that CTE does the aiming for you. In other words, simply follow the instructions, make sure you are seeing the lines as directed, and you don't need to do anything else but shoot straight. You are aligning the cue per CTE instructions and CTE geometry is making sure the ball goes in the pocket. You don't need to have any prior experience regarding "when a shot looks right" and you don't even need to look at the pocket. Even if you never picked up a cue before, if you can follow the instructions the ball will find a pocket. This comes back to your experience. You've been doing it many years and yet it still doesn't seem automatic. That's not meant to be an insult, but an observation.

When I do a video and I demonstrate aiming and pocketing using the same instructions I gave on here how is that not automatic?

Yes, distilled down the CTE method brings your to the shot line without guessing. The HUMAN is doing the aiming/aligning within the parameters of the system. I have often said that a common experience when learning CTE or other objective methods is that often the system will resolve to a line that the shooter is unsure of but which is actually correct. That disconnect comes because when a person aims by feel they can often be fooled by illusions/depth perception and other reasons and feel that a line is right when it is wrong. So when they finally find a way to get on the right shot line it can feel wrong.

And that second guessing can absolutely introduce deviations in stroke. Humans are imperfect creatures. Obviously there are many variables from the standing position to the striking of the ball that can affect the outcome. In fact as Dr. Dave has shown there are variables that can negatively affect the outcome even when the cueball was sent perfectly straight down the shot line. It would be awesome IF humans were so good that we could focus in like a laser and always shoot perfectly. That's why i always say "when applied correctly". Same goes for ghost ball, when applied correctly and coupled with a straight stroke the pocketing percentages are higher.

 

[Dan White]

Actually I wasn't "making fun" of PJ 's AIMING. I was describing it because he wants to make it out like what he does and CTE are the same, pure feel. I never said a single word about Pat's stroke or pocketing ability. He is a solid 600+ player IMO. You don't need to remove anything and I wasn't taking personal offense. I am taking offense to the fact that you take every opportunity to cast aspersions by using the religious dogma smear.

I don't recall using the religious dogma smear in any of my recent posts. Not at least in the last several in this thread.

Dan this isn't a matter of faith. I am a diehard atheist. Not an agnostic, I don't believe in any deities, higher powers, magic etc.... It is a matter of practical useful and consistent results on the pool table.

I feel a little bad for atheists because they don't seem to have the ability to experience things in life that are not rationally explained by science or chance. We don't even know why we exist, so it is curious that atheists are so confident in their belief. Anyway, you realize that people are designed to recognize a higher power and those who shun higher powers like god, etc. fill that void with something else. Communists replace it with the State, environmentalists often replace it with Mother Earth, or Gaia, so while the thing with CTE is a bit tongue in cheek, it is not entirely so. I can show you a video of Stan clearly missing the fact that he is throwing balls and you are going to turn yourself inside out to find a way to say that 2+2 isn't really 4 and those balls aren't really throwing, or they are throwing but it doesn't matter because of xyz. I know you said you were going to do your own video. Here's the video again:

Center Pocket Music, the long-awaited CTE Pro One book, by Stan Shuffett.

This is THE BOOK, detailing exactly how CTE Pro One can improve your game. In Stan Shuffett's own words: "Nearly six years of blood, sweat, and tears have all been worth it. Connie and I are beyond pleased! I left it all on the table: 38 chapters/440 pages of what’s been in my head for the...

forums.azbilliards.com

 

[BC21]

.......

I feel a little bad for atheists because they don't seem to have the ability to experience things in life that are not rationally explained by science or chance. We don't even know why we exist, so it is curious that atheists are so confident in their belief. Anyway, you realize that people are designed to recognize a higher power and those who shun higher powers like god, etc. fill that void with something else.

......

[/URL]

Atheists are no different than thiests. Both are adamant in their beliefs. A thiest believes in whatever God or gods that their particular religion happens to worship. With over 2000 religions there are quite a bit of options for those who want to believe in devine powers. An athiest chooses to believe in none of them.

I don't think people are "designed to recognize a higher power", as you say.

Thousands of years ago humans were prone to assign meaning to unexplainable things, and we still are.
Anyway...earthquakes and tornados and floods and fires became the wrath of one angry god or another. Over time, polytheism and mythological beliefs eventually gave way to monotheistic beliefs. But humans still had to make sense of things science could not yet explain, so these things became attributed to God, though many people still believed in several gods.

So it's not so much that people are "designed to recognize a higher power".... we are just wired to make sense of things we don't understand, and this is what brought about mythology and religion to start with. People place unexplainable things into the "higher power" or "God" or "gods" category, because then it doesn't have to make sense. It can just be accepted as devine workings. A religious person can then say, "God works in mysterious ways", and they believe it, and it helps them accept reality better. A non-religious person, such as an athiest or an agnostic, can say, "Things just happen", and that helps them accept reality better.

Of course, this is just my non-aiming 2 cents on religion.

 

[JB Cases]

I don't recall using the religious dogma smear in any of my recent posts. Not at least in the last several in this thread.


I feel a little bad for atheists because they don't seem to have the ability to experience things in life that are not rationally explained by science or chance. We don't even know why we exist, so it is curious that atheists are so confident in their belief. Anyway, you realize that people are designed to recognize a higher power and those who shun higher powers like god, etc. fill that void with something else. Communists replace it with the State, environmentalists often replace it with Mother Earth, or Gaia, so while the thing with CTE is a bit tongue in cheek, it is not entirely so. I can show you a video of Stan clearly missing the fact that he is throwing balls and you are going to turn yourself inside out to find a way to say that 2+2 isn't really 4 and those balls aren't really throwing, or they are throwing but it doesn't matter because of xyz. I know you said you were going to do your own video. Here's the video again:

Center Pocket Music, the long-awaited CTE Pro One book, by Stan Shuffett.

