Bubble Boy

drivermaker said:

So much has been beaten around on this forum over the last week about aiming, feel in aiming, and feel in every other part of the game. Now it seems like a whole new breed of "FEEL" player/theorists are coming out of the woodword to espouse the benefits of something we can't really describe and apply it to EVERYTHING. THE ENTIRE GAME SHOULD BE FEEL.

OK...where would that take us if we had a "BUBBLE BOY"....an individual that reached his late teens, graduated with good grades in high school, but came down with a a terrible disease of the immunity system and had to be placed in a perfectly controlled bacteria/virus free BUBBLE environment.

Let's assume "Bubble Boy" was slowly going bonkers in there and happened to be watching an ESPN pool match and said that he'd like to have a pool table in his Bubble, which the facility granted especially since his daddy was rich as hell and giving money for their research.

There are some on here that want to teach a mere beginner nothing but making balls through feel and feel alone without cluttering the mind on anything, whether it be aiming, stance, grip, stroke, english, etc.

Now upon receiving his pool table, you would have to admit, that Bubble Boy would be the ULTIMATE feel player on his first day at the table since he has NOTHING to think about because he knows NOTHING.

What do you think would happen to Bubble Boy's development if he NEVER got one book to read, got no tapes to watch, and had NO ONE instruct him on any facet of the game at all? What if his only instruction was to use that blue stuff on the rails and scrape it across the tip of your cue on every shot and that was it!

However, remember that Bubble Boy has 16 hours a day to stay at the table and hit all the balls that he cares to hit. How far do you think "FEEL" alone would take Bubble Boy into a becoming a certain level player without ANY help from the outside in knowledge?

Click to expand...

Does Bubble Boy get to use drugs to enhance his game?

drivermaker said:

So much has been beaten around on this forum over the last week about aiming, feel in aiming, and feel in every other part of the game. Now it seems like a whole new breed of "FEEL" player/theorists are coming out of the woodword to espouse the benefits of something we can't really describe and apply it to EVERYTHING. THE ENTIRE GAME SHOULD BE FEEL.

OK...where would that take us if we had a "BUBBLE BOY"....an individual that reached his late teens, graduated with good grades in high school, but came down with a a terrible disease of the immunity system and had to be placed in a perfectly controlled bacteria/virus free BUBBLE environment.

Let's assume "Bubble Boy" was slowly going bonkers in there and happened to be watching an ESPN pool match and said that he'd like to have a pool table in his Bubble, which the facility granted especially since his daddy was rich as hell and giving money for their research.

There are some on here that want to teach a mere beginner nothing but making balls through feel and feel alone without cluttering the mind on anything, whether it be aiming, stance, grip, stroke, english, etc.

Now upon receiving his pool table, you would have to admit, that Bubble Boy would be the ULTIMATE feel player on his first day at the table since he has NOTHING to think about because he knows NOTHING.

What do you think would happen to Bubble Boy's development if he NEVER got one book to read, got no tapes to watch, and had NO ONE instruct him on any facet of the game at all? What if his only instruction was to use that blue stuff on the rails and scrape it across the tip of your cue on every shot and that was it!

However, remember that Bubble Boy has 16 hours a day to stay at the table and hit all the balls that he cares to hit. How far do you think "FEEL" alone would take Bubble Boy into a becoming a certain level player without ANY help from the outside in knowledge?

Click to expand...

What would happen?....In about 20 minutes he would offer you the snaps......LOL

After a couple years he would go on the road with his bubble, gamble up a storm, win multiple events in a pro LA tournament, decide pool sucks cause there is no money, start playing poker, and then 10 years later find out about AZBilliards and espouse his theories on the game of pool in an odd form of internet lingo/speech that I can only assume is caused by difficulties hitting the right keys through the plastic of the bubble.

In this story... does he only see pool on ESPN once? I only ask cause if bubble boy had any common sense, when he got the table, and realized that he couldn't come close to doing what the people on tv were doing, he would then try to emulate them and watch every hour of pool ever shown on ESPN. He would quite possibly end up with a good stance, decent bridge, and a workable stroke.... Now, if he were to have never seen pool on tv or anywhere else and someone thought they would provide him with entertainment and give him a pool table... his fundamentals would quite possibly always be close to neanderthal. BUT, with all of that practice time, he could also end up "perfecting a bad habit" and end up playing pretty sporty. I say this because of two reasons... A) Keith M doesn't posses any of the "correct fundamentals" and was at one time probably one of the most feared competitors there was. B) have you EVER seen the "stroke" of Mike Davis???? (Mike, you know I luv ya)

The bubble boy would have the deck stacked against him without any guidance. Odds are he wouldn't develop as well as somebody getting instruction. Then again, there have been many exceptions to this, and the self-taught occasionally become excellent players.

