Too Much Emphasis on Mechanics?

Great thoughts in your post. Just remember this, when you want to race a car, you bring it to a top driver. When you want to fix your car? A mechanic!

In practice, you can indulge and work on mechanics. In play, it's not so much that we close out all conscious thought (I'm talking about most play/competition and not the "dead zone"). Rather, it's that during play left-brain thoughts should be limited.

I teach golf also. In golf and pool alike, your "swing thoughts" for the day should fit on a small index card. For pool, something like:

*Keep my head down until the OB pockets and
*Chalk lightly but completely around the tip before each shot and
*Focus on a slower backstroke today

See how there is a focus but a narrow, somewhat non-mechanical one? Get it?

Naturally basic fundamental mechanics are needed, but if one is focusing on mechanics when playing then one should not be playing because they are not ready to play. They are still practicing in the guise of playing.

Feel is more important when actually playing, but... that feel is developed through both play & practice. When playing... it's time to play with the feel that one has developed & not to continue to practice mechanics. Perhaps that's how english came into play or a swipe stroke, who really knows.

The point of that statement is that sometimes feel can throw normal 'mechanics' out the window. However one has to have the normal mechanics before one's feel can throw them out of the window.

Naturally all of the above is JMHO & I am not certified as an instructor.

One of the biggest problems in golf for even some pros is to take the good driving range 'play' from the range to the course. The reason it is so hard to do is because too many do not fully understand that they are simply not the same. One is practice of the mechanics & the other is actually playing the game & they are definitely two(2) totally different animals.

That's the goal of practice, to refine and commit to memory these techniques so that they become second nature then when you are in competition the focus can shift to completing the tasks at hand an not how.
When you get down, everything should fall naturally into place and not require any conscious thought. Your bridge, cue arm, feet and head all drop into a familiar and comfortable position and you can then just focus on execution.

I agree totally with Slasher's post above..

wswhiting said:

A few years ago when Oprah announced that Tiger Woods would be on her show, I didn't want to miss it. And I don't even play golf! She asked a few mundane questions, but three lucky members of the audience got the chance to ask their questions. The third question was the most revealing to me. "When you are in sudden death and you hit the ball into a sand trap, what are you thinking about?" Tiger's face went blank and he stuttered a moment before answering. "Well, I'm not thinking about anything. When I approach the green and you see my hands waving all around, I am trying to sense what the shot is going to feel like."

There are a couple of recent posts to this thread about the mental aspect of the game and how to take your practice session to the tournament setting. Could it be that we are thinking too much about where our elbow is and not trusting our stroke as Max Eberle has written about?

Timothy Gallwey has tried to explain this phenomenon in his books The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf. I'm not suggesting to throw out the baby with the bath water. Ask Tiger Woods how he got so good and one of his responses is that he hit thousands of buckets of balls. Is drawing the cue ball 12 inches instead of 14 inches more a matter of how it feels than how low we need to strike the cue ball and whether or not our cue is level?

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I'm not an instructor, but to me it would seem you need to start with the mechanics, and after a few years of playing, that will all go into the background so you are not actively saying to yourself "OK, line up this way, hold the cue a bit more left, take 3 practice strokes, follow though 12 inches..." while trying to make a shot. You just do it. You focus on the mechanics and drills during practice, once in a game, you let it flow.

At times, when I am in a tough shot with pressure (hill hill and I'm on the last ball or a key shot), to keep myself from thinking about that and sharking myself, I go over the stance and how the tip and cue look when I am in the shot, more so than the shot itself and what I want to do with it or what it means. It helps a bit to keeping my brain calmer and not randomly popping thoughts up like "Don't miss this or you lose, Don't hit too hard or you'll scratch, Why is that girl bending over now?"

The mechanics (actions) all need to have a stable, trustworthy stance. Basically, if you feet are not in the right position, you are not going to have a good stroke.

I've watched a lot of competitive players in the local APA league and when any good player is off his/her game, the first thing I look at is the feet positions. And generally, there was a change.

So, mechanics aside (and how necessary they are), the first trick to try when your game is off is concentrate on getting your feet down where they should be.

Tiger Woods doesn't have to think about his mechanics, obviously they're already grooved. Same for Max Eberle. They are considering precision feel most of us have no concept of. You can feel it all you wish, however, if your mechanics are poor, you won't be able to repeatedly execute it.

It's all about feel and memory.

It's about learning what it feels like to do something right ---- And then remembering and recalling that feel, so you can do it again.

Feel is all we have, because we can't watch ourselves as we are performing.

we can focus on what's most important in pool, feel and touch.

wswhiting said:

A few years ago when Oprah announced that Tiger Woods would be on her show, I didn't want to miss it. And I don't even play golf! She asked a few mundane questions, but three lucky members of the audience got the chance to ask their questions. The third question was the most revealing to me. "When you are in sudden death and you hit the ball into a sand trap, what are you thinking about?" Tiger's face went blank and he stuttered a moment before answering. "Well, I'm not thinking about anything. When I approach the green and you see my hands waving all around, I am trying to sense what the shot is going to feel like."