This is THE BOOK, detailing exactly how CTE Pro One can improve your game. In Stan Shuffett's own words: "Nearly six years of blood, sweat, and tears have all been worth it. Connie and I are beyond pleased! I left it all on the table: 38 chapters/440 pages of what’s been in my head for the...

forums.azbilliards.com

Your "feeling" for atheists is your problem. We experience everything that believers in mysticism feel. We feel love, frustration, anguish, joy, ecstasy, confusion, certainty, clarity, hope, anger, hate, betrayal, wonder, surprise etc.... We just have different motivations and catalysts sometimes because we don't ascribe a mystical reason for what happens to us or for us. We don't see misfortune as "god's wrath" nor benefit as "god's favor". We believe in karma as a sense of justice that we wish to be true but we know that karma doesn't actually exist. We don't concern ourselves with needing a reason to exist and instead concern ourselves with making the best of the existence that we have. And in fact this is the very essence of why I like CTE. I need to do a task. CTE is a method that allows me to do my task in a way that is objective and requires no imagination. It requires only that I train my eyes to recognize hard reference points and allow my body to align to those reference points in order to get into shooting position on a shot line that I am confident is correct. That confidence comes through the results of learning the system and testing it out against all categories of shots that the system is supposed to handle. No mysticism here just instruction, understanding, practice, note the results, use if acceptable. When something produces repeatable consistent results then it doesn't require faith to use it. I have been saying this maxim for a while and it's true, "the proof is on the table".

Does that mean it will work the same way for every user? In a world where every user had the same conditions and the same abilities and the same visual acuity and the same learning ability and tolerance for practice to hone skill then yes it would work the same for everyone. However we already know that this isn't the case. So you take a set of instructions and give it to imperfect people who are operating under a wide range of conditions and you will get a range of results. The question is whether an individual using the method sees clear improvement that works for them. Another way to say this is that the best hammer ever made will not turn an individual into a master carpenter but it will not hold them back in any way and will likely benefit them by the use. The amount of benefit they derive is commensurate with the skill level they have when acquiring the tool and how much time they are willing to put in to get the full range of performance that the tool is capable of delivering.
If, for example, the new hammer ABSOLUTELY required that it be held within a marked place on the handle for the optimal results and I were to hold it outside that range some of the time then I will be highly unlikely to derive consistently great results. The results I do get might still be better than what I get from a crappy hammer but they won't be consistently near perfect. In that situation I could go off on the hammer and say it doesn't perform as advertised but in fact it would be user error on my part for not following the directions. It would be a situation where I was feeding bad input to the tool and thus getting imperfect results.
So, yes, I am NOT the best "ambassador" for showing the full range of achievable results consistently. You are being disingnenious though, and you KNOW THIS FULL WELL, when you seek to take a single person and use them to judge the effectiveness of a method and ignore all of the other people reporting and demonstrating better and more consistent results. I have NEVER EVER said that the use of CTE or any other method has "fixed" my game. I have said that my pocketing is greatly improved, measurably and noticeably. I have said that my ability to read the table and see the tangents has greatly improved. Both of these things are 100% true. At the same time in the 20 year span since first being introduced to objective aiming by Hal Houle my physical ability has deteriorated, my personal responsibilities have greatly increased and my enthusiasm to play and practice has greatly diminished. I love this sport but I am no longer so in love with it that I am willing to give it hours each day to keep my skills sharp and to improve. So using "me" as your "proof" that CTE is not good or good enough or objective IS just plain stupid because you then MUST look at players who have put in that time and effort to learn it perfectly and have the consistent improved performance results as a result. Refusal to do that shows that you are just on some sort of personal vendetta instead of actually interested in compiling useful data.

Continued....

 

[JB Cases]

