A nutty way to improve your ability

J

JoeW

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
To play pool well one must remember how to execute the shot. In this sense memory is one of several keys to playing well. These memories are not conscious in the sense that we can tell another person what we do. For instance, try to tell another person what you do to coordinate your eyes with the pendulum swing of your arm and the loose grip of your hand to execute a shot. Simply stated, you cannot. However, you do recognize the need for a 33 degree cut with above center follow and slight right English to make X shot and get position on the next ball. Some place in your head is a representation of prior shots and the ability to adjust the current shot for good control of the game. Some pros have exquisite control.

Is there a way to stuff these types of memories into your head so that they can be easily and quickly recalled? I am not sure, but there may be a way to improve the ability of the mind to connect all of the dots as needed.

We all seem to have an ability to remember traumatic events in glaring detail years after the event. Listen to someone tell about their near fatal car accident that they had 20 years ago and they can often tell the story like it happened yesterday. I wonder if we could not get something like this with regard to the ability to naturally, unconsciously, remember how to play different pool shots.

The near fatal accident situation involves an extremely high state of attention and probably the flow of different chemicals in the body at the time. None-the-less, I wonder if we can take a lesson here. It seems to me that if one were to get hyper-emotional immediately after making a shot that is considered well executed that this emotionality might help to set the memory in the unconscious. The idea would be to "jump and shout, knock yourself out" when you make the shot exactly as you wanted it. This might set the memory pattern by highlighting it to the brain as something to be remembered.

For those who are not experts at banking here is a way to test the idea that emotional reactions may help remembering how to play a shot. Set seven object balls one diamond off the long rail. With cue ball in hand, bank each object ball to the nearest pocket. Do this two times and you will have 14 shots.

Count the number of times you made the object ball. This is the number of correct attempts or CA. CA divided by 14 is the percentage of correct attempts.

Now practice banking balls using any system that suits you. Ray Martin's system is particularly effective (99 Critical Shots page 68 ? 71). Every time you make the bank shot, "run and shout, knock yourself out." Or, more specifically, get emotional, yell clap your hands, laugh and in general make a big deal about it. The more emotional you are the better the test will be. You better be at home on your private table or the hall owner might call the nut squad. Continue in this manner until you have made about 20 bank shots.

Now you have to wait one week. This allows the effect of any prior training to wear off. In general, after a week your silly one afternoon session should not have changed anything.

So It's Monday again and now you go set up 14 balls as described in the beginning of this post. Play each shot again with your usual approach to playing pool and calculate the correct percent as indicated above. If the new training method worked you could expect about a 20 - 30% change in your ability to make banks.

If the system does work it could be used for many other aspects of learning to play well. Of course you might look like a nit but it about pool playing - right. It makes no difference if you are here or in a psych ward.

From another perspective, I wonder how many excellent players (in whatever sport) have been using something like this. The joy might not be externalized for some but I would bet that some sort of emotionality (maybe even anger) is involved when learning to play well.
 
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cattle prods work with dogs, horses and cattle to get them to stop doing the wrong thing. But some how I think it would wreck the game of pool for me if I got shocked every time I did something wrong. :eek:

ECT might work but then I would forget my name and what game I wanted to play.
 
Yes and no. Practice drills work but I am looking for a way to get the most out of practice. That is to remember the good stuff and have it come to mind quickly and easily. By emphasing the "good" stuff it will more quickly form a memory. Emotionality is one way to emphasize.

I think you can say to yourself, "OK that's a keeper." But somehow that is not as effective as a big grin or some other over reaction.
 
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Another "self talk" that I found to be useful is what I call the "A Stroke." It seems to me that I am always working on my shooting technique. There is my current stroke and there is the stroke I am working on. Then there is the "old stroke" that doesn't work for some reason. That old stroke seems to come out whenever I get in trouble -- bad habits and all that.

