Instructor or pro player?

I agree my example is the SPF stroke. It's a simple stroke that's
anatomically prudent to use but its not the easiest to incorporate in your game. If you
look at the components of a good stroke and follow those things you can find the
stroke that works best for you. There's a lot of ways to approach a pause in your stroke.

Tin Man said:

Two points I want to make here:

1) It is possible to both play good pool AND be a good instructor. People who are saying 'choose the instructor over the player' are generally correct, but while being a good player doesn't make you a good instructor it doesn't prohibit it either. Specifically, don't disqualify me because I can lay it down on the table at times.

2) Fundamentals have areas that can be personalized and also areas that cannot. For example, you can choose from a number of stances or bridges. True. But if I were to say it is important to keep your eyes open when you play, you'd be hard pressed to find a top player that shoots with their eyes closed. That is an example of something all top players have in common. Along those universal fundamentals are a smooth accelerating stroke, a good preshot routine and rhythm, room in their stance to both sight the cue ball and swing the stick, and many more. Fundamentals aren't "Do it exactly like this in every way", but rather "Here's a requirement list of what makes up a good game that cannot be shortcut or avoided without a sacrifice to performance".

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kaznj said:

Let's say you are a relative beginner. An apa 3 level . You have decided you have some time and money to invest is some lessons. You want to learn from the ground up. Fundelmentals such as stance, grip, stroke etc. The move onto postion and patterns.

WITHOUT mentioning any name who do you think would help you more. Would you feel more confident learning from a top playing pro who gives lesson, or a full time teaching pro. When i say teaching pro I mean someone who makes his living giving lessons.

Again please don't start naming people. I dont want to bash or advertise here.
Please don't join in just to tell everyone that you have never taken a lesson.

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As an instructor, I get students who need repairs from others' lessons!

Instructors tend to communicate better, and above pros, tend to tailor lessons to individual needs--if you've used a certain kind of stance/stroke/etc. for 40 years, (most) fellow instructors and I won't radically change your fundamentals with the first lesson. Pros tend to be inflexible and insist that their stroke/stance/grip fundamentals are the ideal model for all students.

Kim Davenport was a average player and learned from Hal Mix and his game went all crazy. Hal Mix when he lived in San Jose taught in his garage there. Hal was going around the Bay area looking for information and he got Joe Bachelor to come to his place and stay on the weekends and Joe was one that really knew. I took a couple of lessons from Hal and my game when all crazy also. When I seen was he was telling me. I ran 60 balls no shot then ran another 60. Then went around beating everyone.Hal knew from Joe and for years was with Nick Varner. Hal wrote a book that's now rare.

Depends what you want to learn, and that is usually determined by your skill level. Beginners, bang average or intermediate players will benefit more from a quality instructor who puts a lot of emphasis on ironing out their mechanical flaws. Just my experience, but as a general rule of thumb, pros have great mechanics...but they don't know why they're great or how to tailor their sound mechanics to different types of people.

As your standard increases due to your fundamentals getting better so you're a top regional amateur on the brink of becoming pro or even someone who has turned pro recently I think you will generally benefit more from professional player help. At this level it's usually the mental game letting you down, causing you to not reach the next level. Every pro sportsman I've spoken to from varying sports all take the mental game really seriously so they tend to be great teachers on how to block things out, mindset and using pressure to your advantage.

In a nutshell you just have to be honest. If you have a crap grip, why pay £300 an hour for a top pro to tell you how to correct it when the best players in your league can for free, or a good instructor can fix it for £30.

I think for fundamentals I would start on Youtube...so much good stuff out there for free, if you are still having issues, then maybe a quick session with an instructor, every single one of them regardless of your speed is going to get you to spend the entire first lesson on fundamentals. Particularly stance and lining up, wouldnt be surprised if you didnt even get to stroke first day, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you can get that out of the way on your own, you can save some time and money, though don't be surprised if regardless of how good your fundamentals are that an instructor makes you spend several lessons on them.

Geosnooker said:

There’s two things I’m Good at in life. ..playing guitar and billiards. Never had a lesson in either.

I’m of the philosophy that you need to develop your own style. There are no bad habits but rather things you do naturally. The best guitarists and Billiard players are on the path to top ranking by age 18 without ever having a lesson. They tap into their talent.

Billiards is simple. A stick and hitting a ball. The way you learn to do it well is by doing it...not being told how to allign your body, stance, bridge, magic cue, etc. Watch 20baseball pitchers, guitarists or whatever and they will have 20 different ‘bad habits’. The best billiard player in the world today, , Judd Trump, doesn’t even allign over the ball.

Play and play some more. Throw he balls on the table and hit a ball every 10 seconds. Use any ball as the cue ball. You can go to Youtube and watch a million lessons in angles, strategy, etc.

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REally, going to utube is not a "lesson" in your book. Ummm, don't look now, but you took lessons, you just don't know it.