With zero outside help?
I mean there has to be more to this story...
Spill the beans, man!
Corey D on Aiming
- Thread starter JoeyInCali
- Start date
I mean there has to be more to this story...
Spill the beans, man!
I can tell ya from my own personal growth as a player... I was one hell of a shot maker in my youth. Way better then I am now.
Ghost ball was the norm in my snooker days. In fact you'd have a hard time finding someone that wasn't using it to align themselves correctly. I played snooker from 13 to roughly 21. No where near enough to reach HAMB experience, but I was still a decent potter.
The switch to pool was comically easy in terms of potting. I couldn't play patterns or had tight control over the CB, but it didn't matter because I could make any ball from anywhere. Within a month, I was one of the top pool players in my area. Fast forward and my eyes are going. I've replaced raw potting ability with pattern play, and table IQ. To this day I approach aiming like I did in my 20's however I lean heavily on HAMB.
Sorry for the back story. My point..., you need nothing more than a solid and consistent foundation to become proficient at potting balls. Oh and the common sense to adjust your aim from the last time you missed a similar shot.
I’m at the point in teaching now that Corey says is the problem with non-pro players and aiming.
He said they are stick aiming not ball aiming.
I’ve recently written about ball path rather than cue line.
The ball path to make a ball varies little regardless of what spin you put on a ball, outside of massè, of course.
There are innumerable cue lines that will get a satisfactory ball path capable of making the ball on most shots.
The cue path imparts a variety of applications and degrees of spin which make the transition from ball path to ball path easier.
A well planned pattern keeps the ball paths simple and offers cue lines that are easy to deliver.
I promote delivery systems that help keep ball paths simple.
All sorts of good players violate the purists version of delivering a cue, with straightness.
On the other hand they delivering a ball into impact and beyond, to the next position to do it again.
Those aiming systems, are based on cue lines and center ball striking.
A center ball strike does produce a predictable ball path and is so seductive.
The failure comes when ghost ball and center ball are presented together.
The ghost ball is a stick line representation.
Freddy the Beard talks about where you hit the ball isn’t the issue.
It’s what is on the ball at impact that determines what happens.
It’s the ball path and interaction that matter.
The ghost ball position is just a close neighbor to most of the best ball path impact locations.
The room and area was full of pro level and open level players. He was playing non stop. Gambling and competing his brains out. I started going to that room right after he moved to Ohio. But I knew well everyone there when he started. He picked it up so fast.
You will find similar stories with other Pros. Within about 2 years of picking up a cue they are already near pro level. Schmidt is another one with the same story, since he is also the subject of this thread. He started at age 18 or 19, and 2 years later he was a great player already.
The idea brought about on these forums that any aiming system will improve one’s learning curve, (or improve the highest level that can be achieved by a particular individual) frankly I believe is thought of out of thin air. There has never been any such study done. It’s just an opinion. My opinion that it won’t make any difference is just as valid.
There is a good interview article about Corey in a billiards digest article printed maybe around 2010. He talks about how he came up.
But there was no aiming system or formal structured lessons. He came up the old school way by playing non stop. He had the innate talent to transform that non stop play into a top pro. I can name 20 players that played right along side of him, also non stop, in the same room, snd never got past a B level. Some even topped out at a C level. (And a couple made it to Open level).
Very cool indeed! Thanks
Efren was the same. At 13 years old, he beat a top 10 player in the islands already. He told me himself, by 19, he said he would have beat anyone in the world.
Keith McReady was just the same . He busted Cornbread Red who came to California to play him. Keith was not even 20 then.
I can assure it's not an idea thought up out of thin air. Lol. And it's not just an opinion.
Plenty of research has been done on skill development, talent development, and how we learn through association and repetition.
Initially, learning any skill requires conscious effort in order to gather the knowledge needed to perform the skill. That knowledge is stored in explicit memory, which is the type of memory that can be accessed by conscious thought whenever we want or need the information.
We learn the new skill by consciously using our acquired knowledge to physically train our muscles and our senses to perform the skill. This requires work, conscious effort. And after consciously repeating the skill over and over, we eventually reach a point where we can do it successfully more often than not. And the more we repeat successful attempts, the more consistent we become at performing the skill. Eventually the conscious mind is no longer performing the skill. The actual performance gets transferred to implicit memory, which is the realm of the subconscious.