To counter this I have learned to label my current best stroke as the "A Stroke." It is my best one to date. Now, every time I practice and use the A stroke, and it works as it should, I say aloud "A Stroke." This tends to cement it into my unconscious. In the last few months I have found that when I get in trouble in a game or a match, I say "A stroke" and it comes up all by itself, so to speak. It has gotten me out of a few tight spots lately.

So -- if the "A Stroke" technique works, well I wonder what else might work to improve my game? A Stoke with a smile might be even more effective. Then I got to thinking about how memories get stuck in the mind and the result is the above post. Just the wanderings of another goofy pool player.

Oh yeah, I should mention that some of these musings come from the current issue of Scientific American and an article by Joe Tsien (pg 52) on how memory is coded in the brain. Interesting article for those who are interested in neurophysiology and the nether reaches of applying theortetical studes to pool playing.
 
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Fancher's book is very good and I enjoyed it. Someone referred me to J. Loehr's. "Mental Toughness training for sports." and he may have a better program for development but I have yet to read it all.
 
Someone asked what I thought of Bob Fancher's book, The Pleasures of Small Motions. I found that his information is quite good. He translates the current (as of 2002) thinking in general psychology for the pool player. He sets a reasonable tone, does not become pedantic, and explains concepts with a flare for those with little training in psychology. It is indeed an excellent place to start understanding the concepts and ideas that psychological analysis can contribute to a player's game. I would recommend it to anyone interested in this topic and indeed it should be referenced by others for its insightful contributions.

I think that he could have given more specific behavioral recommendations for people to use in the improvement of their game. For instance, it is true that relaxation techniques are a general procedure. However, they can be tailored for specific issues as needed. Apparently, it was not Fancher's intent to get too specific and in this it would be unfair to find fault. It is more a limitation of his work.

As noted above, it would appear that James Loehr's work, "Mental Toughness Training for Sports," should also be included in the pool player's library. Loehr does indeed get specific. After reading Fancher, Loehr's work would make more sense to most players and perhaps they would indeed follow some of his recommendations.
 
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Klopek said:
Plesures of Small Motions
Click to expand...

This is indeed a helpful book. As mentioned above the building emotion to improve is a great concept that is pretty specifically addressed in that book.

He explains how emotion is the product of motivation and getting motivated to practice is different than the motivations of competition. In fact he recommends motivating yourself to the "pleasures of small motions".

Good read for sure.
 
I see one possible problem with this... people who remember exciting or traumatic events actually felt the emotion and went through something.

I don't know if faking the intense feeling will make any sort of impression on the brain.
 
For whatever reason, the human brain remembers these "traumatic" events, like the exact angle the cue ball scratched into the corner pocket, as the eight ball drops into the called pocket, on a hill hill game on a hill hill match.

It would be great if we could draw from our positive experiences more frequently.
 
I agree that faking the emotion would not have as much of an effect as a genuine emotion. The "Run and shout knock yourself out" idea is to suggest that one should be pleased, verbal, and emotional when things go right. Current research seems to suggest that emotional and other triggers may help embed memories.

Certainly a traummatic event locks the memory in. Single trial learning in animals given a subtetenizing shock demonstrated that. That is the type of shock that almost, but not quite, causes death.

I do think that many of us practice with neutral emotions and current thinking suggests that one could improve the memorization process by highlighting what is to be retained. Drammatizing your good efforts is a way to do this. The more that movement, loud exclamations, and genuine pleasure is used the more it is likely the physical movements will be remembered. I think that simply raising one's fist and exclaiming "RIGHT" could be useful.

Of course this thinking is on the cutting edge of neuroscience research and it is speculative at best. I am always on the look out for new things to try that might improve learning.
 
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where is your your aiming system?

JoeW said:
To play pool well one must remember how to execute the shot. In this sense memory is one of several keys to playing well. These memories are not conscious in the sense that we can tell another person what we do. For instance, try to tell another person what you do to coordinate your eyes with the pendulum swing of your arm and the loose grip of your hand to execute a shot. Simply stated, you cannot. However, you do recognize the need for a 33 degree cut with above center follow and slight right English to make X shot and get position on the next ball. Some place in your head is a representation of prior shots and the ability to adjust the current shot for good control of the game. Some pros have exquisite control.