I may regret putting my 2 cents in, but here goes.

The only thing i have learned that someone else taught me is that when the cue ball is on the rail, i tend to choke up too much on the cue. Everything else i learned by watching (bubble boy watching espn ), or by trial and error. I put in hours of practice a day by my self.

I currently would be considered a good B player (a low A in my best days). I have played in about 7, or 8 joss tour events(none recently), and have placed 3 times.

I have a horrible stroke, and a lot of bad habbits that certainly would have benefitted from some advice, or lessons, but i got as good as i am on my own.

Rodney Paradis(e)<---only shows placing twice in player finder

I think a lot would depend on BBs attitude. If he were fairly athletic and imaginative and attentive and dedicated, he could learn to do good things with his stroke. Without outside influences and feedback he would end up with a lot of bad habits, just like most of us B players, but would learn to pot balls fairly well and eventually figure out some elements of position play. He would have one heck of a time competing in a game of pool as the strategy of any game would be extremely difficult to learn alone (and it might be worse if he has the volume turned on when watching the ESPN matches). As an example, he would never learn to kick or play safes, as there would be absolutely no motivation. In fact, depending on how much pool he watched on TV, he may not even know those plays in games exist ! The game in his eyes might be reduced to simply pocketing balls. I'd like to be able to do that ... pot balls that is.

Dave

i think if he had any natural talent and got to watch pool on tv and did practice 16 hours a day,he would probably be a hell of a player in 5-10 years.

How would he know to scrape that blue stuff across the tip of his cue? Did someone teach him? He had no tapes to watch, but he DID get see PRO's playing on ESPN...That HAD to teach him something.

sjm said:

The bubble boy would have the deck stacked against him without any guidance. Odds are he wouldn't develop as well as somebody getting instruction. Then again, there have been many exceptions to this, and the self-taught occasionally become excellent players.

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Even self-taught players have the advantage of having seen great players or watched and learned from vidoes.

A quote from Isaac Newton is relevent here:
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"

drivermaker said:

So much has been beaten around on this forum over the last week about aiming, feel in aiming, and feel in every other part of the game. Now it seems like a whole new breed of "FEEL" player/theorists are coming out of the woodword to espouse the benefits of something we can't really describe and apply it to EVERYTHING. THE ENTIRE GAME SHOULD BE FEEL.
exaggerating as usual
OK...where would that take us if we had a "BUBBLE BOY"....an individual that reached his late teens, graduated with good grades in high school, but came down with a a terrible disease of the immunity system and had to be placed in a perfectly controlled bacteria/virus free BUBBLE environment.
good! as long as were not being outrageous.
Let's assume "Bubble Boy" was slowly going bonkers in there and happened to be watching an ESPN pool match and said that he'd like to have a pool table in his Bubble, which the facility granted especially since his daddy was rich as hell and giving money for their research.
"He taught himself the “simple” shots such as English, draw, follow-through and position by watching the good players." (Guess who that quote refers to)
There are some on here that want to teach a mere beginner nothing but making balls through feel and feel alone without cluttering the mind on anything, whether it be aiming, stance, grip, stroke, english, etc.
You really don't read the posts. Do you?
Now upon receiving his pool table, you would have to admit, that Bubble Boy would be the ULTIMATE feel player on his first day at the table since he has NOTHING to think about because he knows NOTHING.
Yep. you got it
What do you think would happen to Bubble Boy's development if he NEVER got one book to read, got no tapes to watch, and had NO ONE instruct him on any facet of the game at all? What if his only instruction was to use that blue stuff on the rails and scrape it across the tip of your cue on every shot and that was it!
see below
However, remember that Bubble Boy has 16 hours a day to stay at the table and hit all the balls that he cares to hit. How far do you think "FEEL" alone would take Bubble Boy into a becoming a certain level player without ANY help from the outside in knowledge?

Click to expand...

