A long comment on "aiming systems" ...
- Thread starter Grilled Cheese
- Start date
The main thing to take out of this is that there is clear opposition to his contention.
Saying that he doesn't use an aiming system so no one else should is quite frankly a juvenille argument and opposing posts bear this out.
If he was a proficient CTE user and he was evaluating his "stroke, feel and experience" vs using CTE and arrived at a conclusion that it was inferior to what he was currently using, then possibly you could take him seriously.
But he is against the *concept* of aiming systems.
He says you shouldn't use them (even if they do work).
I guess my real point is that if he or anyone else says aiming systems are bunk they will be hammered in this forum - as the size of this thread (currently 18 pages) will atest.
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Neil,
In post #236 you said, "If you want to know, go buy the dvd." To me, that makes it sound like you are more than just a satisfied customer. A pitch man, maybe?
And speaking of being out of line, you've been out of line for the longest time now. I know you're a smarter man than that. Maybe you could try harder to act a little like the old Neil?
Roger
No need to apologize. You make the point clearly that even an unequivocal endorsement from Mosconi would not be enough for you. So obviously ant lesser player has no possible way to prove the value and validity of the aiming system to you.
Or perhaps you can explain the "big difference" to me? I will happily apologize if your explanation is convincing.
www.jbcases.com
You're misquoting him. He never said "no one else should use an aiming system." He never said he is "against the *concept* of aiming systems" (*concept* is a word you interjected here). He never said "you shouldn't use them (even if they do work)." And he never said "aiming systems are bunk." But that's obviously the way you understand it, even though you read it wrong. And the size of this thread attests to nothing more than the fact that a few pitch men are willing to go on the attack and "hammer" anyone who dares to speak out against their pitch.
In my own opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with aiming systems. But the way they are marketed in these forums is deplorable.
Roger
Well Stan certainly put in the time so you can't be talking about him. It would be great if you would acknowledge that. In fact he was here recently in another thread clarifying things about what he teaches.
But when you have the sort of places where authors are defamed on a regular basis with no help from the moderation it should be clear why they are reluctant to hang out here.
www.jbcases.com
It's a chicken/ egg dynamic Roger. Yes the zealotry is over the top but so is the Inquistion-style tactics employed by the other side.
If you had a subforum dedicated to aiming and about five key opponents stayed out then I,promise the threads would be short and respectful and there wouldn't be much traffic.
But the way it has been ALLOWED to develop on here has caused both sides to go on tilt.
www.jbcases.com
Based on what Lou says his statement was, it appears to me that Lou is rejecting a logical fallacy known as:
Appeal to Authority
Anyhow, I hope to get this back on track...and less personal.
To do so, I want to illustrate why I think threads like these get bitter. When I learn something new in pool, a light goes off in my head. It's like an epiphany. I am in shock at first, then amazement, then I feel euphoria. Excitement about the game goes up and I feel great and cannot wait to play more and put what I've learned to use. It is a great feeling. Confidence skyrockets. Emotion is involved.
That's when I really, truly learn something new. Which means fully understanding it, and being able to apply it.
I'm sure the aiming system makes people feel this way too. Thus, when I am doubting the validity of their system, or down playing it's importance and role in building a high level game -- this is stepping on all of that. It's like taking the heroin away from a smack junkie. The high is over, and they are angry, sick, and irrational.
From their perspective, I can also see how this also hurts their pride. Because the suggestion that the aiming system is false, or perhaps even a scam, then suggests they were suckered, or they are fools to have bought into it. No one wants to feel suckered, ripped off or a fool. No one wants to feel like they believed in BS.
For these reasons, I fully understand the hostile reaction and response by so many users of particular aiming systems to ANY criticism or skepticism of their aiming system.
That wasn't my intent (to rattle your cages). Although, if certain aiming systems are invalid in the sense that they do not really accomplish what they are advertised to do, then they don't really work. Therefore, believing they do is a delusion. Also, I have put forth several good arguments promoting my position or belief that stroke is a bigger part of the overall learning equation toward building a better game. If a player is more focused or interested in investing their learning efforts on aiming, than stroke - for the purpose of improving, their time and effort is not wisely being used. Based on that, those who think investing in that "school of thought" surrounding aiming systems in that it is what is holding them back - they too are DELUSIONAL.