The "job" that I have assigned myself is to be a cheerleader for Hal's methods and derivatives/improvements to those methods. To that end the half-million+ views that I have on this subject and the reams of conversation and the hundreds of personal contacts with interested players are activities that indicate that interest is indeed strong. One does not need to be an expert in something in order to advocate for it. Of course it is BETTER if one can demonstrate something expertly but it is not required.
Ok regarding your continued effort to attempt to get me to say that Stan is wrong.....save it. You have determined a conclusion that you are unwilling to entertain any alternate to. I am unwilling to go through the exercise to again analyze your analysis to determine whether or not I concur with your assessment given that the last time I debunked your analysis you also refused to consider my assessment of the results. Frankly, at this point, I see your efforts as not in any way interested in figuring out the actual mechanics in play with CTE aiming but instead to attempt to nitpick disingenuously in an attempt to discredit Stan (and me and all others who advocate for, teach and use CTE) for the purposes of then discrediting the system itself. My belief is that your conclusions regarding this topic have been made decades ago and this is a continuation of promoting them.
What I do when I am unsure of something is to take it to the table and try to work it out. That might bring up more questions for me to think about and reconcile in some way. I don't do videos in order to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that anything I am attempting to show is 100% one way and no other. All I can do is start the video and try to express my thoughts and demonstrate the concept in real time. I don't script my video, I barely use props and when I do it is often on the fly using stuff that I have around the shop. Sometimes I will buy things from the dollar store or a garage sales that I think might be useful to express my thoughts and assist in the demonstration but I rarely will actually spend the time to plan out exactly how they will be used, nor do I write an outline or script and I don't do do any post-recording editing. It should be evident that most of my videos are on the fly. Now, once in a while, I will have something in mind and start the camera and realize that I haven't thought it out enough to express myself clearly or be able to demonstrate adequately. In those situations I just won't upload the video and I will analyze it myself to try to see a better way to do it. I will often put it away for a later date when I have time to revisit that topic. The main point here for me is that I am a pool fan using the medium of video to have a conversation with other pool fans and not that I am presenting myself as an expert instructor/practitioner. I am just interested in various topics around pool and my videos are indicative of that interest. I am not seeking sponsorship or praise or recognition or anything other than conversation about the interesting stuff. Maybe it bothers you that someone who is NOT an expert player is expounding on an aiming method or aiming methods in general when you might personally feel that I have no business telling anyone anything about how to play. If that is part of your attitude then I can understand WHY you focus on me instead of focusing on the mechanics of the system. I can understand why you focus on what you think are my performance inconsistencies and attempt to infer that the system is the problem. I can understand why you DO NOT USE guys like Tyler and Hunter and Landon to do analytical criticism videos if your intention is to discredit the system. In that scenario you see any failure in results as a failure in the system and any success as a triumph of human subconsciousness over something you consider to be a flawed method.
Unlike you I am willing to say that there are things that I don't know. I am even willing to say that it's POSSIBLE that there is some sort of subconscious adjustment happening. BUT, from a practical standpoint, IF there is some sort of subconscious adjustment then it MUST be informed by the VERY VERY VERY conscious choices that the user is making when applying the method. Think about that for a bit. If the end result is improvement in performance and consistency then why would it matter if something done consciously and deliberately has an invisible subconscious component? If you give me a task and I can complete it accurately and consistently - OR AT LEAST more accurately and consistently than previous attempts - and I tell you that the ONLY difference to previous attempts is that I have adopted a new method of approaching that task then what is actually your issue at that point?
This is quite literally a situation where the ends are fully justified by the means. If the change is a matter or simply perceiving the relationship between the balls in a different way and that SOMEHOW triggers a SUB-conscious response that leads to consistently better performance then how is that not PRACTICALLY valid? Now, going back to the "religious zealot" mockery that you have indeed engaged in willfully and deliberately......the whole thing with the scientific method is that whatever is claimed has to be repeatedly demonstrable. CTE users can demonstrate high levels of proficiency while claiming to use the CTE aiming method. If you want to claim that they are only achieving these results because they are SOMEHOW subconsciously making adjustments that allow them to achieve these results then the onus is on you to prove that. Because otherwise you are simply saying that what they are claiming is false and they are either self-deluded, brainwashed in a cult-like fashion, or that they are deliberately lying and are really just using ghost ball and claiming it's CTE......
And while you are doing that people are learning and using CTE with great results without needing any extra layers of thought as to whether this method is fully objective, 99.9% objective, pure feel in a different wrapper or whatever else you might think about it. In other words someone introduced them to a new hammer that works great and they are using it effectively with zero need to worry about about whether every claim about the hammer ever made by the hammer's creators of the hammer or the thousands of users is 100% true. You can nitpick EVERYTHING and go down millions of existential rabbit holes. Or you can get on the table and try things and keep what works for you and discard what doesn't. You can revisit things you discarded, you can throw away what works and start over, you can have as much fun or frustration as you choose to when you take it to the table. That's the real "magic" here. Not whether CTE is 100% objective, or whether it allows for a shooter to virtually ignore cut induced throw or not. Not whether CTE straightens out a person's stroke or not for every person who uses it. But instead what ENJOYMENT and BENEFIT are people getting out of it. Clearly, if it was so bad and inconsistent then people would have made that clear and abandoned it. Clearly there would not be a single professional player willing to stick their neck out promoting a system with which they could not get consistently good results with. So ON THE TABLE, players are getting what they want and need out of CTE.
And, some are indeed thinking about your criticisms. It is clear that nothing about CTE can defy physics and geometry. But it might be the case that you don't know everything about those subjects as well as you think you do. It might be that there are variables in play that defy your understanding and conclusion which you are either unaware of or not factoring in. It might very well be that a method that "fine tunes" a shooter's visual focus by use of objective reference points and deliberate focus methods such as "stepping" get the shooter's eyes and body into a position where the subconscious "sees" the right shot line clearly. It might be that the shooter's conscious mind is fixated on a plane, 90 degrees to the table bed, which is slicing through the back of cueball and is so incredibly close to the plane that the shot line is on that the subconscious mind can make that adjustment to the right line so easily that it's indistinguishable from a conscious choice. The eyes are muscles and we often say that practice is to train the muscle memory and to develop the correct "shot pictures".
My point is that the more people who CONSTRUCTIVELY look for the inner working of a method the more opportunity we have to figure out what's mechanically objective and what's psychologically subjective. Mocking and forgone conclusions only serve to increase animosity. I can accept when someone says that doesn't work like you think it works if they can prove that to me. I can accept that even if they can't prove it that it may not work like I think it does. What I cannot accept is being told that the results I am getting are not real and that my on-the-table results are not due to to the application of the method I said I used. To paraphrase a bumper sticker, "critics who say that an aiming method doesn't work should get out of the way of those who are using that aiming system successfully".