EFREN REYES was born Aug. 26, 1954, in Angeles, Pampanga. He is the middle son of nine children - five boys and four girls. His family was poor and his father worked as a barber. When Efren was five years old, his family sent him to stay with his uncle, who owned the Lucky 13 pool hall in Avenida, Manila. Efren was put to work as a billiard attendant. This is where he picked up the nickname "Bata" (The Kid). Efren's bed was the pool table. Efren did not actually pick up a pool cue until he was eight years old, but for the first three years at the Lucky 13, he still learned a lot about the game. Not only from watching the hustlers, the movie "When I slept on the table, I dreamt about pool," he said. "I learned about pool from my dreams." Then at eight years old, he began living out the dreams. "Just to be able to shoot," he said, "I stacked cases of Coke three high so I could play pool." After a shot, he would move the cases around the table so he could take another shot. Even though his uncle did not want him to play pool, Efren would play two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening, when nobody was around. "I liked sleeping on the table because when I woke up I could play pool." He started gambling at nine years old. At 12, several of his rich Chinese friends, whom Efren met at the Lucky 13, tagged him along to different places like Bulacan, Olongapo, and Angeles for vacations. While there, they would pick up games. The friends would finance Efren against some of the best players in the Philippines. Once he beat the number two guy in the country. "I watched all the good players and the weak players, too," he said. He practiced every shot. He had no teacher. "I learned the simple shots from the good players. English, draw, follow, how to put the cue ball in position. But what about the other shots? The good players don't know the invisible shots. A lot of times the weak players make these impossible shots. I learned a lot of trick shots from watching bad players." Efren dropped out of high school after two years in order to support his family by playing pool. He had financiers and he would play for maybe P100.

I think that he would get frustrated and give up the game because he could not get the cueball to do what he wants. I am not a genius and I got frustrated trying to learn pool because I could not figure out throw and squirt. I would ask players why the object ball would miss the pocket when I applied spin to the cue ball. All I ever heard was that I was not hitting the shot right. Finally thru the flood of instructional video tapes and books I got the answer.


I can understand him going bonkers by watching pool on ESPN. I can also understand him not knowing anything about the game because watching pool on ESPN will teach you nothing. In fact in he was watching ESPN he would probably figure out that he would be better off learning to play poker.

Forum.
say it with me...........FORUM.
I don't care whether or not I was invited.
Are you scared?
Where does the "system" come in to the education?
Efren is a modest man. Is he not?
Don't you think, if he had learned this fabulous "system" from someone, he'd attribute a bit of his success to that person? Ever met him? Because I have, and I think he would. Does he use a system to illustrate how to see a spot on the ball? Yes, I would say that he does. We all must use visualization to get a point across. You're on the pullpit preaching formal training and the absolute need for a system. I say it is not needed. You come across like that crackpot Fast Larry. Or your pal Hal, who jumps on Johnny archer's Q&A to tell the world that Johnny is hiding the fact that he's using Hal's system, so the recreational players don't pose a challenge to him. Tell me. Do you all share the same padded cell?
This talk lately, this fuss, I wonder if there is some marketing going on here? Some build up? If it is as unimportant to Hal not to charge for it, why does he need the notoriety?
Why does he demand Archer tell the world?

Systems disgust me, because the word system is used to make it sound as if it's fool proof. The term "system" has been used for years in books about beating Vegas. Well, a lot of books were sold and Vegas still stands tall. People with systems want you to believe that by learning it, you will automatically get better, that it's the final secret that will turn them pro. Well it won't. It's snake oil y'all. It's been around for a long long time.
This game has been taught in the pool halls for years, folks. Formal instruction came after most of the legends we all look up to. Nothing wrong with instructors, if you can and want to spend the money. But it's possible to get the same results in the pool hall.

Colin-good quote. But standing on the shoulders of giants doesn't necessarily refer to a formal education, and definitely not an aiming system.

TheBook said:

I think that he would get frustrated and give up the game because he could not get the cueball to do what he wants. I am not a genius and I got frustrated trying to learn pool because I could not figure out throw and squirt. I would ask players why the object ball would miss the pocket when I applied spin to the cue ball. All I ever heard was that I was not hitting the shot right. Finally thru the flood of instructional video tapes and books I got the answer.

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I learned throw in the pool hall.
I learned how to cut a ball 90° on the rail in a pool hall.
I learned to aim on my own (regardless of what DM says can't be done)
I learned banks from a hustler.
I learned position play from one of the better players.
I learned bells and whistles, 19 different tip shapers, and what cleaning agent you used on your shaft doesn't mean doo doo from wasted money and time.
I suppose I am a likeable person to have folks show me things. I suppose I am a lucky person to be around many good and knowledgeable players.

And guess what, no one has ever mentioned a secret system.

I'm completely done with this thread now, DM.
Go on and preach to the masses Rev. Jones. Have them drink your poisoned kool-aid.

drivermaker said:

(talking to Bazooka Joe)...

BTW jerkoff...that was a real class act thing you did yesterday to get the entire Aiming Thread deleted.

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Is that what happend to it?!? Really?

If so, why would someone erase many valuable posts of others?....afraid of the truth? He's sorry he posted something stupid and it was pointed out to him so he decided to rewrite history? Afraid of words? Afraid of words' meanings? Afraid that words' meanings might negatively reflect on himself? Simply drunk and stupid? So fucked up in the head that he can't feel better without hurting others?

BJ, did you do this and why? I'll take a non-answer as "yes."

Jeff Livingston