Is there a way to stuff these types of memories into your head so that they can be easily and quickly recalled? I am not sure, but there may be a way to improve the ability of the mind to connect all of the dots as needed.

We all seem to have an ability to remember traumatic events in glaring detail years after the event. Listen to someone tell about their near fatal car accident that they had 20 years ago and they can often tell the story like it happened yesterday. I wonder if we could not get something like this with regard to the ability to naturally, unconsciously, remember how to play different pool shots.

The near fatal accident situation involves an extremely high state of attention and probably the flow of different chemicals in the body at the time. None-the-less, I wonder if we can take a lesson here. It seems to me that if one were to get hyper-emotional immediately after making a shot that is considered well executed that this emotionality might help to set the memory in the unconscious. The idea would be to "jump and shout, knock yourself out" when you make the shot exactly as you wanted it. This might set the memory pattern by highlighting it to the brain as something to be remembered.

For those who are not experts at banking here is a way to test the idea that emotional reactions may help remembering how to play a shot. Set seven object balls one diamond off the long rail. With cue ball in hand, bank each object ball to the nearest pocket. Do this two times and you will have 14 shots.

Count the number of times you made the object ball. This is the number of correct attempts or CA. CA divided by 14 is the percentage of correct attempts.

Now practice banking balls using any system that suits you. Ray Martin's system is particularly effective (99 Critical Shots page 68 ? 71). Every time you make the bank shot, "run and shout, knock yourself out." Or, more specifically, get emotional, yell clap your hands, laugh and in general make a big deal about it. The more emotional you are the better the test will be. You better be at home on your private table or the hall owner might call the nut squad. Continue in this manner until you have made about 20 bank shots.

Now you have to wait one week. This allows the effect of any prior training to wear off. In general, after a week your silly one afternoon session should not have changed anything.

So It's Monday again and now you go set up 14 balls as described in the beginning of this post. Play each shot again with your usual approach to playing pool and calculate the correct percent as indicated above. If the new training method worked you could expect about a 20 - 30% change in your ability to make banks.

If the system does work it could be used for many other aspects of learning to play well. Of course you might look like a nit but it about pool playing - right. It makes no difference if you are here or in a psych ward.

From another perspective, I wonder how many excellent players (in whatever sport) have been using something like this. The joy might not be externalized for some but I would bet that some sort of emotionality (maybe even anger) is involved when learning to play well.
Click to expand...
where is your aiming system?
 
Funny

Joe while your post was funny it is really true that this will work!

If you praise yourself while you are practicing then you will more than likely instill this into your brain.

If you tell your brain that it is good by getting excited about it, then you will want to do it in a real game to have that feel good feeling again.

I agree that it works, but I normally just get a big grin on my face and say something aloud like Yea!!!!!
 
Thanks txplshrk, nice to see that someone else sees what I am talking about. I have been reading the various texts that you guys have recommended and it seems that nearly all of these people extol the virtues of adding "joy" or fun to the game as a way to be a better player. This too makes a great deal of sense to me.

Kildegirl. The post is not about aiming it is an add on to whatever type of practice and or aiming system you use.
 
Read "The Mental Edge" Your're on to something. This book shows some different techniques that jumping up and down screaming with high fives.
 
Jimmy Reid uses a technique that is similar in his instructional DVD. Touch, feel, visualize and sense the shot. Put your index and thumb together forming a circle after you make a shot that you are practicing. This will help to store it into your memory.
 
Here is another nutty way......stop playing handicapp games or if you are a B level......ask to be ranked as a A level.

I figure instead of waiting for the bar to be raised for me.....I'd raise it myself. I thought handcapp games were hurting me in that my progress was going slowly, so I thought upping the level I had to play would speed me along.

The first local tourney I played as a A......I played better than if I was ranked as a B.

FWIW
 
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