How much practice time?

brigeton said:

A little background, I am retired, 67, and laid off pool for 7 years. I am about a c+ b- player. I am practicing at home 1 to 2 hours a day. I feel like my stroke is coming back and I'm shooting about at the level I was at before I quit playing. I miss my position a couple times a game and that is probably my weak point right now.
I am a morning person so I usually practice about an hour in the morning on some drills until I get bored then maybe a couple 15 to 30 minute sessions later in the day. I sometimes play the ghost 8 ball or 9 ball until I miss or miss my position then shoot that shot a few times to figure it out. I feel if I try to practice too long after I get bored with it I'll just get sloppy and not make any improvement.
I know everyone's different depending on skill level and goals but how much do you feel you need to practice to improve?

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I highlighted a key point. I like the way you stop when boredom starts kicking in. Plus, you recognize that you are getting sloppy, many don't catch this....
I feel you are on the way to improving, keep it up.
Two hours a day is really a ton if you practice alone.

Sound like you want too be good again, so you 1 -2 hours need be supplemented with some competitive play. Bar Tournment are normally not too expensive to get in. Pol is like riding bicycle, you will get back into your old skill level in time.

I am in a similar situation, just coming back after over 10 years away. I've been going to the local hall and practicing for a few hours at a clip, but I know nobody there so it was literally just me playing. I'm 37 but have a tissue disorder along with a back that has many problems so I have to sit down in regular intervals in order to not overdo it. Two weeks ago I put my name down on an apa interest list and got on a team that week, it's helped me drastically as I have competition now plus it gives me more real life scenarios to practice later. The time you put in is what you get out, but you also have to look at what quality you are putting in, so stopping when you get bored is a great idea.

I asked nearly this same question a while back. Actually I posted the question in reference to how much practice do you need to just keep your present speed up. Which I would consider the bare minimum amount of practice time.

There were lots of replies with varying amounts of play described, as you would imagine.

Check it out, there's some good theories in there.

https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=451846

I agree with tucson9ball and CocoboloCowboy.

Dedicated practice is great, as long as you don't get bored and find that you're just beating in some predetermined time that you think you must do in order to call it "practice".

Short focused practice sessions of 20 to 30min, two or three times a day, can be much more effective than forcing yourself to practice for a certain time period like 2 hours straight or whatever. Make practice like a challenge game, shooting X number of successful shots in a row before stepping away from the table. Then a few hours later come back and do it again. The "X" amount of shots should be just beyond what you feel like you can accomplish. It should be within reach, not too easy but also not something that feels impossible.

And find some local people to play and compete against. That's always good for your game.

brigeton said:

A little background, I am retired, 67, and laid off pool for 7 years. I am about a c+ b- player. I am practicing at home 1 to 2 hours a day. I feel like my stroke is coming back and I'm shooting about at the level I was at before I quit playing. I miss my position a couple times a game and that is probably my weak point right now.
I am a morning person so I usually practice about an hour in the morning on some drills until I get bored then maybe a couple 15 to 30 minute sessions later in the day. I sometimes play the ghost 8 ball or 9 ball until I miss or miss my position then shoot that shot a few times to figure it out. I feel if I try to practice too long after I get bored with it I'll just get sloppy and not make any improvement.
I know everyone's different depending on skill level and goals but how much do you feel you need to practice to improve?

Click to expand...

In my experience the problem is going to be staying motivated without a concrete goal.

I recommend getting a video camera with a good sized memory and trying this:

https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=504956

Go for something that suits your ability and try to get a good set in, even if it takes months. Learn to process the tapes on You Tube and when you get a solid session in, post it.

Trying to beat the ghost for AZ will keep you on the table for hours. In my opinion, the more table time, the better you will get. The good thing at your level is you should see some solid results in a short time.

The retired cattle rancher I most play 1 pocket with is 88, he is a good player. I took a few years off from Pool. Got the bug again, started were I left off, and realized, I was paying sh**y.

Got back to practicing, thinking & planning each shot, dug deep into my memory, yes its coming back. But I have a long road to playing were I was when I was when I took a vacation.

Pool is like life, their are too kinds of people talkers, and DOERS.

If you want to do something, it take effort.

Talkers only Talk, and stay on the couch watch Fantesy TV.

Timely post. I’ve recently started back after 25 year layoff. My wife says my game is better now then back then. She played with me pretty regular back then. I recently started playing with a friend that is out freakin standing and I think that has helped my game. We usually play 4 hours or so.

I played last Saturday for 7 hours. That i know was way too much. Lol

My game got extremely sloppy after all that table time.

Curious to hear what’s a “good” time of practice.

Well what ever you do, the more practice, the more Mussel Memory you develop, and everything become easier to do.