 

[JB Cases]

Atheists are no different than thiests. Both are adamant in their beliefs. A thiest believes in whatever God or gods that their particular religion happens to worship. With over 2000 religions there are quite a bit of options for those who want to believe in devine powers. An athiest chooses to believe in none of them.

I don't think people are "designed to recognize a higher power", as you say.

Thousands of years ago humans were prone to assign meaning to unexplainable things, and we still are.
Anyway...earthquakes and tornados and floods and fires became the wrath of one angry god or another. Over time, polytheism and mythological beliefs eventually gave way to monotheistic beliefs. But humans still had to make sense of things science could not yet explain, so these things became attributed to God, though many people still believed in several gods.

So it's not so much that people are "designed to recognize a higher power".... we are just wired to make sense of things we don't understand, and this is what brought about mythology and religion to start with. People place unexplainable things into the "higher power" or "God" or "gods" category, because then it doesn't have to make sense. It can just be accepted as devine workings. A religious person can then say, "God works in mysterious ways", and they believe it, and it helps them accept reality better. A non-religious person, such as an athiest or an agnostic, can say, "Things just happen", and that helps them accept reality better.

Of course, this is just my non-aiming 2 cents on religion.

 

[JB Cases]

JB has been trying to make CTE work for about 20 years and seems to still be a work in progress. Maybe he will find something in the book that will finally make it click.

What do you mean TRYING to make it work. This is exactly the BS that you say which is either deliberately and maliciously said to provoke a negative response OR you are that clueless about what I say and do as to be unable to accurately report on it.

First I haven't even been using CTE for 20 years. I used Hal's quarters system that he taught me and was happy with that. I did not start to use or think about CTE until around 2010ish when I started to see Dave Segal talking about it. Even then I didn't know exactly what it was or how to use it. Still I had some success with it despite not knowing the steps. Which goes towards the early concepts I showed where the CTE line and Ghost Ball line are within a fraction a mm of each other at the back of the ball.

I want to be totally clear so that you HOPEFULLY understand me. I do NOT and DID NOT need Stan's DVDs or his book to use CTE. I do not need any additional instruction to use CTE. Stan has been working on and REVISING the instructions as he discovers better ways to use and explain the method.

The way that we work leather now IS NOT the same way we worked leather in 1850. Now we have people all over the world constantly discovering and revising methods to improve the way we work leather.

I don't get the mockery. So what if a person wants to create two dvds and an epic book on a topic? Why does that bother you to the point that you feel like you need to mock and mischaracterize me as a substitute for directly mocking Stan?

I doubt that you have gone through every book or dvd created on pool and nitpicked through them to find things you don't agree with. I doubt that you have tracked down every claim ever made that you don't like and endeavored to mock and denigrate those who made those claims.

Secondly, Stan HAS IN FACT made a revision that makes it easier to use to use CTE. But I can't explain it to you because it's not my place to do so nor do I feel that it would make any difference to your attitude on this subject. When I discuss the NEW information with CTE users we have a good time working it out together and seeing the results. While we were completely happy with the previous methods which we still use with success we are even happier to have an even better way to apply the CTE method.

Thirdly, I am positive that win or lose I have so much more fun on the table than you do. You might "feel sorry" for atheists because of some half-assed notion that they don't experience existentialism but I know one thing that I have experienced many times in life which I am confident that you have not. That is the feeling of outrunning the nuts in a tough match. Getting in the box up against the nuts in the first place is already an experience that most nits will never have the pleasure of feeling. Winning in that position though is literally the high you cannot buy. It must be earned through extraordinary effort. For the past twenty years I have used Objective Aiming and for the past ten Center to Edge aiming in every match I have played in. Win or lose this type of aiming is part of my tool kit and is a very dependable part.

I honestly DGAF what you think about it. Your name could be replaced with any other super nobody and my responses that I choose to give would be the same. You get your jollies by knocking aiming systems, CTE in particular, by knocking aiming systems users, me in particular, and by knocking aiming systems instructors, Stan in particular. I get my jollies from going to the table and using CTE to pocket balls.

 

[JB Cases]

So I’ve been reading the book, it’s making much more sense. I’ll be honest, I’ve not shot the shots on the table yet because I’m in a spot I don’t want to rebuild my game. I’m playing pretty regularly with a new pool playing friend and he’s at a bit higher level so I’m hesitant to tweak my game.

I’m starting to understand the aim points but have a question. When you find the 3 aim lines, if you’ve misestimated the A B or C on the OB, what happens? I’m guessing since you have 3 references, it’s less likely to misestimate. I imagine it’s like anything and takes a bit of table time to hone the skill. My half formed thoughts say it should be no harder than estimating traditional contacts, but with a solid reference of the cb edge as a starting point. Does this sound like I’m on the right track?

Yes, if you choose the wrong line then you will miss. But you will find that you will miss consistently the same way. If you are not picking up the ABC lines correctly then you will get results that are not clean but are highly likely to be consistently wrong. In other words if you were a mm off you would be a multiple of that mm off in the result. That has been my experience.

You are fully correct that it is not any harder than any other method when it comes to using your eyes to pick something to align to. What is harder is that it is counterintutitive and requires a literal change in thinking to free your mind up to let go of old-school "textbook" ghost-ball-ish methods of estimation.

The Edges and B-line (center) don't really require estimation. But some people don't really pick up the farthest most edge right away and tend to look a bit inside the edge. So it takes intentional effort to be sure that you are looking at the farthest outward point on the left or right.