We still retain all the knowledge that pertains to the skill. That knowledge remains in explicit memory where we can consciously bring it up and tinker with it when needed. But the actual performance, which involves fine motor skills, muscle memory, hand-eye coordination, etc... is stored in implicit memory where the conscious mind has no jurisdiction.
Aiming cut shots (or kick shots or bank shots) on a pool table is a skill that gets developed exactly as described above. The standard method of gathering aiming knowledge involves trial and error. Look at the shot, estimate where the cb needs to be in order to pocket the ob, then shoot and analyze your results. After enough misses and makes your brain will eventually gather enough accurate knowledge, and then you'll start making more shots than you miss. After enough repetition from here on you'll become more and more consistent, and the skill will eventually become stored in implicit memory and thus be performed more on a subconscious level.
An aiming system that allows the player to acquire aiming knowledge quicker, rather than through trial and error, can speed up the whole learning process. The player can immediately start using that knowledge instead of learning it through time-consuming effort.
Does every aiming system or method offer a shortcut to aquiring aiming knowledge? Of course not. But that's something players can learn on their own in just a few minutes.
An aiming system that allows the player to acquire aiming knowledge quicker, rather than through trial and error, can speed up the whole learning process. The player can immediately start using that knowledge instead of learning it through time-consuming effort.
Debatable .
Trying to make an aiming system work for you does not necessarily mean it will shorten your learning curve compared to hitting drill after drill.
Frankly, doing drills would be better imo.
Most popular instructor Tor Lowry has pretty much proven that .
Ralph Eckert and Bert Kinnister have world champions come out from their drills .
Debatable .
Trying to make an aiming system work for you does not necessarily mean it will shorten your learning curve compared to hitting drill after drill.
Frankly, doing drills would be better imo.
Most popular instructor Tor Lowry has pretty much proven that .
Ralph Eckert and Bert Kinnister have world champions come out from their drills .
That reminds me of a Bruce Lee quote, "Boards don't hit back". LOL The concept of pool seems easy and making balls can seem easy at times, but.....
I agree that if a player has to actually work at making an aiming system work, then they may as well be using old school traditional methods, because time wise such a system probably won't be quicker when it comes to developing proficient aiming skills.
However, the type of system that provides a known aiming reference (not based on experience or estimates)....a system that doesn't require any time to make it work (it just works as is), can be a shortcut for skill development. It's no different than using a kicking system or banking system. It provides a shortcut to knowledge that would otherwise have to be acquired through experience and trial and error.
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You prefer something more substantial like the CTE tesseract huh?...
Exactly... This is my take on my use of ghost ball as well. Just a starting point. No different then any other system.
I have to agree with you... As written imo you are correct that the notion that 'any' aiming system will improve someone's learning curve is a silly one. Some of these 'systems' are just wacky, and if there was any benefit early on I willing to wager that early adopter would struggle breaking free of that system when further growth required it.
I also agree that the concept of a system maximizing ability seems far fetched. You could even argue that if a player at their top end was using a system as a crutch then what ability to they really have...? I can make pancakes if I follow the instructions, but that doesn't mean I have the ability to be a chef.
I know of no such 'system .vs. no system' studies such as they would apply to pool. Not that I ever bothered to look for any. That said, speaking from my own experience in learning snooker. All the top young players in my area that took the game seriously used ghost ball and utilized traditional snooker mechanics when addressing the ball. We as a group accelerated past the more experienced, less disciplined players within short order. Hard to say which aspect can be given credit (mechanics, GB, practice), but if I had to choose I'd say mechanics. However, those mechanics were driven off the aim line which was roughly determined by GB.
flmusclehead
Member
Here's Neils: (paraphrased)
There's 2 sides of the story when it comes to aiming.
1. When I'm not using spin on the CB, I use the ghost ball.
2. When I am using spin on the CB, I'm not using a system at all.
There are too many variable when putting spin on the ball for a fixed system to be effective.
It's a matter of feel and everyone must find their own way.
Learn your own aiming system by making small corrections.
There's 2 sides of the story when it comes to aiming.
1. When I'm not using spin on the CB, I use the ghost ball.
2. When I am using spin on the CB, I'm not using a system at all.
There are too many variable when putting spin on the ball for a fixed system to be effective.
It's a matter of feel and everyone must find their own way.
Learn your own aiming system by making small corrections.
CTE said you don't even need to know what you're doing. That's the stuff I need to know!
You are gold then because you have no idea what you are doing