Good Morning AZB ers
If we re talking about *Focus* in the game of our loved game of billiards in my opinion we re talking about the most important part-and the most difficult to learn.
Don t get me wrong- if we re talking on the mental part of the game i ll take it as given, that the player already has a minimum of the needed physical abilites. So here i would call out, that it is definitley a precondition, that you know about the physics of the game-easy said, you re a serious player, who knows what happens with the cueball, too.
To talk about focus could fill books- to keep focus on the important things is the key. Further it s a difference to talk about *keeping Focus* or talking just about concentration. For me you have to differ here!
We re talking about keeping focus in our sport (i call it sport here^^)- and soon we would reach the often discuss Pre-Shot-Routines. With Pre-Shot-Routines we try to train our brain, furthermore it has also to do with training many thousands of "auto-repeats"/repitions until muscle-memory is *burned in*. At some point you will do several things unconconsciously-it this happened, the success of the hard work has appeared. You will doing things just using your sub-conscious mind anddon t have to think anymore about it. So you have something, which can be done without spending attention on it-
If we re talking about Pros, you can be sure, that guys like Archer, Souquet, Hohman made not just 5.000 repititions while working on their *stroke* or special drills- for sure they shot it about 100.000 times- they usualy don t have to pay attention about their physical stroke ablilities or so. They just have to be *focussed* on the important part.....doing their job! Observe-Watch-Aim-Going down and shoot! They all know already what to do 100%.
But we re all humans
and so the Pros are, too (thx God, lol). And this the reason they re makin mistakes, too. But (in my humble opinion) professionals usualy loose a game, because they lost focus in a single moment-nothin else!
Talking about pre-shot-routines can force discussions. But it s a fact, that the Pre-Shot-Routines (not just one, just a few that were put together) is extremly important. Without it you ll never reach a higher level. i often see, that *new* students rolling their eyes, when i start talking about some theoretical stuff like mental parts of the game. They just wanna pocket balls (as we all do, lol). And so do some older guys, too-most of the time with funny statements like "this pro has no psr (i ve never seen one pro without a psr)" .
The mental part makes the champion and the winner- to keep focus needs a great amount of training. Some parts can just be trained with long table-time, some should be learnt from qualified persons who really know something about mental coaching. I am far away from an expert here, but with the few things i know, i hope i can push the student/person towards thinking about how important it is, to think about the mental part of the game.
Imo on any player-level you can start with mental-training. But if you have the goal to reach the top, you really have to learn your own PSR. It always sounds so easy...but it isn t.
The area of the mental part is really too big, to describe all it s facettes in one posting. And furthermore i would say, that you have to work it out 1vs1 with each person. Some parts could work for everyone- but if you re going into details it becomes individual-like it is about teaching physical parts-noone is equal, each human has it s own physical abilities...
and so it is with his brain
hope it was readable for you all,
lg from overseas,
Ingo
