Choking under Pressure

shots are shots, if you have a strong mind thats all that matters. The balls never feel pressure, why should I. However I have dogged it, sometimes when i havent been in action for a long time I will be a little tight, for a while. if i stay in action I stay loose. I play better under pressure. Just banging balls dont do much for me.

rehearse what you need to do to play your best.

Ghosst said:

Anonymous poll, be honest.

How many people have trouble with playing under pressure, in a tight situation on a regular basis. In other words, you can practice or play friends at your regular speed but often have trouble in league or tournaments?



.

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Internal pressure has a way of altering reality. It usually comes from a situation that we haven't thought through rationally. I've always found it useful to lower my expectations and just "be ok with whatever happens."

If you're in a situation that you can't afford to lose I would suggest doing something else. If we except "not winning" before the match and come to terms with that feeling it will free us to play with less self induced pressure.

That's the important thing, in my opinion is to just "be ok with the outcome." Then rehearse what you need to do to play your best. 'The Game is the Teacher'

Eighty percent of people polled are afraid to die. Ninety percent of people polled are afraid to speak in public. Seems we would rather die than speak in public.

I have taught student teachers for years there are a few good ways to reduce the pressure. I will translate for pool players.

1. Move around. This diffuses the nervous energy. When you feel the pressure at the pool table the first thing to do is to physically walk around the table or engage in some physical activity that drains the energy.

2. Admit to your audience (you and the others around you) that you are not an expert. I used to say an expert is a guy from out of town with slides. I am not from out of town and I don’t have any slides. As CJ puts it accept the idea that you are not the best in the world, there is always someone better on any given day. Be willing to accept what happens as merely your best effort today. For some people it helps to admit it to others out loud. You do not have to be self-disparaging but it often helps to point out, when you missed your last shot, that you can miss any shot on the table. I used to jokingly tell people that, “you can set up any shot you can think of and I can miss it.” Helps to diffuse the pressure. When I am teaching I truly think of myself as the senior student in the room. I can, and do, learn from anyone who can contribute and will be the first to say, I did not know that. When you know that you are as much of a jerk as anyone else and that you have maybe played one more game or read one more book then you don't have any need to be the expert. Reduces the pressure to zero.

3. Do not talk to the crowd, talk to one person in the room trying to determine if they understand what you are saying. After a few minutes move to another person. Talking to one person at a time is not “public speaking.” This is another way of saying, play the table one shot at a time. Look at the table, not the crowd, see the felt, concentrate on the lines of travel, etc. It is just like practice when you can get lost in the game.

No matter what you do there will always be mistakes, chokes, flipped wrist, and too much or too little power. Expert musicians know to just gloss over and keep going: Most of the time the audience will never see it. The same is true for you. You are going to make mistakes. Let it happen and don't get upset with yourself. It wrecks the rest of the game.

JoeW said:

Eighty percent of people polled are afraid to die. Ninety percent of people polled are afraid to speak in public. Seems we would rather die than speak in public.

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Hadn't heard that quote before... it's cute, and it's fair to say speaking in public is really nerve-wracking. But, playing devil's advocate, who are the 20% who claim they're not afraid to die? Put a gun to their head and I bet the number rises to 99.9%. I suspect those 20% are just posturing.

Similarly, I bet some percentage of the guys who claim they "never" have problems under pressure are also just posturing. IMO nerves can be managed but never cured.

CreeDo said:

Hadn't heard that quote before... it's cute, and it's fair to say speaking in public is really nerve-wracking. But, playing devil's advocate, who are the 20% who claim they're not afraid to die? Put a gun to their head and I bet the number rises to 99.9%. I suspect those 20% are just posturing.

Similarly, I bet some percentage of the guys who claim they "never" have problems under pressure are also just posturing. IMO nerves can be managed but never cured.

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My bet, the 20% who are not afraid to die had an NDE (Near Death Experience) or an ADC (After Death Experience). Been there done that and it works. Truth be told, I am looking forward to it. Should be a great trip. (Here is a link to my ADC for those who might be interested - not pool related http://www.issc-taste.org/arc/dbo.cgi?set=expom&id=00038&ss=1 )

BTW, I stuttered until I was 30 years old and could not say my name without stuttering. Then I started teaching so the pressure was intense. These are the "tricks" I used. For me physical movement, hand gestures, etc. really diffuse the excess energy from pressure.

The "pressure" that wrecks my game now is self induced. I know that I can play better than that and that ticks me off. Of course the game gets worse from there.

CJ Wiley said:

Internal pressure has a way of altering reality. It usually comes from a situation that we haven't thought through rationally. I've always found it useful to lower my expectations and just "be ok with whatever happens."

If you're in a situation that you can't afford to lose I would suggest doing something else. If we except "not winning" before the match and come to terms with that feeling it will free us to play with less self induced pressure.