Again, I apologize....but I haven't seen too many people on this Earth who have a world class stroke, but suffer from an aiming deficiency or visualization problem.
To do so, I want to illustrate why I think threads like these get bitter. When I learn something new in pool, a light goes off in my head. It's like an epiphany. I am in shock at first, then amazement, then I feel euphoria. Excitement about the game goes up and I feel great and cannot wait to play more and put what I've learned to use. It is a great feeling. Confidence skyrockets. Emotion is involved.
That's when I really, truly learn something new. Which means fully understanding it, and being able to apply it.
I'm sure the aiming system makes people feel this way too. Thus, when I am doubting the validity of their system, or down playing it's importance and role in building a high level game -- this is stepping on all of that. It's like taking the heroin away from a smack junkie. The high is over, and they are angry, sick, and irrational.
From their perspective, I can also see how this also hurts their pride. Because the suggestion that the aiming system is false, or perhaps even a scam, then suggests they were suckered, or they are fools to have bought into it. No one wants to feel suckered, ripped off or a fool. No one wants to feel like they believed in BS.
For these reasons, I fully understand the hostile reaction and response by so many users of particular aiming systems to ANY criticism or skepticism of their aiming system.
That wasn't my intent (to rattle your cages). Although, if certain aiming systems are invalid in the sense that they do not really accomplish what they are advertised to do, then they don't really work. Therefore, believing they do is a delusion. Also, I have put forth several good arguments promoting my position or belief that stroke is a bigger part of the overall learning equation toward building a better game. If a player is more focused or interested in investing their learning efforts on aiming, than stroke - for the purpose of improving, their time and effort is not wisely being used. Based on that, those who think investing in that "school of thought" surrounding aiming systems in that it is what is holding them back - they too are DELUSIONAL.
Again, I apologize....but I haven't seen too many people on this Earth who have a world class stroke, but suffer from an aiming deficiency or visualization problem.
I personally think the whole subject is getting tiresome i couldnt care less how anybody else aims and would only offer my method if asked or if helping a beginner. Then as they get more ibto pool and progress they take what they please from me or go their own way. I use three systems but none of them have anything to do with regular shots only kicks and banks but to each his own.
Thats one down and a few more to go!
Did you bother to read any of the article you linked to?
This is the first couple paragrapghs:
"Description of Appeal to Authority
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:
Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.
This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true."
Are we now going to say that Willie Mosconi was not qualified to make a claim about any method used to play pool?
I mean if I said I was an expert on playing pool then I would expect to be laughed off the forum and in fact I get laughed off the forum even when I don't claim to be an expert.
But by using the very article you linked to I think that 99% of the pool playing public over 40 and every professional player would consider Willie Mosconi an expert when it comes to playing pool.
So going back to Lou's statement that even if Mosconi endorsed ProOne then Lou would not believe him. If Lou won't even accept Mosconi as an authority then no one else has any chance to be accepted.
If you guys won't accept longstanding instructors as authorities then what chance does a nobody like me have when I say something about an aiming system? SOME of you relish calling the instructors who teach these systems snake-oil salesmen, con artists, charlatans, etc.....
When you already think that and then you go so far as to say that EVEN IF Willie Mosconi were to say that it's good you'd tell him to go back to being dead then you are obviously completely close-minded on the subject.
If the top 20 professional players in the world all made a DVD right now demonstrating any of these aiming systems in as much detail as they could humanly bring to the table Lou and presumably you and others would dismiss them as being biased because they are selling the DVD.
But when the systems are given away for free then that's not enough because the people giving it away aren't "names" with a long list of professional victories.
And futhermore your comment that aiming systems are touted like diet pills is incredibly ludicrous. For one thing no one is SELLING access to them. There is plenty of free information out there for anyone interested in one of these aiming systems to play around with long before they have to spend an actual penny on it. For the other Stan Shuffet is the ONLY guy who made a DVD AFTER he got tired of being labeled a snake-oil salesman by Lou and others.
He had ZERO intention of making such a DVD. He did it to put something out there in a concrete form to PROVE that the system works and can be shown and taught.
