How do you practice

One thing that I recently found helps me a LOT is setting up long, straight in shots, from corner to corner and firing them in.
If my stroke is off, this shot, more than any other I have found, lets me know quickly. Once I am pocketing this shot consistently I feel pretty good about my upcoming match. Lets me know I am locked in.

From there I will throw balls on the table and try to run them.

Nature Boy said:

When I used to play, that is all I did. Play. Now that I am playing again, I want to work on my game more and do it better.

So, how does one practice. Is there a book or dvd out that will give me some ideas? Other than set up a shot I have been having problems with and shooting it over and over, I really have no idea what to do.

Thanks for any help!

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I like Joe Tucker's Guaranteed Improvement. His Rail Workout is also pretty tough. I also do my fair share of playing the ghost and just playing racks with friends. Another thing that I have started to adopt is watching more matches to learn patterns, safeties, and situational pool. Theactionreport.com is a great source, as well as Accu-stats.com or even youtube. I believe ontherail.tv does some live feeds on Tuesday nights. You can find more info. including video on Joe's website, www.joetucker.net I have started to take a balanced approach in practice both the physical and mental aspects. Good luck, let us know what methods you end up adopting.

what has made me a lot better over the last year: drills (pick a few and work on them until you master them and move on going back to refresh once in a while) playing the ghost, writing down shots you miss in a match and going back and setting them up over and over until you get them down, the long straight shot that was mentioned is invaluable, and i believe people call it tmidot (the most important drill of all time or something like that) basically lag the cue ball from the middle diamond on the top rail down to the bottom and let it come back and hit your cue tip - you'll know you're stroking straight. some good books i have found are martin's the 99 critical shots and capelle's practicing pool and a mind for pool. this would all be a tremendous start to maximizing your practice imo.

I use the 20/20 rule for maximum Training & Practice. 20 minutes at a time twice a day.

Short is Sweet-Long is Wrong.........SPF=randyg

To add to what randyg said, you have to establish the difference between disciplined practice, and practicing playing (throwing balls out and running them, or playing the ghost, etc). A person can practice playing 24/7. However, because most humans (particularly Americans) are born with a short attention span, disciplined practice can only be tolerated by most of us for a few minutes at a time (before we are bored or frustrated...neither of which contribute to learning). You can't fix what you don't know about...you can't fix what you can't measure...and you can only fix one thing at a time.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

randyg said:

I use the 20/20 rule for maximum Training & Practice. 20 minutes at a time twice a day.

Short is Sweet-Long is Wrong.........SPF=randyg

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I use Joe Tucker's Guaranteed Improvements, SPF Mother drills 4,5 & 6, and Capelle's Practicing Pool. I've been working my way up to a D.

I like the PAT level 3 drills. I also have a couple that I use when I need to work on specific mechanics. Practice is about quality and not quantity. If you are putting in good practice time 10 minutes can be more valuable than 2 hours. When I need to practice for a tourney I find a player better than me and gamble for a couple of hours.

Someone metionned Phil Capelle, probably the best book for practice. it doesn't have any nonsense and it is all hard work. You will also find in previous posts if you don't mind spending a bit more money something called the PAT trainning system, highly recomended but very hard past stage 1. Finding a coach is not bad idea either probably the most expensive but with the fastes results. One of the previous posters on your tread comes highly rcomended. For me I try to break out my practice like this:
Speed + position play + fundamentals every day
The break once per week
Kicking, banking once per week
Caroms, small masse, jumps once per week
Safties once per week
If i have a partner for practice, i ask that he sharks me as much as possible when we play togehter, i find that people who complain about sharking manoeuvres have not practiced shutting them out enough is all.
THen i try to play under the heat (competition or money) as often as i can.

Good luck with your practice.

I have a table at home so I play everyday…weather permitting.
I start in the morning doing practice shots on shots I’ve been missing more than normal for me the last few days. I might work on three in about an hour. Then I rack 15 balls up and play some 14.1 until I run a few racks in a row and my stroke feels good. Then I play the 9-ball ghost W/BIH and W/O BIH until I beat him twice in a row in a race to 7. Now it’s time for 10-ball ghost. I play him races to 5 with BIH. I play the 10-ball until lunchtime. From 8am to noon I take three 15 min breaks. In the after noon I might play any of the above games for a few hours. Johnnyt

Play rotational 14.1 on a snooker table with 3.5 inch pockets for 5 hours a day 7 days a week from now until the end of time. If you do that, there is no guarantee that you will play better pool, but I can guarantee you that someday you will have the same hairstyle as Randyg.

Blackjack said:

Play rotational 14.1 on a snooker table with 3.5 inch pockets for 5 hours a day 7 days a week from now until the end of time. If you do that, there is no guarantee that you will play better pool, but I can guarantee you that someday you will have the same hairstyle as Randyg.

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randyg spends his hairsyle money on golf lessons.
Bald is beautiful in most cases but I ain't that case.....

I play Bca pool league, play live music at a weekly paying gig and I just got a new addictive video game. I didn't want the game to take away from my practice so I set a 20 minute timer for each activity. I would practice guitar till the timer went off then play my game for 20 then do a 20 minute pool drill.

I practiced banks for 20 minutes. Then the next time pool came around I practiced breaking with a break rack. Next time it was playing the nine ball ghost. Then long straight jacked up shots that Mika practices etc. I did this for hours and I found that using a timer is key. It keeps you honest. Normally I would practice banks for 7 minutes and get bored and move on.