"Be the Ball" is Horrible Advice

[lfigueroa]

Most games that are interesting have so many variables you have to deal with. Pool is certainly this way. It's like a puzzle that you have to sort out. I can see how anybody could get stuck in a rut with this game simply because they didn't sort out the pieces. I suppose some would say that they weren't given all the pieces to the puzzle to begin with. I actually felt this way for a while and even gave up on the game for quite some time. Oh what I wouldn't give to get those lost years back.

I've come around now. At this point, I'm absolutely convinced the only thing that held me back from playing top flight pool was unfortunate timing and me. I got a bit of a late start compared to most truly great players and once improvement stopped happening overnight I quickly got discouraged and believed I just didn't have the natural talent for the game. I’ve now concluded that I was wrong about the natural talent, although those that have seen me play may disagree. Anyway, I finally feel like a decent player. Not great. Just decent.

So what changed my mindset?

One thing about this game that I think is true is it's very easy to get caught up in wanting to become a great player, or even wanting to run out your first rack or multiple ones; Or how about running a certain number of balls in 14.1, or more simply -- how about mastering a particular shot. All of these things are great and I certainly have these sorts of goals myself. But what I've found over the course of the past 5 or so years is all of those things are secondary goals. My ultimate goal centers around me and taking total control over my body and what it's doing. When you get down on the ball and you can feel that you are perfectly aligned from the tip of your big toe on your plant foot all the way up to your shoulder and down to your grip hand and then through the cue stick over to your bridge hand and all the way back up and down the other side of your body -- when you feel this sensation -- this being perfectly aligned and then you get down and thump a ball into the back of the pocket – this is a euphoria that you can’t hardly explain. You just have to experience it. Once you taste this that's what the game becomes about.

Up on the top of the pool playing mountain I get a sense that this is what the game is all about. I’m not to the top of the mountain yet but the closer I get the less this game becomes about the balls and the more it becomes about me and my body. The balls have no choice but to obey my commands when I have my body under total control.

As a kid I can remember everyone always quoting the “Be the ball” line from Caddyshack and at times in pool I think I would actually try to do this. You can think of the mindset I’m describing as exactly the opposite of “Being the ball”. Instead don’t worry so much about the balls and just focus on you.


For those of you that consider yourself to be a great player have you experienced this shift in focus from the balls to the body?

For those of you that have been stuck in a rut have you tried focusing solely on what you are doing at the table and not worrying so much about the balls?

A very thoughtful and insightful post, BD. And in many ways it mirrors many of my own thoughts and travails. Trust me: you are on the right path.

Lou Figueroa

 

[pt109]

It takes many hours of practice should be on 100 lb bags of fertilizer !!! If you want to play good pool , you have to PLAY , not practice . Go to the drive in window at Wendy's and see if they'll accept practice . Nope , just cash . You have to play the best players !!! Remember , it's the spankings that make your ass tough . Bet something ( a little or a lot ) , that way it matters if you win or lose . Most people who hack at golf , or bang the balls in pool are stuck on the wrong side of the ball , oh my swing , my clubs , oh my stroke , my cue ... the game is on the other side of the ball , the SHOT !!! PLAY the GAME . Play with what god gave ya ! Don't worry about anybody else, have fun or go home !!! Don't be afraid to lose , be gung ho about competing . I've watched some of the top women playing in the men's events , they are" trying their hearts out to WIN" . That's the magic stuff , you got it or you don't . Being the ball ??? It is a joke ...:wink:

Boxers are made in the gym, not the ring.
Poolplayers are no different

 

[DionBakasushi]

Agreed . I got into huge debt at first thinking betting would give me the urge to transgress myself in that very match , but it didnt .
I really only started getting my game off once i started focusing on my stroke/stance/cueing/eyes/gameplay .

Practice is far more effective .
If its a down period , stick to your guns .

 

[BasementDweller]

A very thoughtful and insightful post, BD. And in many ways it mirrors many of my own thoughts and travails. Trust me: you are on the right path.

Lou Figueroa

Thanks for chiming in Lou. Hearing I'm on the right path means a lot coming from you.

Boxers are made in the gym, not the ring.
Poolplayers are no different

Nice line pt109.

Agreed . I got into huge debt at first thinking betting would give me the urge to transgress myself in that very match , but it didnt .
I really only started getting my game off once i started focusing on my stroke/stance/cueing/eyes/gameplay .

Practice is far more effective .
If its a down period , stick to your guns .

While this wasn't exactly the point of my thread -- it's still a good post reminding us all about the value of practice vs. competition. Both have their place. Although practice quickly becomes boring if we don't get to compete from time to time.




Anyway, I just wanted to add a couple of last thoughts to this thread since I've been thinking about it on and off this past weekend.