Maybe that is why it take so =long to become a brain Surgon, long learning process.

Practice man...

ffr3247r said:

Timely post. I’ve recently started back after 25 year layoff. My wife says my game is better now then back then. She played with me pretty regular back then. I recently started playing with a friend that is out freakin standing and I think that has helped my game. We usually play 4 hours or so.

I played last Saturday for 7 hours. That i know was way too much. Lol

My game got extremely sloppy after all that table time.

Curious to hear what’s a “good” time of practice.

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Like in anything else, people are different. For me I feel like I need very long practice sessions to get the most out of it. Sort of like REM sleep. The first while doesn’t really contribute, but is necessary to sink into the game and get to the “receptive state” where I’m in tune with everything.

In that state I’ve had plenty of AHA moments where I figured out a shot I’d been messing up (force follow to corner with both balls close to the rail, cutting a ball in and keeping the CB on line with the contact point, gearing outside English, running down the rail past the point) just a few things I remember having trouble with along the way.

Eventually I’ll have a practice weekend where I’ll play for 2-3hours just getting in stroke, running open tables of all 15, 6-9 ball ghost, corner to corner...slowly working my way into trying to figure out the shots that have been hounding me lately, and once I get them I just go crazy on it for a while until I know exactly what to do.

It seems like the stuff sticks better for me that way, and I also have fine tuned my way of thinking about shots and my mental images the best during those pool immersions.

I do practice certain drills or quick ghost sets for 30 minutes when I feel like it during the week, and some days I’ll just hit balls, but I feel like that’s basically just maintenance between 6-8 hr improvement sessions.

brigeton said:

A little background, I am retired, 67, and laid off pool for 7 years. I am about a c+ b- player. I am practicing at home 1 to 2 hours a day. I feel like my stroke is coming back and I'm shooting about at the level I was at before I quit playing. I miss my position a couple times a game and that is probably my weak point right now.
I am a morning person so I usually practice about an hour in the morning on some drills until I get bored then maybe a couple 15 to 30 minute sessions later in the day. I sometimes play the ghost 8 ball or 9 ball until I miss or miss my position then shoot that shot a few times to figure it out. I feel if I try to practice too long after I get bored with it I'll just get sloppy and not make any improvement.
I know everyone's different depending on skill level and goals but how much do you feel you need to practice to improve?

Click to expand...

In your mid 60s, if you’ve played pool all your life, an hour a day or 6–8 hours a week is likely the minimum you’ll need just to try to maintain a fairly decent level of pool playing.

My personal experience – even with solid basic fundamentals, the chances of upping your game to another level at our age have likely long passed us by, even if we were to put 20 or 30 hours a week in to playing and practicing, which for most of us is not logistically or physically possible for us to do. Sorry to be so pessimistic, and perhaps others here might disagree.

brigeton said:

Thanks for the reply's every one. I was hoping I was on the right path. I have been playing some local bar tournaments for the last month. I finish in the money about 1/2 the time. I am not on a league now as I don't want to be committed to a certain night right now.
Thanks to Bob Jewett for the link. I tried to print some of the drills from your site but my printer is out of ink. I'll do that when I get some ink.
It does help me to not get bored when I have several different drills to work on for a little variety.

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If you get in a long practice session and things aren't going well, don't take it too hard. Sometimes it takes a day or two for the skills to sink in. Can't tell you how many times I've played the ghost getting nowhere, then the next day I'm cleaning up. I highly recommend regular ghost sessions.

brigeton said:

A little background, I am retired, 67, and laid off pool for 7 years. I am about a c+ b- player. I am practicing at home 1 to 2 hours a day. I feel like my stroke is coming back and I'm shooting about at the level I was at before I quit playing. I miss my position a couple times a game and that is probably my weak point right now.
I am a morning person so I usually practice about an hour in the morning on some drills until I get bored then maybe a couple 15 to 30 minute sessions later in the day. I sometimes play the ghost 8 ball or 9 ball until I miss or miss my position then shoot that shot a few times to figure it out. I feel if I try to practice too long after I get bored with it I'll just get sloppy and not make any improvement.
I know everyone's different depending on skill level and goals but how much do you feel you need to practice to improve?

Click to expand...

I'm 5 years younger than you, and I'm happy if I don't start losing any of the skill I currently have. Trying to IMPROVE my game would require about an hour and a half to 2 hours a day.

Another factor may be our aging bodies. If I play or practice more than 2 hours per outing, I feel pretty roughed up.

For practice sessions, I'm a big fan of playing the ghost. Unfortunately, the ghost is tough action for me, so I have to ask the ghost for a spot. Don't be afraid to do this. Most definitely, stop practice when you get bored and sloppy - but I think you already knew this.

Good luck.