Then you have Randy Goetlicher and the CueTech pool school. These guys have been teaching pool for 30 years at the highest level. They teach MANY aiming methods and their versions are just a SMALL part of their curriculm. They aren't out there touting the aiming methods they teach as a panacea for all that's wrong with your game. NO ONE IS.
let me repeat that.
NO ONE IS.
Now, in the internet age we have the ability to communicate across time and space. People who go to these guys can put their testimonials up and the rest of us can read them. If those CUSTOMERS do spend the money to get aiming instruction and they find the information to be bogus and the results to be crappy then they can tell us all about it. I mean this has got to be the EASIEST thing to review on the planet.............
Instructor: Do this and this and this and shoot.
Student: Wow, that's amazing.
Student: That makes NO SENSE and doesn't work.
1 or 2 - easy.
Oh now comes the other argument, people who tout aiming systems are biased........... and people who denigrate them are not?
Lou gets the DVD and gives it a particularly nasty review in which he defames Stan Shuffet by saying that he thinks Stan DELIBERATELY left out information to mislead the students to insure more private lessons. Leaving out the ludicrous logical failures there we have to consider that Lou had been nastily insulting any and every aiming system advocate for more than ten years prior. Bias????? Tiny bit???
Diet pills......please.......this entire thread is one big hit piece and by your comments you reveal exactly that you are NOT interested in common ground or peace. You got EXACTLY what you expected to get.
Pool is a simple game.
You try to make the white ball go where you want it to, over and over until you have made the game winning ball.
Ghost Ball IS an aiming SYSTEM. Double the Distance IS an aiming system. Contact point/pocket lines IS a system. Ball Overlap is a system. Back of the Ball IS a system. All of these methods are just visualization techniques to try to help the shooter find a line to get down on.
The methods Hal teaches, what Stan teaches, and other similar systems are also visualization methods WITH OBJECTIVE reference points that are EASY TO SEE.
Why is this so hard to understand? There doesn't need to be any "long comment on aiming systems" that leads to ANOTHER rehashing of the endless arguments.
Just LET IT GO and let the aiming nerds hash it out amongst themselves. Why do are you obsessed with persisting in telling them that they are wrong about what they are doing on the table?
Morhrt put up an excellent blog article with great diagrams and instructions.
Did you bother to take 30 minutes and go to the table and try what was written?????
I bet the answer is no. But you took an hour to write a post denigrating it in a passive/aggressive manner.
And you wonder why people on the pro side bristle......
Ask yourself HONESTLY if someone with a world class stroke said that they did have a problem with aim and visualization would you accept their word?
people with no experience, just opinions.
Cheese you have been offered the "burden of proof", now please explain where the aiming system fails.
JC
Coos Cues
What's a duffer? If that means an average player then that's what I am.
Yet to see you hit a ball or even make a comment that has ANYTHING to to do with the topic though. At this point no one even knows if you play pool AT ALL.
I offered you the stone cold nuts to get me off AZB for good. But you dogged it because you can't understand any of the conversation. You are not a person who has the experience to even understand either side of the conversation.
So I will offer it to you again, if I don't put up an uncut video of me running five racks by the end of next week I will leave AZB forever. If I do then you leave. (of course you can come back as Poosharkdave or something but then you'd at least have to leave me alone so as not to out yourself.)
Bet?
Why is this so hard to understand? There doesn't need to be any "long comment on aiming systems" that leads to ANOTHER rehashing of the endless arguments.
There could have been just the comment and a dead thread. But you wouldn't allow that to stand would you?
Just LET IT GO and let the aiming nerds hash it out amongst themselves. Why do are you obsessed with persisting in telling them that they are wrong about what they are doing on the table?
Because we don't like being the subject of malicious put downs and false comparisons. We don't make long bitter threads. We talk aiming technique. They bring in words like sucker, delusional, snake-oil, charlatans, placebo effect, and the like to put us down. Even when we do all they ask it doesn't matter. I have done every single shot challenge presented. All of them. They say no pros use aiming systems and when pros say they do then that's not enough.
So forgive us aiming nerds for not succumbing to the bullies. They don't get to tell me what I can see for myself and what other people also see when they try it.
Morhrt put up an excellent blog article with great diagrams and instructions.
Did you bother to take 30 minutes and go to the table and try what was written?????
No one ever said that it was something that is easy to learn and master in an hour.