First, is there any other game that has as many distractions as pool does? There are all those distractions off the table -- the music, the other players, and the pool hall staff. Sometimes it seems all these things were designed specifically to keep us from playing our best pool. These are of course the distractions you have to deal with if you play in a pool room. Playing at home there can be just as many distractions. There's the wife screaming at you to take out the garbage, the kids jumping around on the floor right above you, and don’t forget about the child standing in the corner with a bloody lip that will clearly need to be taken to the hospital for stitches as soon as you run out this last rack. Of I'm kidding about some of that stuff and for the most part we all get used to these things, right? Well, then there are the distractions on the table.

In some games there are as many as 16 balls flying around on the table. It's really easy to get lost in all of this noise. We often compare golf to pool, well in this department there is no comparison. Golfers can quickly study the shot and then quickly return their focus to their swing and only their swing. They don't have to stand hovering over 2 or 3 other balls. They don't have to study their way through the entire course after each and every shot. While their game may be mechanically much more complicated, I would suggest that they don't have nearly as much "noise" to deal with as pool players do. Of course, that probably changes on a beautiful Sunday afternoon for the player in the lead at Augusta, but I'm just talking in general here.

So there's that...

But there's also something much simpler and this is what the crux of this thread is. When you miss -- do you know it immediately or do you have to wait and see? Do you have to follow the ball all the way to the pocket and then determine if you hit the ball well and then wait for the cue ball to come to rest to see if you got the position you were aiming for? For me, there are certainly times when I instantly know that I hit a bad shot or a great one because I can just feel it. There are other times when I sort of have to wait and see. The goal should be to become so familiar with your stroke that you know immediately whether or not you hit it good.

Going back to our golf comparison, I imagine most decent golfers know instantly after making contact with the ball if they hit it well or not. They don't have to watch the flight of the ball and then see where it landed in order to tell whether or not they sliced it. They know immediately after hitting it. With golf, the ball is not as distracting. It can take 10 seconds or longer for the ball to come to rest. In pool, everything is so immediate I think it can create a situation where you no longer focus on your stroke but instead you focus on the balls. You decide whether or not you are satisfied with your stroke only after you see whether or not the ball fell in the hole.

Well, you say, "Isn't the point of pool getting the ball in the hole?" Certainly it is but when you pay so much attention to the last part of the process you can lose site of the first and more important part. You only need to go to a typical league night anywhere in the U.S. to see this principle in action. Actually for years I think many great players even used this approach. You can see it all around us. The ball isn't going in the pocket so I'm going to try this or that to get it to go in. I'll curl my wrist on this shot and then I'll stand this way on that shot. Once the balls start going in -- all is well. Until they stop going in again and then it's back to the drawing board. It's the band aid upon band aid approach. Given enough time and dedication this way does seemingly work. Well until just one of those band aids gets ripped off and you need to look no further than the Mosconi Cup to see this each year.

Maybe this whole thread could have just been a simple one paragraph initial post where I said there are two approaches to playing pool. There’s the just put the ball in the hole and everything else will take care of itself approach. Then there’s the focus solely on your body and your stroke and the balls will submit to your will approach. I’ve tried both and I much prefer the latter.

Thanks to everyone that chimed in. I love this stuff.

 

[3andstop]

Perhaps what we need is enough knowledge and experience to trust ourselves to do the right thing and the confidence to let ourselves do it. Once we let ourselves execute unhindered magic is in the air. This may be what you were saying, just another way of putting it. Trying to explain where you are at during a free flowing performance to someone that hasn't experienced it is almost as tough as explaining colors to a blind person who has always been blind.


Hu

Well put, I do believe this is key. When the ever so subtle negative or unsure, wandering thoughts are cluttering our mind, this is when we fail. I've often said, before you get down on your shot, see it, feel it and then execute it.

Have a specific destination for both the CB and OB even if you don't get there, approach the shot with a confident envisioned outcome. Pocketing a ball and having an even slight doubt of the resting place of the CB opens the door for failure.

I believe that saying "be the ball" is just another way to say stay in the moment and focus your concentration to the task at hand envision it, and let it happen naturally. I wouldn't read too deeply into that.

 

[KRJ]

It takes many hours of practice should be on 100 lb bags of fertilizer !!! If you want to play good pool , you have to PLAY , not practice . :

gonna have to disagree with this one. You have to put the time in, and learn how to practice, learn speed, touch, angles, and build confident. Doing something that does not work, and bringing that to a game is NOT gonna help anyone except your opponent.

SVB puts LOTS of practice time on the table for a reason

 

[justadub]

Perhaps what we need is enough knowledge and experience to trust ourselves to do the right thing and the confidence to let ourselves do it.

Man, does this part ever apply to me! Confidence...