You are on the right track. And as Joey said, you have to practice. The good news here is that unlike his snide suggestion that you will need to hit a million balls to get it the fact is that you are likely to have it down pretty good inside of a couple hundred balls and then you can spend the other 999,800 balls working on all the aspects of the game that are also important. And if you already have a lot of that locked down like a stable stance and solid straight stroke then you will likely find that CTE is a wonderfully accurate compliment to an already solid game.

 

[Dan White]

When I do a video and I demonstrate aiming and pocketing using the same instructions I gave on here how is that not automatic?

Yes, distilled down the CTE method brings your to the shot line without guessing. The HUMAN is doing the aiming/aligning within the parameters of the system. I have often said that a common experience when learning CTE or other objective methods is that often the system will resolve to a line that the shooter is unsure of but which is actually correct. That disconnect comes because when a person aims by feel they can often be fooled by illusions/depth perception and other reasons and feel that a line is right when it is wrong. So when they finally find a way to get on the right shot line it can feel wrong.

And that second guessing can absolutely introduce deviations in stroke. Humans are imperfect creatures. Obviously there are many variables from the standing position to the striking of the ball that can affect the outcome. In fact as Dr. Dave has shown there are variables that can negatively affect the outcome even when the cueball was sent perfectly straight down the shot line. It would be awesome IF humans were so good that we could focus in like a laser and always shoot perfectly. That's why i always say "when applied correctly". Same goes for ghost ball, when applied correctly and coupled with a straight stroke the pocketing percentages are higher.

Atheists are no different than thiests. Both are adamant in their beliefs. A thiest believes in whatever God or gods that their particular religion happens to worship. With over 2000 religions there are quite a bit of options for those who want to believe in devine powers. An athiest chooses to believe in none of them.

I don't think people are "designed to recognize a higher power", as you say.

Thousands of years ago humans were prone to assign meaning to unexplainable things, and we still are.
Anyway...earthquakes and tornados and floods and fires became the wrath of one angry god or another. Over time, polytheism and mythological beliefs eventually gave way to monotheistic beliefs. But humans still had to make sense of things science could not yet explain, so these things became attributed to God, though many people still believed in several gods.

So it's not so much that people are "designed to recognize a higher power".... we are just wired to make sense of things we don't understand, and this is what brought about mythology and religion to start with. People place unexplainable things into the "higher power" or "God" or "gods" category, because then it doesn't have to make sense. It can just be accepted as devine workings. A religious person can then say, "God works in mysterious ways", and they believe it, and it helps them accept reality better. A non-religious person, such as an athiest or an agnostic, can say, "Things just happen", and that helps them accept reality better.

Of course, this is just my non-aiming 2 cents on religion.

Obviously, there is a spectrum between atheists on one end and fundamentalists on the other, with the majority of people somewhere in the middle. It seems to me that there is nothing more "radical" or maybe polar on the spectrum than an atheist so you can't compare all "theists" with that. I'd say atheists are no different than fundamentalists in that they are both adamant, as you say.

Note: I seem to have lost a paragraph on what I mean by people being designed to recognize a higher power. Well, it was really, really good but I don't think I'm going to retype all that, lol. Essentially, I'm just trying to say that people are communal beings and have a need to recognize something bigger than themselves, whether that be religion, Mother Earth (Gaia), the State, or in JB's case, CTE (j/k JB don't blow a gasket )

I don't think 7 billion people believe in a higher power simply because they are misunderstanding science. This is sort of my point. Atheists seem lost on the idea that not everything is about science explaining everything (odd for me to say, huh?). Maybe it is because they are not receptive to the idea of spirituality that they cannot recognize when signs of life beyond what we experience appear. I think it is a personal thing and as such cannot be communicated convincingly to anyone who has not had those experiences.

Anyway, I'm quickly getting out of my depth and obviously I don't have the answers. I can say the more I learn about how we think the universe works the more strange it becomes. I mean, truly bizarre to the point where fact (as we surmise it to be) really is stranger than fiction. To me, the idea of a consciousness beyond death is a very easy concept to buy into when you consider how unusual the universe is at a quantum level.

 

[boogieman]

Yes, if you choose the wrong line then you will miss. But you will find that you will miss consistently the same way. If you are not picking up the ABC lines correctly then you will get results that are not clean but are highly likely to be consistently wrong. In other words if you were a mm off you would be a multiple of that mm off in the result. That has been my experience.

You are fully correct that it is not any harder than any other method when it comes to using your eyes to pick something to align to. What is harder is that it is counterintutitive and requires a literal change in thinking to free your mind up to let go of old-school "textbook" ghost-ball-ish methods of estimation.

The Edges and B-line (center) don't really require estimation. But some people don't really pick up the farthest most edge right away and tend to look a bit inside the edge. So it takes intentional effort to be sure that you are looking at the farthest outward point on the left or right.

You are on the right track. And as Joey said, you have to practice. The good news here is that unlike his snide suggestion that you will need to hit a million balls to get it the fact is that you are likely to have it down pretty good inside of a couple hundred balls and then you can spend the other 999,800 balls working on all the aspects of the game that are also important. And if you already have a lot of that locked down like a stable stance and solid straight stroke then you will likely find that CTE is a wonderfully accurate compliment to an already solid game.

Thanks! It does look very promising so far, again, this is without actually hitting balls, getting ready to fix my pockets and also not quite ready to devote table time. I'm not super far into the book, maybe like 100 pages. It's kind of funny because every time I have a question, the book pretty much explains it in the next chapter or two. I think it does a good job building the concepts, but at times it takes a little page flipping if you get curious about something. This isn't a knock, it's a HUGE book with a ton of info that I feel I've barely scratched yet.

