how do I improve
Fast, please tell us how to improve. We all want to play better. Why is it so few of us move up. We play, we practice, little happens. Explain this if you can please.
This is a tough one, I can write a book on this subject. Many reasons, lets touch on a few of them but not all of them because of space and time restraints.
Literacy, many are bitching about my long answers, many of these same people are typing with 2 fingers and watch their spelling, and their 3rd grade might have been their senior year in school. When you do not have a lot of education, you do not like to read anything.
Here are some examples, the two most famous people in pool, Minnesota Fats, Walderone and Willie Hoppe, both spent their entire lifetimes in pool halls and went in there as very little kids. Both never spent a day in school. Fatty could barely even sign his own name, so when you wanted an autograph he used a rubber stamp that had his signature printed on it. When Hoppe was 7 years old he was on the road full time gambling on his game and doing exhibitions that supported his entire family, older brother, Mother and Father. Pool is full of people like that, they do not read. Many struggle to read, some are illiterate.
Here are actual facts on the situation, half of most pool players read at a 7th grade level, half of them read at a 3rd grade level. Half of the current general population in this country now reads at a 8th or 9th grade level. 20% of them read at just barely a 5th grade level or below that. These are studies and facts I acquired, I did not dream this stuff up.
Those who are educated do like to read, but they are so stressed out with so little time on their hands today, reading that book just keeps getting put off for tomorrow and tomorrow never comes. Too many of us today live in a world of quickie sound bites; TV has done that to us.
If you want to improve, you must find several fine books and read them, really read them, more than once so you fully understand them.
You must acquire a lot of good video instruction tapes as well, there is a lot of teaching on them of benefit, you need to see what the guys is teaching actually goes down in front of you. Some things like the draw just can’t be taught in a book, but you can teach it in a video tape.
You must acquire a collection of match tapes. Watch straight pool being ran out rack after rack. Get the best run out 9 ball tapes and matches. Pick a couple of people you admire and would like to copy your game after. Get everything on them and watch a different tape every night. Keep seeing perfect pool being played over and over, soon your brain will accept this is possible. I love Buddy Hall and Dave Mattlock, but they are so slow they drive me nuts. I am a fast player, so the tapes I should get and watch would be fast players like Sigel or Stricklin, Medina. If you are a slow plodding type of player then Buddy Hall is your guy to watch a lot.
This crap you see on TV by the women won’t help much, all you see there are 5 ball runs, ducking and choking. They should call this the Hooters tour. That’s the only thing I enjoy watching. Some of it is like watching APA 5’s play pool. The audience goes wild clapping every time they make a straight in shot; I find it to be a giant waste of my time. The last three matches I saw of them not one rack was ran. You want to get tapes where men are running 5 or 6 racks in a row, that’s pool, real pool, and the type of pool you want to learn how to play. You can acquire these match tapes by calling 800-828-0397 or
www.accu-stats.com. Pat Fleming runs it, great guy, great player also. Start watching Pat’s stuff and less of this TV crap ESPN is dumping on you. That will help you to play better.
If you have never had your pool game put on video tape where you can actually see yourself play pool and study what each of your basics look like and have everything analyzed by a real teaching pro, then you have made a giant mistake. This is a must do now thing. If you are not getting better and staying the same, then this is why. Find a local teacher who has a camera and begin to clean up your basics, stance and stroke. All good teachers can help you with this. That alone will push you up a notch. Don’t take lessons from the local hustlers or the top players, they are not teachers, you must be taught how to teach. These guys just take your money and give you a dis jointed information dump. Avoid using them. The general rule to follow is if the guy does not teach using a camera, he is not a teacher; he is a player needing a quick fifty bucks off of you.
Finally, save up some money and seek out a master level instructor like me, we are called finishers. We can give you the inside stuff the local guy does not have or misses. The top guys all run a pool school, teach with a digital camera. There are at least a couple of dozen of us around, so there will be no problem finding a good one. Drive and fly in, spend the day with the guy. I have people fly in to spend a weekend with me. I pick them up at the Atlanta airport and make it a package deal. I have two people coming in this month, one from Europe and one from Asia, both plan to spend a week, 7 days of intense daily instruction, these two guys are serious and want to and will move up. I did the same thing years ago when I wanted to learn and move up. I used planes, trains and cars to get to these top guys and they taught me what I teach you today.
Moving up and getting better is not wanting it or wishing it. You have to go to work, spend some money on books, tapes and lessons. Then you must practice double what you have been doing in the past. Do this, you get better and move up, this I guarantee you.
