Here is a discussion/interview with Chris Henry, who is the coach to several top snooker players. I found the part about reprogramming the brain with a practice situation particularly interesting.
Chris Henry, snooker coach
- Thread starter Bob Jewett
- Start date
On the visualization thing; I like to quote the Bible - "...in his own image."
So your visual center is in the back of your head. Cool. Where's the display???
So your visual center is in the back of your head. Cool. Where's the display???
I will be watching this video again for sure. So much to digest, surely I have missed some of the knowledge being dispensed.
tldw;
The best cueists in history look/looked at the cue ball last.
Your quest is over.
The interesting part for me was the statement, "Aiming starts when you are down on the shot." I never understood how people could say that they did all their aiming while standing behind the ball. It wasn't until THE_jv posted that he made adjustments to his aiming after he got down on the shot that I discovered that there was at least one other person in the world who aimed like I do. Now, this snooker coach is saying the same thing, which is essentially that stepping into the table and getting down on the shot is too coarse for accurate aiming, so once you are down on the shot you need to fine tune your aiming to find the precise aiming line.
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Interesting that he doesn't talk much about the usual instructional topics. He does talk a little about squirt, but mostly it's mental stuff.
Well Yogi said, "Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical".
Great Minds 
I bought a set his “training balls” via Tyler Styler and I use them more than I thought, although they were stupidly expensive.
And gets some of it wrong, based on my understanding of what you and Dr Dave have explained.
Look at all the histrionics players - snookuhruhs too - do getting down. It's analogous to pilots in heavy crosswinds expecting 3 point landings. It's no wonder they have to aim when they're parked on the shot. Laughable.
Applied neuroscience! His approach of training the brain is spot on - gotta get those quality reps in to develop a heightened sense of body coordination. Learning the physics of the game and aiming systems can be useful and make practice more efficient, but there's no substitution for structured table time. Thanks for sharing, Chris sounds like a very knowledgable coach.
Insightful guy. I like the Palace table and the bar piano. Hmmm...
I at first was hung up at where the aiming starts statement. I have concluded that the survey to aim is a blend rather than devision. With the coarse to fine is a balanced process. Well as a carpenter I can tell you that going from 80 grit to 400 is done in balanced steps 120 220 320 available along the way. .
Practice one handed gives me feedback as to my foundations strength or weakness and looking for tendencies. Sometimes I surprise myself and make the ball.
Practice one handed gives me feedback as to my foundations strength or weakness and looking for tendencies. Sometimes I surprise myself and make the ball.