The scotch doubles thread got me thinking about my favorite scotch doubles match. There is a small lesson to be learned from this as well.
I'll start by saying that I play a lot of scotch doubles with my road partner Josh Burbul. He is also over 700 FR and while there is a small difference numerically on the table we both play pretty darn close. Contrary to popular opinion we get along great despite playing radically different styles. I'm more analytical and deliberate, he is fast and lose. My cue ball is surgical, he flies around the table and bombs balls in. I thread needles and hit spots on the table with my cue ball, he plays rotation on a snooker table and laughs.
Yet we have played enough together to gel just fine. We respect each other. We've seen each other's best games, worst games, and have seen it turn around often enough to know that it's part of the game and nothing to get worked up about. And we play this way a lot because we love practicing together but don't like playing head to head, we're too competitive and we don't like playing each other so we team up.
A few years ago we were at a tournament out of state and we spent an afternoon up at the poolroom in town looking for a game. We found action with the room owner who offered to play us scotch doubles, him partnering with younger player. Well, Josh and I have played so much together we felt like we had the nuts against anyone we didn't know. We happily posted a respectable sum and flipped the coin for the first race to nine, 9 ball.
Boy were we in for a shock! The room owner turned in a virtuoso set! I mean, this guy did it all! Power. Finesse. Knowledge. Cue ball. Shot making. Safeties. Kicks. Elevated. Off the end rail. Everything split the wicket like it was on a rail. It was mesmerizing. Meanwhile his partner, while a bit more of a young up and comer, was shooting super straight as well. Nothing fancy, but just shooting the eyes off the balls and making everything he needed to. The room owner paved the way but his partner was on his game and together they turned in a heck of a performance. I think we got beat 9-2.
Josh and I looked at each other and laughed because it was so strong. We decided we had to play another set. I figured no one on earth could play two sets like that in a row and if they could I'd pay to see it.
Sure enough things turned around. It's funny, I remember feeling like I didn't play that well, and Josh tells me the same thing. Yet somehow we put up enough resistance to establish ourselves in the match. They finally made some errors, we got a few rolls, and next thing you know we were on the hill up 8-4 or 8-5.
That's when it happened. They had a chance to win a game and the younger player on their team flat out dogged a key shot on the 4 ball. The rest of the balls were open and we ran out to win the set and get back to even. After flipping the coin Josh started to head to take a quick bathroom break and we heard the room owner say to the younger player (in a tone of total disgust) "You can't be missing that 4 ball bro." He was shaking his head and scowling.
Josh and I exchanged a wide eyed glance because we knew what was about to happen. And let me tell you, it was a meltdown of glorious proportion! First the younger player tightened up like a drum and started jawing balls and losing the cue ball. Then the room owner continued to escalate and eye roll his partner, but meanwhile he started to dog it too. Instead of playing normal shape for his partner he'd try to do way more than the table offered to try to give him ball in hand, as if to say "If I leave you anything tougher you'll dog it again". Because of that he started messing up trying to force things that weren't there. Before we knew it we won the next two sets and they quit with us up two on the session!
Maybe we would've won anyway, maybe not. Who knows? But I know they played strong, and I know I wasn't playing rock solid. They had a shot. But they play well as a team, and that was enough to ruin their chances.
OK, so what's the moral? It has nothing to do with team pool or scotch doubles. It has to do with how you play on your own. We can all sit here and laugh at such an obvious gaffe. Yet take a moment and think right now of how you treat yourself when you make a blunder. Do you chide yourself? Talk down to yourself? Shake your head in disgust? Say things like "I should've made that ball", or "I can't be missing shots like that"?
If you do, please explain to me how treating yourself this way is any different than treating a partner this way? Why is it so obvious when we see this in others behavior outwardly, yet we are blinded by our own self abuse for years or decades? Oh sure, I know all the rationalizations. "It motivates me to do better", or "I can't accept failure or else that's what I'll get" and any number of one dimensional rationalizations that fail to hold up to even a superficial examination. Shoot, the Inner Game of Tennis is based entirely on the relationship between Self 1 (the teller) and Self 2 (the doer), two parts of us that have to work well together. Yet people that have read this book still fall into this way of thinking.
It's so bad that I now spend 5 minutes of every bootcamp (trust me, that's all it takes, this is VERY memorable!) having my students practice missing the 9 ball. That's right. I want them to dog it. When they do they can't berate themselves or do the 'slow concession' of the table where they sit there in stark disbelief for 10 seconds before slinking away and shaking their head. No sir. Not in my dojo! They have to stand up tall with their head high and their shoulders back, walk back to the chair with their mouth zipped shut and a proud walk, and take their miss like a man! That's how you dog the nine ball in my house.
Of course there is more to the mental game than that, there are important outlooks on how we view ourselves and the meaning of competition and the pursuit of excellence. This is just one symptom of a deeper flaw in perspective. I like going to the roots and not just pissing on sparks. But man, is this a big one.
So, my advice to all of you is to dust of the Inner Game of Tennis from your bookshelves, and go ahead and work on answering those questions about finding motivation and desire that isn't hinged on punishment and self criticism. Criticism may motivate in the short term, but it undermines and sucks the life out of the game, and as the game becomes a blend of nightmarish sessions and improvement grinds to a halt the motivation fades. Trust me, when you have fun playing and keep getting better you feel plenty motivated!