I can kind of understand the some of the questioning that comes from people used to 2D diagrams, CTE seems so tied into how your vision works in a 3D world that it's kind of difficult to diagram. The good thing is, the book explains it well, I was doing some of the alignment stuff with stuff like hot sauce bottles, etc. I'm really looking forward to giving it a go on the table when I'm able to do so. I think many books are worthless unless you are doing the shots at the table while you read them. I don't feel that way with this book, the diagrams and pics do a good job if you can think outside the box (or in terms of human vision). I know I can't really have an opinion until I actually get some table time in, but it makes sense. I haven't found any of the "cult magic" that some people like talking about. It's just explained in a way that you have to think a bit about how your eyes work. I'm actually enjoying the book more than the video series as I can flip pages around and think about the stuff at my own pace.

 

[JB Cases]

... and none of those people can answer the question about CTE that we've been arguing about for so long.

Stan says X it turns out to be Y and Stan's supporters spend eternity trying to explain why Y really is X. Just look at the pretzel JB has turned himself into to justify why the balls in this video are throwing. What's your take? Stan's original video is posted in the description:

Funny that you don't post Stan's rebuttal? Almost like you deliberately don't want to present both sides to the audience.

As for your shitty pretzel comment......no, no pretzel here. I am fully clear as to what I think and my reasoning. When better incontrovertible reasoning is presented then I accept it and change my mind. You have been completely unable to change my mind on this subject as I have found every single one of your criticisms to be lacking in both logic and sincerity. You have a tendency to extrapolate conclusions from inadequate, faulty and disingenuously presented data.

You are quite literally stalking me around this forum trying desperately to get me to comment on your "video" critique. Sorry Dan, I took up this topic like 8 years ago or so and made a couple videos on it. I am on board with Stan on this one in that CTE accounts for cut-induced-throw OR that CIT isn't as a big a factor as you think it is.

Set up some tests to collect usable data on this. I can think of at least three or four ways to test your claims but it seems as if you want me to do your work for you. Here is how this works. Instructor A says that using XYZ system will produce x-results. Students, a-z claim that use of XYZ method does produce x-results. Critic B says x-results are impossible using XYZ method. Who has the burden of proof here?

To me, in this situation the burden of proof is on the critic. The criteria for "works" is whether or not the task can be completed accurately and consistently. So when that is demonstrated it is satisfied well enough for practical usage.

If Critic B wants to dispute results then the critic should have a way to show the validity of that dispute. As I said I can think of several ways to set up a test that would likely show whether you claim is correct or not but I have no desire to share them with you. Not because I think your claim will be verified but because I have come to the point where I really don't like you and feel that your participation in these discussions isn't to help this sport but is instead a personal trolling exercise intended to discredit all those who speak positively about CTE.

 

[Dan White]

Your "feeling" for atheists is your problem. We experience everything that believers in mysticism feel. We feel love, frustration, anguish, joy, ecstasy, confusion, certainty, clarity, hope, anger, hate, betrayal, wonder, surprise etc.... We just have different motivations and catalysts sometimes because we don't ascribe a mystical reason for what happens to us or for us. We don't see misfortune as "god's wrath" nor benefit as "god's favor". We believe in karma as a sense of justice that we wish to be true but we know that karma doesn't actually exist. We don't concern ourselves with needing a reason to exist and instead concern ourselves with making the best of the existence that we have. And in fact this is the very essence of why I like CTE. I need to do a task. CTE is a method that allows me to do my task in a way that is objective and requires no imagination. It requires only that I train my eyes to recognize hard reference points and allow my body to align to those reference points in order to get into shooting position on a shot line that I am confident is correct. That confidence comes through the results of learning the system and testing it out against all categories of shots that the system is supposed to handle. No mysticism here just instruction, understanding, practice, note the results, use if acceptable. When something produces repeatable consistent results then it doesn't require faith to use it. I have been saying this maxim for a while and it's true, "the proof is on the table".

Does that mean it will work the same way for every user? In a world where every user had the same conditions and the same abilities and the same visual acuity and the same learning ability and tolerance for practice to hone skill then yes it would work the same for everyone. However we already know that this isn't the case. So you take a set of instructions and give it to imperfect people who are operating under a wide range of conditions and you will get a range of results. The question is whether an individual using the method sees clear improvement that works for them. Another way to say this is that the best hammer ever made will not turn an individual into a master carpenter but it will not hold them back in any way and will likely benefit them by the use. The amount of benefit they derive is commensurate with the skill level they have when acquiring the tool and how much time they are willing to put in to get the full range of performance that the tool is capable of delivering.
If, for example, the new hammer ABSOLUTELY required that it be held within a marked place on the handle for the optimal results and I were to hold it outside that range some of the time then I will be highly unlikely to derive consistently great results. The results I do get might still be better than what I get from a crappy hammer but they won't be consistently near perfect. In that situation I could go off on the hammer and say it doesn't perform as advertised but in fact it would be user error on my part for not following the directions. It would be a situation where I was feeding bad input to the tool and thus getting imperfect results.
So, yes, I am NOT the best "ambassador" for showing the full range of achievable results consistently. You are being disingnenious though, and you KNOW THIS FULL WELL, when you seek to take a single person and use them to judge the effectiveness of a method and ignore all of the other people reporting and demonstrating better and more consistent results. I have NEVER EVER said that the use of CTE or any other method has "fixed" my game. I have said that my pocketing is greatly improved, measurably and noticeably. I have said that my ability to read the table and see the tangents has greatly improved. Both of these things are 100% true. At the same time in the 20 year span since first being introduced to objective aiming by Hal Houle my physical ability has deteriorated, my personal responsibilities have greatly increased and my enthusiasm to play and practice has greatly diminished. I love this sport but I am no longer so in love with it that I am willing to give it hours each day to keep my skills sharp and to improve. So using "me" as your "proof" that CTE is not good or good enough or objective IS just plain stupid because you then MUST look at players who have put in that time and effort to learn it perfectly and have the consistent improved performance results as a result. Refusal to do that shows that you are just on some sort of personal vendetta instead of actually interested in compiling useful data.