That's the important thing, in my opinion is to just "be ok with the outcome." Then rehearse what you need to do to play your best. 'The Game is the Teacher'

Click to expand...

CJ has a great point here. In Poker I was taught to focus on the process and not the results. This is very similar to those ideas. We are only able to control some aspects and those that we cannot control must be accepted. By gearing our focus tward the process we acknowledge that we have done everything in our power to do what we can to perform at the highest level possible that day and let the results fall where they may.

GoBilliards said:

CJ has a great point here. In Poker I was taught to focus on the process and not the results. This is very similar to those ideas. We are only able to control some aspects and those that we cannot control must be accepted. By gearing our focus tward the process we acknowledge that we have done everything in our power to do what we can to perform at the highest level possible that day and let the results fall where they may.

Click to expand...

Exactly, if you play a "hunch" you'll get in a "bunch" (of trouble).

Ghosst said:

Anonymous poll, be honest.

How many people have trouble with playing under pressure, in a tight situation on a regular basis. In other words, you can practice or play friends at your regular speed but often have trouble in league or tournaments?



.

Click to expand...

Whoops, I answered the question wrong.

Freddie <~~~ oh well, I guess one vote won't make change who won the race

JoeW said:

My bet, the 20% who are not afraid to die had an NDE (Near Death Experience) or an ADC (After Death Experience). Been there done that and it works.

Click to expand...

Pretty cool link. But, 20% having those experiences? Sounds high to me. I know people who have been in accidents, and a few who died, but can't name any who came right to the edge of death and came back. One in five?

To keep it on topic, I wonder about the guys who have no trouble playing under pressure. Do they admit to feeling the pressure but don't let it affect their physical stroke? Or are they trying to say they don't even feel it? In which case, it's not actually pressure by their definition.

Somewhere between 8 - 20% of population has had an NDE. Some estimates say as many as 30% of pop has had ADC but most people are not willing to talk about it. a middle figure would be about 30% of population has had NDE / ADC. Surprising number huh. (Those are not "my" estimates. They are based on various studies.)

I think that "pressure" is a component of the fight or flight response. If it is then everyone experiences it unless they have an abnormal nervous system. But it is like trying to tell someone what it feels like to be afraid or in pain. It is basically a subjective experience that is defined in different ways by different people.

BTW if you read through my Competitive Anxiety article I discussed the idea that there are two components to anxiety (another word for pressure), One is physical with sweaty palms, etc. The other is emotional which often results in self castigation, defeatist attitudes, etc. Some people may experience one form of pressure while others experience the other form. And then we re-define these experiences in different ways. The race horse needs it to run, otherwise known as U-stress or the positive aspects of pressure.

I used to have a lot of issues with pressure in pool.
I think the hardest issue was knowing i could do all this stuff when there was no pressure, and then for whatever reason, the wheels falling off and not being able to do it when it mattered.
That whole thought process just sucks you right in when you are dogging it.

The self doubt would come.
Then the pooch would appear.
Then the anger.
Repeat.

Nothing like making a great out in 9ball, leaving yourself an easy 9, and then firing it into the rail.

But that's part of the learning curve.
You learn to deal with it. To not let it control you, but instead, to control IT.

There was the fish that hung out in the pool room that said something once.

This guy went off for a lot of cash, big time.
We would all take turns pounding on him. (because he dogged it worse then anyone ever could)
But he said something one day while watching me play someone else, that has stuck with me ever since.

I had hacked my way out of a tough rack of 9ball, and he chimes in from the sidelines. (think what a totally stoned space cadets voice might sound like)
"WOW MAN, that was great! See, that whole rack started out as a fantasy, and you turned it into a reality. You decided what you were going to do and you MADE it happen, like a self fulfilling prophecy"

At the time, we were all kind of laughing cause he was sounding all goofy space cadet-ish when he said it. But i thought about it. A LOT.
It was then that it really registered that i really was in control of my fate while at the table, and that if i was thinking negative, negative things would happen, and if i was thinking positive, positive things may or may not happen, but bad things would happen far less often, then if i was thinking negatively to begin with.

Just like those newbies who are afraid of scratching in a pocket, when there are a bazillion ways to avoid scratching in the pocket, that they know, and then when it comes time to shoot the shot...they go flying in the pocket at warp speed.

With skill, comes confidence.
The more i worked on my game, the more hours i put in, the more shots i learned to master, the more i dog proofed my game.
Easier to play when you know the shots, or have put in the time so none of them are unfamiliar, but instead, they become "routine"

Now don't get me wrong, i can miss with the best of them.
But it's not because i have a lump in my throat, or because of my heart pounding so hard it's flying out of my chest.

Most of the time, when i miss a shot i am supposed to make, it's just flat out laziness of some form, i am too tired to see straight, or an error in mechanics/sighting/PSR of taking the shot.

Choking is all in your head.