quiet eye

Maniac

2manyQ's
Silver Member
Nice read thx....In our game, a term I'm sure many have heard and seen is when someone is ''in the zone''. That expression would seem to parallel that thinking. It's time when Everything slows down, one gets calm and one's thought process gets clearer.

When I get "in the zone" (which is becoming rarer and rarer as I get older) I don't even notice or hear the people around me. Have no clue what's going on, even in my immediate area. It's just me and the task-at-hand. Heck, I've had a bunch of break-and-runs I didn't even realize I had until a teammate told me after my match was over.

I love when that happens.

Maniac
 

Scott Lee

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
ALL poolplayers have to pause at the end of their backswing...some may be quite short (my personal pause is 2/10's of a second. Some may be quite long and deliberate. In comparison Allison's is 1 second, and Buddy's is 2-3 seconds). Physics dictates some kind of temporary stop, in order to change directions smoothly and accelerate. Even if you think there's no pause, there is...and slow motion video proves it every time.

Scott Lee
2019 PBIA Instructor of the Year
Director, SPF National Pool School Tour

it is interesting in pool how some great shooters are able to make the final stroke completely in the "Quiet Eye" mode WITHOUT any pause in their final stroke.
 

Island Drive

Otto/Dads College Roommate/Cleveland Browns
Silver Member
When I get "in the zone" (which is becoming rarer and rarer as I get older) I don't even notice or hear the people around me. Have no clue what's going on, even in my immediate area. It's just me and the task-at-hand. Heck, I've had a bunch of break-and-runs I didn't even realize I had until a teammate told me after my match was over.

I love when that happens.

Maniac

You got that right....
I remember a 3 month period after I had a shoulder operation in the 70's that gave me a clarity like never before.

It was only many years later that I got that back, through hard work/exercise/excessive play and clean living when it reappeared. Everything Slows down, I'd remember EVERY shot/package in a race to 11.
 

Hoser

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
LakeMan linked the first of a two part video although the video's didn't make that plain. The second part is on the driving range, where SofaKing got ratted out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGjwkJwXCGc

It is interesting to take what we can learn from one sport and use it for something else. Nobody is spending a bunch of time and money for research towards pool. I think there is a little spent on snooker. Anyway, we can borrow from things that seem pretty far distant sometimes. Golf and bowling seem closest to pool of the sports likely to be studied, or so it seems to me offhand.

Years ago I was training horses for the track. Horses are very big and very delicate, makes them lousy laboratory animals and comparatively little research was done on them even when horse racing was much more thriving. My solution was to study human sports medicine where there were millions or billions spent and lots of research. One of the main things I hit on was interval training. I kept my own council and my primary pony went nine for nine that season!

My best horse was a sprinter, and from my pool days I was a bit of a hustler. I put barrel plates on the horses for a number of reasons, the biggest being they looked like working shoes and performed almost like the cleated aluminum racing plates.

Horse racing on the brush tracks was fun, no holds barred. Open doping, batteries, anything somebody could think of to make a horse go faster. I limited myself to training, good feed and supplements, a little B-12 at the right time.

Hu

You're absolutely correct that concepts used for optimal performance in one sport transfer to other sports, even ones that you wouldn't think would benefit from similar training. When psycho physiologists discovered that we could operantly condition vagal tone by training someone to breathe at a specific resonant frequency which enables a quick transition to stillness, the first group of athletes that took advantage of it were the biathletes because they had to go from aerobic activity to shooting and it was timed. Since then the same training along with other cybernetic types of learning such as seen with the quiet eye technology, biofeedback of various modalities neural feedback from the EEG can be used to shorten the learning curve for specific elements that combine to separate the elite performer in most sports from the rest of the bell curve. The basic concept is that if you provide the conscious brain with information about something we are attempting to control that we don't have awareness of using technology a learning loop occurs more rapidly than otherwise. ( hit a million balls) The brain body connection is miraculous and complex in its design and evolution which we must master to perform at a high level not just in sports but also other aspects of everyday life. Science, sports and medicine in the Western world love A = B answers for success or failure.( insert latest tip, shaft. $20 chalk). High-level sports psychologists usually begin by talking to the coach about strengths and weaknesses. Next the athlete is evaluated on many different levels from the psychological, cognitive, neurological and physiological parameters that are relevant.
So what one athlete would benefit from may differ significantly from the next. Evaluation may show difficulties with a number of reciprocal factors; focus, volition, muscle tension at address, arousal management, resiliency, positive versus negative self talk and so on. The brain body connection is not the brain telling the body what to do, or the body telling the brain what to do, they talk back and forth to one another and influence each others state. What we really seek is coherence from all of these afferent and efferent inputs to perform the best we can.