Continued....

You have a habit of taking a comment and running with it in crazy directions. You are putting words into my mouth.

I do find it interesting that you believe CTE gives you an objective method for aiming. You cannot prove this because pocketing a ball does not mean the method was objective. You have no idea whether it is objective or not but you believe it is. Dare I say it requires FAITH in order to believe that CTE finds the pocket for you?

If someone could design an experiment to prove one way or the other whether your subconscious memory of successful shots was altering your CTE procedure, would you take part in that experiment, or would you be afraid that what you have bought into for so many years is wrong? Again, I believe the CTE pre shot routine has helped you and others to play better. I am not challenging that.

 

[Dan White]

Ok regarding your continued effort to attempt to get me to say that Stan is wrong.....save it. You have determined a conclusion that you are unwilling to entertain any alternate to. I am unwilling to go through the exercise to again analyze your analysis to determine whether or not I concur with your assessment given that the last time I debunked your analysis you also refused to consider my assessment of the results. Frankly, at this point, I see your efforts as not in any way interested in figuring out the actual mechanics in play with CTE aiming but instead to attempt to nitpick disingenuously in an attempt to discredit Stan (and me and all others who advocate for, teach and use CTE) for the purposes of then discrediting the system itself. My belief is that your conclusions regarding this topic have been made decades ago and this is a continuation of promoting them.
snip...

Wow. That's a mouthful. All I asked was whether you thought Stan was throwing balls and didn't realize it and instead of pretty much "yes" or "no" I got whatever you want to call that reply. I did predict it, though.

You are making so many leaps in logic and srtaw man arguments that I'm not going to spend time on them. The biggest fallacy in what you wrote is that if I think Stan is wrong then I should prove it. I thought the way it worked was the guy making the claim should be able to prove it. Where is Stan's proof that it is an objective, professional aiming system that sets it apart from everything else and was nearly lost to mankind if not for his book? You can't just say stuff and make other people prove you wrong. Stan doesn't even know when he is throwing balls. How can he possibly know that his method is objective?

I'm very happy to drop all the name calling and simply have a discussion over the video that you now say you won't discuss because it is mean or something. I need to look at those video links you provided. Maybe you did address something in spite of what you wrote.

 

[Dan White]

What do you mean TRYING to make it work. This is exactly the BS that you say which is either deliberately and maliciously said to provoke a negative response OR you are that clueless about what I say and do as to be unable to accurately report on it.

First I haven't even been using CTE for 20 years. I used Hal's quarters system that he taught me and was happy with that. I did not start to use or think about CTE until around 2010ish when I started to see Dave Segal talking about it. Even then I didn't know exactly what it was or how to use it. Still I had some success with it despite not knowing the steps. Which goes towards the early concepts I showed where the CTE line and Ghost Ball line are within a fraction a mm of each other at the back of the ball.

I want to be totally clear so that you HOPEFULLY understand me. I do NOT and DID NOT need Stan's DVDs or his book to use CTE. I do not need any additional instruction to use CTE. Stan has been working on and REVISING the instructions as he discovers better ways to use and explain the method.

The way that we work leather now IS NOT the same way we worked leather in 1850. Now we have people all over the world constantly discovering and revising methods to improve the way we work leather.

I don't get the mockery. So what if a person wants to create two dvds and an epic book on a topic? Why does that bother you to the point that you feel like you need to mock and mischaracterize me as a substitute for directly mocking Stan?

I doubt that you have gone through every book or dvd created on pool and nitpicked through them to find things you don't agree with. I doubt that you have tracked down every claim ever made that you don't like and endeavored to mock and denigrate those who made those claims.

Secondly, Stan HAS IN FACT made a revision that makes it easier to use to use CTE. But I can't explain it to you because it's not my place to do so nor do I feel that it would make any difference to your attitude on this subject. When I discuss the NEW information with CTE users we have a good time working it out together and seeing the results. While we were completely happy with the previous methods which we still use with success we are even happier to have an even better way to apply the CTE method.

Thirdly, I am positive that win or lose I have so much more fun on the table than you do. You might "feel sorry" for atheists because of some half-assed notion that they don't experience existentialism but I know one thing that I have experienced many times in life which I am confident that you have not. That is the feeling of outrunning the nuts in a tough match. Getting in the box up against the nuts in the first place is already an experience that most nits will never have the pleasure of feeling. Winning in that position though is literally the high you cannot buy. It must be earned through extraordinary effort. For the past twenty years I have used Objective Aiming and for the past ten Center to Edge aiming in every match I have played in. Win or lose this type of aiming is part of my tool kit and is a very dependable part.

I honestly DGAF what you think about it. Your name could be replaced with any other super nobody and my responses that I choose to give would be the same. You get your jollies by knocking aiming systems, CTE in particular, by knocking aiming systems users, me in particular, and by knocking aiming systems instructors, Stan in particular. I get my jollies from going to the table and using CTE to pocket balls.