If I find myself not feeling sure about a shot, or myself in general, or anything less than "confident", what little game that I have is shot all to hell.

Confidence...

 

[DelaWho???]

Man, does this part ever apply to me! Confidence...

If I find myself not feeling sure about a shot, or myself in general, or anything less than "confident", what little game that I have is shot all to hell.

Confidence...

"Hit it like you mean it"

Much better advice than

"Be the ball"

 

[lfigueroa]

Thanks for chiming in Lou. Hearing I'm on the right path means a lot coming from you.



Nice line pt109.



While this wasn't exactly the point of my thread -- it's still a good post reminding us all about the value of practice vs. competition. Both have their place. Although practice quickly becomes boring if we don't get to compete from time to time.




Anyway, I just wanted to add a couple of last thoughts to this thread since I've been thinking about it on and off this past weekend.

First, is there any other game that has as many distractions as pool does? There are all those distractions off the table -- the music, the other players, and the pool hall staff. Sometimes it seems all these things were designed specifically to keep us from playing our best pool. These are of course the distractions you have to deal with if you play in a pool room. Playing at home there can be just as many distractions. There's the wife screaming at you to take out the garbage, the kids jumping around on the floor right above you, and don’t forget about the child standing in the corner with a bloody lip that will clearly need to be taken to the hospital for stitches as soon as you run out this last rack. Of I'm kidding about some of that stuff and for the most part we all get used to these things, right? Well, then there are the distractions on the table.

In some games there are as many as 16 balls flying around on the table. It's really easy to get lost in all of this noise. We often compare golf to pool, well in this department there is no comparison. Golfers can quickly study the shot and then quickly return their focus to their swing and only their swing. They don't have to stand hovering over 2 or 3 other balls. They don't have to study their way through the entire course after each and every shot. While their game may be mechanically much more complicated, I would suggest that they don't have nearly as much "noise" to deal with as pool players do. Of course, that probably changes on a beautiful Sunday afternoon for the player in the lead at Augusta, but I'm just talking in general here.

So there's that...

But there's also something much simpler and this is what the crux of this thread is. When you miss -- do you know it immediately or do you have to wait and see? Do you have to follow the ball all the way to the pocket and then determine if you hit the ball well and then wait for the cue ball to come to rest to see if you got the position you were aiming for? For me, there are certainly times when I instantly know that I hit a bad shot or a great one because I can just feel it. There are other times when I sort of have to wait and see. The goal should be to become so familiar with your stroke that you know immediately whether or not you hit it good.

Going back to our golf comparison, I imagine most decent golfers know instantly after making contact with the ball if they hit it well or not. They don't have to watch the flight of the ball and then see where it landed in order to tell whether or not they sliced it. They know immediately after hitting it. With golf, the ball is not as distracting. It can take 10 seconds or longer for the ball to come to rest. In pool, everything is so immediate I think it can create a situation where you no longer focus on your stroke but instead you focus on the balls. You decide whether or not you are satisfied with your stroke only after you see whether or not the ball fell in the hole.

Well, you say, "Isn't the point of pool getting the ball in the hole?" Certainly it is but when you pay so much attention to the last part of the process you can lose site of the first and more important part. You only need to go to a typical league night anywhere in the U.S. to see this principle in action. Actually for years I think many great players even used this approach. You can see it all around us. The ball isn't going in the pocket so I'm going to try this or that to get it to go in. I'll curl my wrist on this shot and then I'll stand this way on that shot. Once the balls start going in -- all is well. Until they stop going in again and then it's back to the drawing board. It's the band aid upon band aid approach. Given enough time and dedication this way does seemingly work. Well until just one of those band aids gets ripped off and you need to look no further than the Mosconi Cup to see this each year.

Maybe this whole thread could have just been a simple one paragraph initial post where I said there are two approaches to playing pool. There’s the just put the ball in the hole and everything else will take care of itself approach. Then there’s the focus solely on your body and your stroke and the balls will submit to your will approach. I’ve tried both and I much prefer the latter.

Thanks to everyone that chimed in. I love this stuff.

I have always found it somewhat ironic that a sport that demands the highest level of precision and concentration is usually conducted in a circus-like environment. The juke box cranked up, unconscious bar maids and "players" obliviously wandering in and out of your shot line, TV's flickering everywhere.

As to the band-aids: I think part of it is not only grasping things like grip position (lol, sometimes I crack myself up), but also the sequence and motions you use. Small variations can result in huge variances in your final set up and stroke. So you have to pay attention to your PSR viewing more as a dance than anything else. The starting level is the Arthur Murray box-step, but that will not get you on "Dancing with the Stars."

Lou Figueroa

 

[ShootingArts]

thanks to the people who have said nice things about my post

Thanks to all that have said nice things about my post, it is much appreciated.