There are a couple of recent posts to this thread about the mental aspect of the game and how to take your practice session to the tournament setting. Could it be that we are thinking too much about where our elbow is and not trusting our stroke as Max Eberle has written about?

Timothy Gallwey has tried to explain this phenomenon in his books The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf. I'm not suggesting to throw out the baby with the bath water. Ask Tiger Woods how he got so good and one of his responses is that he hit thousands of buckets of balls. Is drawing the cue ball 12 inches instead of 14 inches more a matter of how it feels than how low we need to strike the cue ball and whether or not our cue is level?

Click to expand...

I read Timothy's books many years ago, and I still like 'Zen in the Art of Archery' better and I believe this book is mentioned as an inspiration for Timothy's books. All these things are tied into "becoming what we are doing" which is an "effortless effort" and "thoughtless thought" zone.....or as we call it in pool, "Dead Stroke". We humans do tend to complicate things if we don't have a "stream lined" system for performing.

We've discovered it's vitally important to align the body the same way relative to the line of the shot. This way we always have the same relative "starting point" and it's best done "center to center".

There's no stronger connection than the fullness of each ball aligned to one another. From this position 70-80% of all shots can be made from my experience. I just finished giving 12 hours of lessons in the last two days and I really got to fine tune my approach. I've been working with some advanced players recently so it's given me a chance to see how precisely they can execute the Touch of Inside, especially on the Banking System (TIPS).

The Game is really opening up because I can relate to teaching like I could playing - you must believe, as a champion player, that there is always a shot, and as a teacher "there's always a way to communicate a technique". I'm grateful I studied NLP when I was in my 20's, it's certainly become useful these days.

Everyone learns these systems in a different way, and once they "click" it's amazing how quickly the Game starts to help communicate the "Inside Knowledge" - Pocket Billiards is an incredible experience when we learn to connect our own Games to the perfection of THE Game. 'The Game is the Teacher' www.cjwiley.com

you must practice mechanics... if you are not practicing mechanics.. you are not practicing at all..

if you worry about mechanics while you play.. you are not playing... you are practicing..

and if you don't know the difference.. you are not doing much of anything at all...

CJ Wiley said:

I read Timothy's books many years ago, and I still like 'Zen in the Art of Archery' better and I believe this book is mentioned as an inspiration for Timothy's books. All these things are tied into "becoming what we are doing" which is an "effortless effort" and "thoughtless thought" zone.....or as we call it in pool, "Dead Stroke". We humans do tend to complicate things if we don't have a "stream lined" system for performing.

We've discovered it's vitally important to align the body the same way relative to the line of the shot. This way we always have the same relative "starting point" and it's best done "center to center".

There's no stronger connection than the fullness of each ball aligned to one another. From this position 70-80% of all shots can be made from my experience. I just finished giving 12 hours of lessons in the last two days and I really got to fine tune my approach. I've been working with some advanced players recently so it's given me a chance to see how precisely they can execute the Touch of Inside, especially on the Banking System (TIPS).

The Game is really opening up because I can relate to teaching like I could playing - you must believe, as a champion player, that there is always a shot, and as a teacher "there's always a way to communicate a technique". I'm grateful I studied NLP when I was in my 20's, it's certainly become useful these days.

Everyone learns these systems in a different way, and once they "click" it's amazing how quickly the Game starts to help communicate the "Inside Knowledge" - Pocket Billiards is an incredible experience when we learn to connect our own Games to the perfection of THE Game. 'The Game is the Teacher' www.cjwiley.com

Click to expand...

what does nlp stand for??:embarrassed2:

softshot has it correct.

Of course Tiger thinks about mechanics. He's changed his swing several times in recent years! The difference is, he doesn't think about many different mechanical parts during competition.

NLP is neuro-linguistic programming.

softshot said:

you must practice mechanics... if you are not practicing mechanics.. you are not practicing at all..

if you worry about mechanics while you play.. you are not playing... you are practicing..

and if you don't know the difference.. you are not doing much of anything at all...

Click to expand...

You are my champion!

randyg

softshot said:

you must practice mechanics... if you are not practicing mechanics.. you are not practicing at all..

if you worry about mechanics while you play.. you are not playing... you are practicing..

and if you don't know the difference.. you are not doing much of anything at all...

Click to expand...

Agreed!

I used to tell students when they go to the golf course to dance with the one that brung 'em! You ain't got a choice anyways since your mechanics will not change significantly over the course of a round of golf.

Another analogy I like...

Eating with a fork definitely takes a certain level of timing and precision but we do it naturally and effortlessly all the time!

Ken

Okie said:

Eating with a fork definitely takes a certain level of timing and precision but we do it naturally and effortlessly all the time!

Ken

Click to expand...

Not all of us ... http://youtu.be/7P5qJAI9BIc?t=39s

Nlp

bbb said:

what does nlp stand for??:embarrassed2:

Click to expand...

BBB,

NLP stands for Neuro-linguistic programming.

Regards,

Randy