Hu, on an unrelated note as a young man of 14 in the mid-70s, I worked for several years as a trap boy at a gun range(one dollar an hour and I spent most of that shooting there) . A friend of my father, Dick Knobbs shot there and held the record for a number of years in skeet, I believe it was 1236 straight in tournament shooting events. , Joe
 

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
You're absolutely correct that concepts used for optimal performance in one sport transfer to other sports, even ones that you wouldn't think would benefit from similar training. When psycho physiologists discovered that we could operantly condition vagal tone by training someone to breathe at a specific resonant frequency which enables a quick transition to stillness, the first group of athletes that took advantage of it were the biathletes because they had to go from aerobic activity to shooting and it was timed. Since then the same training along with other cybernetic types of learning such as seen with the quiet eye technology, biofeedback of various modalities neural feedback from the EEG can be used to shorten the learning curve for specific elements that combine to separate the elite performer in most sports from the rest of the bell curve. The basic concept is that if you provide the conscious brain with information about something we are attempting to control that we don't have awareness of using technology a learning loop occurs more rapidly than otherwise. ( hit a million balls) The brain body connection is miraculous and complex in its design and evolution which we must master to perform at a high level not just in sports but also other aspects of everyday life. Science, sports and medicine in the Western world love A = B answers for success or failure.( insert latest tip, shaft. $20 chalk). High-level sports psychologists usually begin by talking to the coach about strengths and weaknesses. Next the athlete is evaluated on many different levels from the psychological, cognitive, neurological and physiological parameters that are relevant.
So what one athlete would benefit from may differ significantly from the next. Evaluation may show difficulties with a number of reciprocal factors; focus, volition, muscle tension at address, arousal management, resiliency, positive versus negative self talk and so on. The brain body connection is not the brain telling the body what to do, or the body telling the brain what to do, they talk back and forth to one another and influence each others state. What we really seek is coherence from all of these afferent and efferent inputs to perform the best we can.

Hu, on an unrelated note as a young man of 14 in the mid-70s, I worked for several years as a trap boy at a gun range(one dollar an hour and I spent most of that shooting there) . A friend of my father, Dick Knobbs shot there and held the record for a number of years in skeet, I believe it was 1236 straight in tournament shooting events. , Joe


Joe, all I have to say about the first part of your post is, "umm, yes!" Truth is I follow the theory and might follow the whole concept and operation if I researched it but long retirement has put me outside the loop about most things and it has been a long time since I conditioned myself, even longer since I conditioned horses. Funny thing, the sports medicine I learned to condition horses was largely what I used to condition me!

My shotgunning days are long over, a dicey back and too easy to get out of position, sometimes even in position isn't a good idea! At that, a cousin and running partner of mine at the time had decided that skeet would get us in tune for duck season so while I shot it now and then at other times it was mostly prep for dove and duck season. I usually missed one or two clays even using a twelve gauge.

I set a local record I was proud of, the first perfect 600 with a pistol. Doesn't sound like much but nationally and internationally ranked Masters and Grand Masters had shot that match many more times than I had. Even at the time I was shooting there were probably close to a dozen better shooters than I was.

I might have been the best competitor shooting regularly though. I have competed at over a half-dozen things and find that some of the bare bones things that go with being a competitor carry over. I was halfway through the event shooting outdoors in a rain and wind storm at night when I decided the six hundred was possible and I was going to claim it.

We shot four classes at the time, C,B,A, and Master. My first season I had went from C to A with no past experience competing with a pistol. The way all scores were calculated to place a person in a class let people dog one match in a big way and stay away from the big dogs in Master class. I was well aware I was shooting the season championship against four to six Master skill level shooters who sandbagged but I had decided I was going to win the division. A nice sunny Sunday and I did my thing, coming home the winner.

With the state of pool I never considered anyone more of a professional than I was, that let me compete with, and sometimes beat, anyone that came through town. Winning, or losing for that matter, starts in the mind. We live up to or down to our expectations. I have known people who had skills great enough it seemed impossible they never won but they lacked the mindset to win.



Scott, a curve can define a change of direction as easily as a point. Ever use a fly rod?

Hu
 

SlickRick_PCS

Pool, Snooker, Carom
Silver Member
Linking to a "Pocket" article here, hopefully not an issue. I have never understood just what Pocket is.

Anyway, we talk about quiet eye now and then. Here is an article on it and I see some familiar names from other discussions. I don't know if this article is recycled or not.