Not as nice a way of putting it as saying confidence is needed but to be blunt, successful competitors all have an ego. Even Efren who is noted for his modesty and gentle nature was reported to have not talked to Marvin Manalo for weeks after the first time Manalo beat him because Efren felt like that showed disrespect from the younger player.

A certain amount of ego is needed before success. I forget what I read to get me on that train of thought but in my teens I was racing late model open competition against men that were stronger, more experienced, and had better and lighter cars in many cases. I was the usual far less than self-confident teen in most respects. I realized it took a lot of ego on my part to think I could run with these guys!

I was out of work and living off of pool and track winnings by the end of that first season racing. For those that know how big this is, I had badly bent shock absorbers on the other three corners of my car and my left rear shock was flopping. All the maintenance done on my car the last four weeks was changing oil and sparkplugs, zero spent on repairs or new tires. I won the prelim the last four weeks of the season and placed top five in every feature. The owner/driver of the best car in that part of the country, a man with over five hundred feature wins, was standing by the track owner when I went out to qualify one evening late in that first season. He told the track owner, "That old son of a bltch will run!" referring to my old banged up former nascar sportsman. I wasn't the best by any stretch of the imagination but I had the best's attention!

That was the start of my work on my mental game, deliberately developing an ego. It doesn't have to be flashy, much more appealing to be like Efren, but never put yourself down, "I'm just here to donate", and never say anything negative about your play unless discussing it with someone trying to improve it and you need to give an honest assessment.

Realizing that false modesty was a handicap and my unconscious accepted what I said as real was the start of my work on my mental game. The worst I say now is that I came to play meaning I came to compete. I get away from people with negative attitudes too, they will bring you down. For years I went so far as to take all negative words out of my vocabulary and found other ways to phrase things in day to day life.

With few exceptions we are winners in our heads before we are winners in actual fact. In any competition I have ever been to there have been people that "knew" they couldn't win. Cool, I can write off all of these guys and gals, they really are just feeding the pot. Without a winning attitude which does require ego, we are just whistling in the wind. Not necessary to be obnoxious about it but building an ego is as important to being a winner as practice is.

You need the core confidence that you can win. Nobody in the world can beat you with their butt in a chair!

Hu

 

[backplaying]

Mr Nobody...How do you explain people who have PLAYED for 20-40+ years, but still have almost no degree of a repeatable stroke, and simply cannot "play the game" at any real competitive level? I've seen this many times (as recently as two weeks ago), and with some decent instruction, along with some disciplined practice, transform not only their overall ability to play the game, but also transform their attitude and excitement about raising their level of play.

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

I would really like to see video of someone who has played for 20 years or longer and see the jump they make after you give them a lesson. I'm sure some would make a jump by knowing the basics, but its hard to believe someone can play for over 20 years and not know them. I know you video players and maybe you could video their play after a lesson also. We hear so much about players making 3 ball jumps after a lesson, but never see it!

 

[Scott Lee]

backplaying...Hard to believe you don't know anyone who has played for 20+ years and can't draw their rock! I see it all the time. In fact, I watched some of the tournament that Sat. night that you played in, and saw a LOT of people who had no clue about a stroke (now, probably many of them haven't played for 20 years...but just sayin'). When you "fix" that for somebody, the light in their face is incredible. I don't about 3 balls better...that's a huge jump...but they will definitely improve a lot, with the right kind and right amount of dedicated practice. You should ask Randy about this...he's seen it a million times.

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

I would really like to see video of someone who has played for 20 years or longer and see the jump they make after you give them a lesson. I'm sure some would make a jump by knowing the basics, but its hard to believe someone can play for over 20 years and not know them. I know you video players and maybe you could video their play after a lesson also. We hear so much about players making 3 ball jumps after a lesson, but never see it!

 

[BasementDweller]

backplaying...Hard to believe you don't know anyone who has played for 20+ years and can't draw their rock! I see it all the time. In fact, I watched some of the tournament that Sat. night that you played in, and saw a LOT of people who had no clue about a stroke (now, probably many of them haven't played for 20 years...but just sayin'). When you "fix" that for somebody, the light in their face is incredible. I don't about 3 balls better...that's a huge jump...but they will definitely improve a lot, with the right kind and right amount of dedicated practice. You should ask Randy about this...he's seen it a million times.

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

Come on Scott - "he's seen it a million times"?

I'm sure you meant to say hundreds of thousands of times. :thumbup:

 

[HawaiianEye]

The goal should be to become so familiar with your stroke that you know immediately whether or not you hit it good.

When you experience this, you are playing pool at the highest levels you can play. But somebody always has a higher gear. That's true for everyone on any given day.

Aloha.