am I practicing correctly and efficiently?

judochoke

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
6 months in, practicing at least 2 hours a day at home. 75 percent of my time, I like to put out 7 solids and the 8 ball, and just practice pattern play. I do this twice, and then I throw all of the balls and play the ghost, one time. then I do the line up drill, all 15 balls at the middle diamond in a row, trying to go in order. then I just repeat those three drills, over and over again.

my other 25 percent of the time, I use a timer, and a notebook, and will do 20 minutes of draw, 20 minutes of follow, 20 minutes of frozen ball shots, ect. ect.
I will also work on a shot that im missing, or 90-90 aiming.

they are so many drills out there on the internet, should I be doing all of these different drills? or just stick to the ones im doing and enjoy??

my improvement is coming, but its a very slow process.

I also like to put out 6 balls and shoot in order, via tom Lowry, I can get all six 50 percent of the time.

am I efficient??????? thanks for any replys. judo
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
...
they are so many drills out there on the internet, should I be doing all of these different drills? or just stick to the ones im doing and enjoy??
...
Work on the shots where you make errors. It is pointless to do a drill shot that you can do perfectly 100 in a row. Every shot in a drill must challenge you one way or another.

When you play the ghost, try to note which shots or positions are problems for you.
 

greyghost

Coast to Coast
Silver Member
Work on the shots where you make errors. It is pointless to do a drill shot that you can do perfectly 100 in a row. Every shot in a drill must challenge you one way or another.



When you play the ghost, try to note which shots or positions are problems for you.



To compound on this don’t practice (especially too much work on) shots well beyond your range that will force major errors on your part.

It’s not going to help reinforce good habits only promote bad ones.

Reach and out try but don’t keep bashing away at some circus shot......if one chooses too I’ll give them a banana call them gorilla and they can go home with the rest of the apes lol

Practice the 3 Q’s:

Quality over quantity
Quality over bs
Quality


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 

BilliardsAbout

BondFanEvents.com
Silver Member
You are working hard and working well, but a tune-up lesson and a few pro secrets are always a help. First lesson from me is free of cost.
 

Scott Lee

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
judo...You are leaving out what the top instructors feel is most important... drills that check the quality, accuracy, and repeatability of your stroke. One such drill is shooting the CB up and back to your tip, down the centerline of the table. Then there are drills to correct errors in your stroke, and ingrain good habits. There are several others. Find an SPF instructor and get the Mother Drills.

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

6 months in, practicing at least 2 hours a day at home. 75 percent of my time, I like to put out 7 solids and the 8 ball, and just practice pattern play. I do this twice, and then I throw all of the balls and play the ghost, one time. then I do the line up drill, all 15 balls at the middle diamond in a row, trying to go in order. then I just repeat those three drills, over and over again.

my other 25 percent of the time, I use a timer, and a notebook, and will do 20 minutes of draw, 20 minutes of follow, 20 minutes of frozen ball shots, ect. ect.
I will also work on a shot that im missing, or 90-90 aiming.

they are so many drills out there on the internet, should I be doing all of these different drills? or just stick to the ones im doing and enjoy??

my improvement is coming, but its a very slow process.

I also like to put out 6 balls and shoot in order, via tom Lowry, I can get all six 50 percent of the time.

am I efficient??????? thanks for any replys. judo
 

Low500

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
:):):).....Life in a poolroom.
Now, even the instructors are quarreling with each other.
:)
Gotta' love this game of pool...just gotta' eat it up.
*Santa Claus makes everything right*...cause Gene Autry said so.
:thumbup2:
 

FranCrimi

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
6 months in, practicing at least 2 hours a day at home. 75 percent of my time, I like to put out 7 solids and the 8 ball, and just practice pattern play. I do this twice, and then I throw all of the balls and play the ghost, one time. then I do the line up drill, all 15 balls at the middle diamond in a row, trying to go in order. then I just repeat those three drills, over and over again.

my other 25 percent of the time, I use a timer, and a notebook, and will do 20 minutes of draw, 20 minutes of follow, 20 minutes of frozen ball shots, ect. ect.
I will also work on a shot that im missing, or 90-90 aiming.

they are so many drills out there on the internet, should I be doing all of these different drills? or just stick to the ones im doing and enjoy??

my improvement is coming, but its a very slow process.

I also like to put out 6 balls and shoot in order, via tom Lowry, I can get all six 50 percent of the time.

am I efficient??????? thanks for any replys. judo

When you practice, you have to make sure that you're addressing your weaknesses. The best way to determine what your weaknesses are is in competition. It's not easy to analyze yourself but try to find problems in your game when you compete and take those problems to the practice table and try to work it out. Sometimes a drill to address the problem helps and sometimes shooting the same shot over and over helps and sometimes it's just a matter of getting past the fear of a particular type of shot.