Didn't we already have this discussion? I apologized for being snarky somewhat like the way you talk about PJ's fidgeting video and we moved on, or at least I thought we did.

 

[JB Cases]

You have a habit of taking a comment and running with it in crazy directions. You are putting words into my mouth.

So you can make claims about what I think but I cannot analyze your words contrasted with your actions?

I do find it interesting that you believe CTE gives you an objective method for aiming. You cannot prove this because pocketing a ball does not mean the method was objective.

I did not say that POCKETING a ball means it was aimed correctly because of CTE. I said that WHEN the CTE method is used I have a higher success rate when attempting to pocket balls. It is possible that CTE has nothing to do with it but highly unlikely. I can demonstrate that I am following directions and using OBJECTIVE reference points to get to the shot line. I can say with full clarity that using CTE doesn't require me to guess or feel any anxiety about the shot line that was produced. That is AFTER I learned to use it and found through practice that the lines produced through the usage of objective reference points are incredibly likely to be correct. In the period where I was learning and testing I certainly had moments where my brain was screaming that the line was wrong and I consciously overrode that and took the shot and found that the shot line was in fact correct.

You have no idea whether it is objective or not but you believe it is.

Of course I know that it is objective. And I know that through the learning and testing that I have done.

Dare I say it requires FAITH in order to believe that CTE finds the pocket for you?

You can say that the correct usage of CTE instills TRUST that the shot line produced is the correct one. Just like you can trust that a sufficiently dense object will fall to the ground at a predictable rate.

If someone could design an experiment to prove one way or the other whether your subconscious memory of successful shots was altering your CTE procedure, would you take part in that experiment, or would you be afraid that what you have bought into for so many years is wrong?

I am willing to participate in anything done in good faith. I don't trust you or any of the other small group of critics because of your actions all of these years. I have offered to pay the expenses for Dave Alciatore and others to go to Stan for the purpose of having a meeting of the minds on the table to suss out the areas of dispute. Not a single one of you has ever taken me up on that offer. I am afraid of absolutely nothing in the pool world. Here you are assigning motivation AGAIN.

When I went to Stan's house I challenged him for several hours using every critique that you and your fellows have regurgitated day after day for the past decade. I brought a witness for that exercise. You think that you know me and in fact you don't. I didn't "buy into" anything. I was shown a method and I tried it and found that it works well. The proof, for me, is on the table.

Again, I believe the CTE pre shot routine has helped you and others to play better. I am not challenging that.

What does play better mean to you? What gauge do you use for determining what play better means? What in the CTE routine would possibly help someone to play better?

 

[Dan White]

I haven't found any of the "cult magic" that some people like talking about.

Give it some thought and wait until you actually put it into practice on the table. You might have more questions at that point.

 

[JB Cases]

Wow. That's a mouthful. All I asked was whether you thought Stan was throwing balls and didn't realize it and instead of pretty much "yes" or "no" I got whatever you want to call that reply. I did predict it, though.

You are making so many leaps in logic and srtaw man arguments that I'm not going to spend time on them. The biggest fallacy in what you wrote is that if I think Stan is wrong then I should prove it. I thought the way it worked was the guy making the claim should be able to prove it. Where is Stan's proof that it is an objective, professional aiming system that sets it apart from everything else and was nearly lost to mankind if not for his book? You can't just say stuff and make other people prove you wrong. Stan doesn't even know when he is throwing balls. How can he possibly know that his method is objective?

I'm very happy to drop all the name calling and simply have a discussion over the video that you now say you won't discuss because it is mean or something. I need to look at those video links you provided. Maybe you did address something in spite of what you wrote.

I already addressed this the first time you brought it up. Again you don't allow for any other possible explanation for something you saw. You come to a single conclusion and that's the only one you will consider.

Fallacy? What part of burden of proof is on the accuser do you not understand?

If I say your name is Chris Williams and you are wanted by the FBI are you then required to prove me wrong? No, you can completely ignore my claims. The burden of proof is on me. If I say I can jump ten feet into the air and hover then the burden of proof is on me. If I do it and then you say it's not possible then the burden of proof is on you. That's why James Randi has a million dollar prize if anyone can prove that they have psychic powers. I have stood up a dozen times to put my money where my mouth is. Not a single one of you has been willing to do the same.

If you want to discuss whatever proof that you think Stan should provide then you should talk to Stan. The proof that it is objective is CLEAR. The idea that it is a professional aiming system stems from the fact that it is something that works for professional players and, just speculating here, that it produces a repeatable accurate shot line when used correctly as professionals are likely to be able to do and thus it is a system suitable for the professional level. As for the "lost to mankind" snide remark.....do you see anyone else diving into the subject as deeply as Stan has? Without his content we may very well have lost the most enduring connection to Hal's work. I don't think it would unreasonable for Stan to say that if that is what he said. Doesn't matter though because the content now exists. Nothing new and positive about CTE was likely to come from you or your fellow critics so it is fair to say that the ONLY reason you are here is because of Stan at this point as you have made it a mission to knock him and the work he is doing.

 

[JB Cases]

Give it some thought and wait until you actually put it into practice on the table. You might have more questions at that point.

Not doing the religious-insult thing anymore right?

 

[JB Cases]

Didn't we already have this discussion? I apologized for being snarky somewhat like the way you talk about PJ's fidgeting video and we moved on, or at least I thought we did.

Dan, your apology is not sincere. You are not sincere. I wish that you were.