I do find it interesting that "quiet eye" is equally needed for things like golf where your target is holding still, and some of the sports where your target is coming at you at around a hundred miles an hour.

Hu

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-athletes-need-a-quiet-eye?utm_source=pocket-newtab

https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?p=975490#post975490

Beat you to it, 13 years ago.
 

SlickRick_PCS

Pool, Snooker, Carom
Silver Member
Use search button

You all really need to use the search button.
This topic was discussed in 2007 (13 years ago). Really... :shrug:
 

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
busted link





You did, and I doubt your thread was the first discussion of quiet eye. However your link is busted now and many of us like to read the articles. Some will no doubt give quiet eye a try for the first time.

Search sucks on this site and to go back over twelve years may require being a gold member. Fresh articles about old subjects can be worth bringing up and having people look at it. Out of all the people looking a few will give it a try. Some things I thought might be worth keeping secret many years ago, now I know that if we laid down the path to heaven most would say, "oh that is nice" and go on their merry way!

It hasn't been long since we have talked about the zone but I didn't find that discussion satisfactory. I'll probably kick off another zone thread before long. Zone vs flow, expanded consciousness, vs narrow focus.

Hu
 

duckie

GregH
Silver Member
What’s missing is no one knows what a person is really seeing with their vision. Your eye is not your vision, what is being seen in your mind.

Does anyone really know what gaze means?

I’ve mentioned before I probably use my vision different than most cause I ride and raced motorcycles. This requires your eyes to be in a different state than watching TV.

Racing motorcycles requires you to look where you need to go, but also to see everything in front and beside you while not looking at anything. Something applies to car racing.

To see a hidden picture in stereograms, you must learn to see the whole and not just part which requires your focus to be on nothing.

The role of your peripheral vision is never mentioned. Vision consists of your central vision and peripheral vision. It is your peripheral vision that’s lets one see the hidden imagine in stereograms. To do so, requires you to focus your central vision past the imagine.

And this requires the eyes not to move, a steady gaze..........but not stare.

Google stereograms and see if you can learn to see the hidden imagines. Once you can, you will sense the difference in the state of your eyes from not being able to see the imagine to seeing the imagine.
 
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SlickRick_PCS

Pool, Snooker, Carom
Silver Member
You did, and I doubt your thread was the first discussion of quiet eye. However your link is busted now and many of us like to read the articles. Some will no doubt give quiet eye a try for the first time.

Search sucks on this site and to go back over twelve years may require being a gold member. Fresh articles about old subjects can be worth bringing up and having people look at it. Out of all the people looking a few will give it a try. Some things I thought might be worth keeping secret many years ago, now I know that if we laid down the path to heaven most would say, "oh that is nice" and go on their merry way!

It hasn't been long since we have talked about the zone but I didn't find that discussion satisfactory. I'll probably kick off another zone thread before long. Zone vs flow, expanded consciousness, vs narrow focus.

Hu

You got me there... :embarrassed2::banghead::shrug:
 

SlickRick_PCS

Pool, Snooker, Carom
Silver Member
What’s missing is no one knows what a person is really seeing with their vision. Your eye is not your vision, what is being seen in your mind.

Does anyone really know what gaze means?

I’ve mentioned before I probably use my vision different than most cause I ride and raced motorcycles. This requires your eyes to be in a different state than watching TV.

Racing motorcycles requires you to look where you need to go, but also to see everything in front and beside you while not looking at anything. Something applies to car racing.

To see a hidden picture in stereograms, you must learn to see the whole and not just part which requires your focus to be on nothing.

The role of your peripheral vision is never mentioned. Vision consists of your central vision and peripheral vision. It is your peripheral vision that’s lets one see the hidden imagine in stereograms. To do so, requires you to focus your central vision past the imagine.

And this requires the eyes not to move, a steady gaze..........but not stare.

Google stereograms and see if you can learn to see the hidden imagines. Once you can, you will sense the difference in the state of your eyes from not being able to see the imagine to seeing the imagine.

LOL,
Don't you think you are over-thinking this hypothesis?
I mean, all it takes is just the fundamentals of stance, stroke, and tip-positioning of the ball, aiming, and then "pulling the trigger" (all this, which are irrelevant and automatic to non-enthusiast playing for fun).
 

Poolhall60561

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Linking to a "Pocket" article here, hopefully not an issue. I have never understood just what Pocket is.

Anyway, we talk about quiet eye now and then. Here is an article on it and I see some familiar names from other discussions. I don't know if this article is recycled or not.

I do find it interesting that "quiet eye" is equally needed for things like golf where your target is holding still, and some of the sports where your target is coming at you at around a hundred miles an hour.