Your turn. How are you going to play it?
I'll start by saying that I play a lot of scotch doubles with my road partner Josh Burbul. He is also over 700 FR and while there is a small difference numerically on the table we both play pretty darn close. Contrary to popular opinion we get along great despite playing radically different styles. I'm more analytical and deliberate, he is fast and lose. My cue ball is surgical, he flies around the table and bombs balls in. I thread needles and hit spots on the table with my cue ball, he plays rotation on a snooker table and laughs.
Yet we have played enough together to gel just fine. We respect each other. We've seen each other's best games, worst games, and have seen it turn around often enough to know that it's part of the game and nothing to get worked up about. And we play this way a lot because we love practicing together but don't like playing head to head, we're too competitive and we don't like playing each other so we team up.
A few years ago we were at a tournament out of state and we spent an afternoon up at the poolroom in town looking for a game. We found action with the room owner who offered to play us scotch doubles, him partnering with younger player. Well, Josh and I have played so much together we felt like we had the nuts against anyone we didn't know. We happily posted a respectable sum and flipped the coin for the first race to nine, 9 ball.
Boy were we in for a shock! The room owner turned in a virtuoso set! I mean, this guy did it all! Power. Finesse. Knowledge. Cue ball. Shot making. Safeties. Kicks. Elevated. Off the end rail. Everything split the wicket like it was on a rail. It was mesmerizing. Meanwhile his partner, while a bit more of a young up and comer, was shooting super straight as well. Nothing fancy, but just shooting the eyes off the balls and making everything he needed to. The room owner paved the way but his partner was on his game and together they turned in a heck of a performance. I think we got beat 9-2.
Josh and I looked at each other and laughed because it was so strong. We decided we had to play another set. I figured no one on earth could play two sets like that in a row and if they could I'd pay to see it.
Sure enough things turned around. It's funny, I remember feeling like I didn't play that well, and Josh tells me the same thing. Yet somehow we put up enough resistance to establish ourselves in the match. They finally made some errors, we got a few rolls, and next thing you know we were on the hill up 8-4 or 8-5.
That's when it happened. They had a chance to win a game and the younger player on their team flat out dogged a key shot on the 4 ball. The rest of the balls were open and we ran out to win the set and get back to even. After flipping the coin Josh started to head to take a quick bathroom break and we heard the room owner say to the younger player (in a tone of total disgust) "You can't be missing that 4 ball bro." He was shaking his head and scowling.
Josh and I exchanged a wide eyed glance because we knew what was about to happen. And let me tell you, it was a meltdown of glorious proportion! First the younger player tightened up like a drum and started jawing balls and losing the cue ball. Then the room owner continued to escalate and eye roll his partner, but meanwhile he started to dog it too. Instead of playing normal shape for his partner he'd try to do way more than the table offered to try to give him ball in hand, as if to say "If I leave you anything tougher you'll dog it again". Because of that he started messing up trying to force things that weren't there. Before we knew it we won the next two sets and they quit with us up two on the session!
Maybe we would've won anyway, maybe not. Who knows? But I know they played strong, and I know I wasn't playing rock solid. They had a shot. But they play well as a team, and that was enough to ruin their chances.
OK, so what's the moral? It has nothing to do with team pool or scotch doubles. It has to do with how you play on your own. We can all sit here and laugh at such an obvious gaffe. Yet take a moment and think right now of how you treat yourself when you make a blunder. Do you chide yourself? Talk down to yourself? Shake your head in disgust? Say things like "I should've made that ball", or "I can't be missing shots like that"?
If you do, please explain to me how treating yourself this way is any different than treating a partner this way? Why is it so obvious when we see this in others behavior outwardly, yet we are blinded by our own self abuse for years or decades? Oh sure, I know all the rationalizations. "It motivates me to do better", or "I can't accept failure or else that's what I'll get" and any number of one dimensional rationalizations that fail to hold up to even a superficial examination. Shoot, the Inner Game of Tennis is based entirely on the relationship between Self 1 (the teller) and Self 2 (the doer), two parts of us that have to work well together. Yet people that have read this book still fall into this way of thinking.
It's so bad that I now spend 5 minutes of every bootcamp (trust me, that's all it takes, this is VERY memorable!) having my students practice missing the 9 ball. That's right. I want them to dog it. When they do they can't berate themselves or do the 'slow concession' of the table where they sit there in stark disbelief for 10 seconds before slinking away and shaking their head. No sir. Not in my dojo! They have to stand up tall with their head high and their shoulders back, walk back to the chair with their mouth zipped shut and a proud walk, and take their miss like a man! That's how you dog the nine ball in my house.
Of course there is more to the mental game than that, there are important outlooks on how we view ourselves and the meaning of competition and the pursuit of excellence. This is just one symptom of a deeper flaw in perspective. I like going to the roots and not just pissing on sparks. But man, is this a big one.
So, my advice to all of you is to dust of the Inner Game of Tennis from your bookshelves, and go ahead and work on answering those questions about finding motivation and desire that isn't hinged on punishment and self criticism. Criticism may motivate in the short term, but it undermines and sucks the life out of the game, and as the game becomes a blend of nightmarish sessions and improvement grinds to a halt the motivation fades. Trust me, when you have fun playing and keep getting better you feel plenty motivated!
Your turn. How are you going to play it?