The first two steps are systematic. The last step is where you come into the ball and that is also systematic because the instruction is to drop the bridge hand so that the cue is pointing to the edge of the ball. So there is only a limited, very limited set of places where doing that feels comfortable and which work to bring you to center ball.
And after you do it enough you drop in anywhere along the shot line just kind of swiping in. That's the practice part. Once you really start to get it though that's when the FUN begins.
Then you start setting up all sorts of crazy shots and just smile your ass off as they swish in (provided you stroke right that is)
I went through a couple months of being pissed off that I couldn't figure out the pivot. Contrary to what some people think I didn't have any special instruction or any printed instructions. I had to reverse engineer it from a known ghostball position.
And in fact I use GB to test any such aiming system. If I can go backwards from the known shot line then I can test it from different positions and make sure it reconciles with GB.
THEN in a game I don't worry about whether I "feel" right about the line or not because I trust the line that the system gives me and the results show me I am right.
Well then you'd be wrong. They act like people who walked the walk and not are told that they didn't. If I go through fire you don't get to tell me how it feels when you won't go through it your self.
There could have been just the comment and a dead thread. But you wouldn't allow that to stand would you?
Just LET IT GO and let the aiming nerds hash it out amongst themselves. Why do are you obsessed with persisting in telling them that they are wrong about what they are doing on the table?
Because we don't like being the subject of malicious put downs and false comparisons. We don't make long bitter threads. We talk aiming technique. They bring in words like sucker, delusional, snake-oil, charlatans, placebo effect, and the like to put us down. Even when we do all they ask it doesn't matter. I have done every single shot challenge presented. All of them. They say no pros use aiming systems and when pros say they do then that's not enough.
So forgive us aiming nerds for not succumbing to the bullies. They don't get to tell me what I can see for myself and what other people also see when they try it.
Morhrt put up an excellent blog article with great diagrams and instructions.
Did you bother to take 30 minutes and go to the table and try what was written?????
No one ever said that it was something that is easy to learn and master in an hour.
The first two steps are systematic. The last step is where you come into the ball and that is also systematic because the instruction is to drop the bridge hand so that the cue is pointing to the edge of the ball. So there is only a limited, very limited set of places where doing that feels comfortable and which work to bring you to center ball.
And after you do it enough you drop in anywhere along the shot line just kind of swiping in. That's the practice part. Once you really start to get it though that's when the FUN begins.
Then you start setting up all sorts of crazy shots and just smile your ass off as they swish in (provided you stroke right that is)
I went through a couple months of being pissed off that I couldn't figure out the pivot. Contrary to what some people think I didn't have any special instruction or any printed instructions. I had to reverse engineer it from a known ghostball position.
And in fact I use GB to test any such aiming system. If I can go backwards from the known shot line then I can test it from different positions and make sure it reconciles with GB.
THEN in a game I don't worry about whether I "feel" right about the line or not because I trust the line that the system gives me and the results show me I am right.
Well then you'd be wrong. They act like people who walked the walk and not are told that they didn't. If I go through fire you don't get to tell me how it feels when you won't go through it your self.
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"I was probably the most skeptical student that ever attended the National Billiard Academy. I am a semi-professional 9 ball player and my 8 ball team has been in the top 4 of the masters division in Vegas (VNEA) 3 out of the past 4 years. So, I am not a newbie. I want to let you know that spending 3 days with Tom and his team has changed my game forever - the biggest benefit to me were the aiming systems, which I won't go into here. I have been working with one of these systems for 2 weeks since returning and I am making more balls with ease than I ever imagined possible. As a result, my speed control has improved as I am not concerned with pocketing balls.
In summary, the best money I have ever spent on pool!"
Gerry Williams, semi-professional player, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, November 2011
http://www.poolclinics.com/playercomments.html
Tom Simpson, an EXCELLENT instructor and great person is smart enough to not spend his time on here and spends it teaching instead.
I should follow his lead.
In summary, the best money I have ever spent on pool!"
Gerry Williams, semi-professional player, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, November 2011
http://www.poolclinics.com/playercomments.html
Tom Simpson, an EXCELLENT instructor and great person is smart enough to not spend his time on here and spends it teaching instead.
I should follow his lead.