But imagine if you could fix one problem every couple of practice sessions. Wow! You would improve really quickly.
 

BilliardsAbout

BondFanEvents.com
Silver Member
Calling anything you teach "secrets" is marketing BS, whether from you or (my old friend) Tom.

pj
chgo

It is not appropriate, as I understand it, to say at AZ that one has a "secret aim system" for pay.

Aim systems aside, I do have quite a number of hustler and pro secrets that I teach in lessons. I've noted, for an example, that a long discussion will go on at AZ for multiple pages, like "What was Pro X doing at 3:56 in this video?" and I'll look at it and say, "He was doing secret Y."

I suppose I could change to "pro skill-level techniques" or so, since the semantics are upsetting.
 

donuteric

always a newbie
Silver Member
6 months in, practicing at least 2 hours a day at home. 75 percent of my time, I like to put out 7 solids and the 8 ball, and just practice pattern play. I do this twice, and then I throw all of the balls and play the ghost, one time. then I do the line up drill, all 15 balls at the middle diamond in a row, trying to go in order. then I just repeat those three drills, over and over again.

my other 25 percent of the time, I use a timer, and a notebook, and will do 20 minutes of draw, 20 minutes of follow, 20 minutes of frozen ball shots, ect. ect.
I will also work on a shot that im missing, or 90-90 aiming.

they are so many drills out there on the internet, should I be doing all of these different drills? or just stick to the ones im doing and enjoy??

my improvement is coming, but its a very slow process.

I also like to put out 6 balls and shoot in order, via tom Lowry, I can get all six 50 percent of the time.

am I efficient??????? thanks for any replys. judo

When I first bought a table at home last year, I did what many did: spread and ran balls. I spent (and arguably wasted) a bit of time doing that for a couple months. However, even without any structured practice sessions, I improved a lot and raised my Fargo to 570 with over 1000 recorded games. I naively thought to myself, "at this rate, I'll be playing SVB speed soon." Then I hit my first plateau. No matter how much time I spent running balls, I didn't seem to improve anymore.

A few months later, I hosted Bustamante for a week, who taught me a few things. I started spending quarter of my session practice on breaking. In addition to learning troubled angles and drills, I incorporated 15-ball rotation and 14.1 in my practice routines. I raised my Fargo to 600.

Then I hosted Efren and Rolando, who told me not to practice too much. "Quality over quantity," they said.

Now I spend roughly 8 hours/week on the table at home and spend the rest of the time competing. I believe muscle memory will obtain any information, good or bad, so if I'm not playing well during practice, I stop and just walk away from the table.

It's counter-intuitive to think that I spend less time practicing and yet my game seems to improve, slowly but surely. I'm at 615 now and hopefully I'll break the 625 goal soon and 650 by end of 2019.
 
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Buzzard II

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
It's funny about pool instructors. Some live to help you become a better player. And others live to hustle pool lessons or other stuff. This thread has shown me who to avoid. I'll let it go at that.
 

BilliardsAbout

BondFanEvents.com
Silver Member
It's funny about pool instructors. Some live to help you become a better player. And others live to hustle pool lessons or other stuff. This thread has shown me who to avoid. I'll let it go at that.

Don't misunderstand me:

1) I've shared some secrets, oops, little-known techniques here, and had instructors and others nay-say, whereas the difference with people like Tom Simpson is/was he would ALWAYS test what I would say at the tables and discuss it, so it's for lessons only, usually, sorry...

2) My first lesson is free, but I deserve compensation for showing secrets, oops, I mean little-know techniques here. My average student goes up two full handicap points after a single lesson. They win every match they play for the next eight weeks in league and their handicap goes up.

3) I have other income and don't rely on lessons for my daily bread. I've also written thousands of e-mails to individuals, done many free seminars and clinics, given free lessons to needy folk, etc. I've written about as much on pool as anyone, and have done over a half-million words, mostly on pool instruction, online, in magazines, books, etc. to help the average Joe player, too.

It's funny about pool instructors, yeah. How about I give you a free lesson and some secrets--oops, I mean little-known techniques.
 

BilliardsAbout

BondFanEvents.com
Silver Member
It's funny about pool instructors. Some live to help you become a better player. And others live to hustle pool lessons or other stuff. This thread has shown me who to avoid. I'll let it go at that.

And let's not lose my main point. I've dreamed of hosting or facilitating an instructor's conference where everyone can freely share ideas over pool tables, live, learn, love and grow--and change this game forever for everyone, for the better. But I felt I had to step in and reprove an otherwise respected instructor for saying mean things about me and a friend gone on... I would share more freely my techniques at AZ if they weren't blindly insulted when I post.

However, I relish thoughtful, intelligent criticism, too. We all know who are the thinking, careful instructors here...
 
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