Hu

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-athletes-need-a-quiet-eye?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Great advise
 

duckie

GregH
Silver Member
LOL,
Don't you think you are over-thinking this hypothesis?
I mean, all it takes is just the fundamentals of stance, stroke, and tip-positioning of the ball, aiming, and then "pulling the trigger" (all this, which are irrelevant and automatic to non-enthusiast playing for fun).

You are over simplifying what it take to play pool at a high consistency level.

And all that is ever talked about is the eyes, and never vision, two different things. Eyes just let light in.....vision, what you see in your brain, is the result of the letting of light into the eyes.

So, quiet eyes doesn’t really explain how a persons vision is being used, just the eyes don’t move as much as others.
 
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bbb

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
What’s missing is no one knows what a person is really seeing with their vision. Your eye is not your vision, what is being seen in your mind.

Does anyone really know what gaze means?

I’ve mentioned before I probably use my vision different than most cause I ride and raced motorcycles. This requires your eyes to be in a different state than watching TV.

Racing motorcycles requires you to look where you need to go, but also to see everything in front and beside you while not looking at anything. Something applies to car racing.

To see a hidden picture in stereograms, you must learn to see the whole and not just part which requires your focus to be on nothing.

The role of your peripheral vision is never mentioned. Vision consists of your central vision and peripheral vision. It is your peripheral vision that’s lets one see the hidden imagine in stereograms. To do so, requires you to focus your central vision past the imagine.

And this requires the eyes not to move, a steady gaze..........but not stare.

Google stereograms and see if you can learn to see the hidden imagines. Once you can, you will sense the difference in the state of your eyes from not being able to see the imagine to seeing the imagine.

i googled steograms and found i was not very good at seeing the images
does this video come close to what you mean by gazing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q3iHYMCv9Y
 

336Robin

Multiverse Operative
Silver Member
Great article. I remember when I was a kid throwing baseball (completely
self taught) I had this thing going with my windup, aim and delivery) that I
understood. I knew where to aim for to get the curve ball to hit the corner of the
strike zone. Once I started the windup the pitch was already there. I loved baseball.




Linking to a "Pocket" article here, hopefully not an issue. I have never understood just what Pocket is.

Anyway, we talk about quiet eye now and then. Here is an article on it and I see some familiar names from other discussions. I don't know if this article is recycled or not.

I do find it interesting that "quiet eye" is equally needed for things like golf where your target is holding still, and some of the sports where your target is coming at you at around a hundred miles an hour.

Hu

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-athletes-need-a-quiet-eye?utm_source=pocket-newtab
 

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
Softball for me

Great article. I remember when I was a kid throwing baseball (completely
self taught) I had this thing going with my windup, aim and delivery) that I
understood. I knew where to aim for to get the curve ball to hit the corner of the
strike zone. Once I started the windup the pitch was already there. I loved baseball.


Poor side of town, they wouldn't let us play hardball at recess since most kids didn't have gloves. A softball can be pitched faster than a hard ball which is why they have the over the head rule and others.

We played with the brick wall of a school building as a backstop. Once or twice a session I would motion the catcher to the side and throw three pitches as hard as i could dead through the strike zone. Jr high school, never had anyone even get a piece of one of those pitches. They would swing after the ball hit the wall. Teachers would come running out the building fussing, musta been kinda loud inside!

My serve was the same when I tried tennis in high school. No fun with no returns so I started leaving my elbow bent and taking some speed off of my serve. I discovered tennis elbow and it hurt playing pool for years!

I worked out a break with a lot of spin and had a hard but not super hard break. When I was teaching people I didn't teach my break because it was real close to the miscue limit.

Hu
 

Brookeland Bill

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Sequence in Quiet Eye

Okay, so would some one please explain the sequence with quiet eye when you have a target pocket, object ball and cue ball. It is easily understood in the putting and free throw videos but I’m not sure about shooting pool. Thanks.
 

bbb

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
Okay, so would some one please explain the sequence with quiet eye when you have a target pocket, object ball and cue ball. It is easily understood in the putting and free throw videos but I’m not sure about shooting pool. Thanks.

Whatever you look at last cue ball/ contact point / fraction etc
You should look at for 3 seconds before you shoot
 
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Brookeland Bill

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Whatever you look at last cue ball/ contact point / fraction etc
You should look at for 3 seconds before you shoot

Thanks. I took your advice. Holding for 3 seconds and pausing a little more on my back stroke really made a difference. For whatever reason I began seeing the contact point better. Even my opponent commented that my game had greatly improved since last week.:thumbup:
 
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