Actually the amount of time to learn CTE to be quite useful to the shooter varies from minutes to months depending on the several variables. That's the importance of having lots of enthusiasts learning and discussing the CTE method. We help each other and learn to teach each other in several ways that usually a student can find resonance and clarity.
What you want is some sort of diagram that prescribes x-inches of bridge placement and y-degrees of pivot arc based on ball overlaps.....
When you learn Ghost Ball for example you don't get that. You get this, visualize a fully formed phantom ball and ilne up to the center of that. And don't forget to adjust for contact induced throw and deflection. You don't get a formula. You are given instructions for an estimation system based on visual perception. One that is simple to diagram WITHOUT a formula attached but which is unreliable on the table. To the point that there are dozens of Ghost Ball trainers from simple templates you can print like Cranfield's arrow to laser projection systems all made to train your visualization/estimation skill when using the ghost ball aiming system.
When you're given all of the instructions to use CTE you get concrete instructions that have been proven to work and your hangup is that you don't have a algorithm that accounts for the spatial perceptions and dictates a mapped position? You would eschew better results because you're hung up on a part of the HOW that is not even important? That seems silly to me but if that's what you want to do then fine. Steering others away though is not fine and that's what you are engaged in.
A person can learn CTE in less than an hour and be using it effectively on a wide range of shots. The method can be taught with nothing more than the balls, cues and a table. Mastering all the nuance can take months or even years depending on the student but the basics are learned in less than an hour. More in-depth information such as in Stan's DVDs and book is helpful and welcome but not necessary to learn the basic CTE method of aiming and see immediate aiming and shotmaking improvement.
John, I think you're hitting on something here that "the detractors" have overlooked by intent or by not being thorough or through bias. Somewhere in there... (they really have no interest in the CTE study because it 'rocks their belief system'...resulting in closed minds.)
Nowhere has Stan ever said that stroke issues were not important to the execution of CTE, as you well know.
He's spent a LOT of time on stroke issues in the Book and in videos before the Book was published.
When I was at his training studio, he nailed me immediately on a couple of my stroke flaws that had been ingrained since I was an adolescent.
One of which was "holding the chalk inside the bridge hand when shooting, as a bridge stabilizing tool". Taught to me by no lesser player than Danny Jones. For ME...and for the size of my hands, this was not acting as a stabilizer...it was acting as a BARRIER to a straight stroke. #1 to eliminate.
There was also the issue of my grip which was contributing to a "side swiping" stroke. I wasn't even aware of it since I had never been filmed, never had a personal coach, and didn't know how it was affecting things. #2 to eliminate.
Staying down in full stance, after the shot, had never been an issue with me. (My eyesight is okay and I still do not wear glasses at my senior age.)
I had never been coached on the use of the "poke stroke" for certain shots.
I had never been coached on the "finesse stroke".
And of course, those flaws were things that had been in my game for 60 years...that's a lot to "undo". That takes WORK.
And then getting used to the "oddness" of lining up off the angle like Bustamante and those Filipinos pro players, was also tough to swallow after a lifetime of being told it was like "target shooting with a rifle".
BUT...the procedure of the 0-15-30-45-60 was as
clear as a bell to understand...it was just tough to
develop my visual intelligence to hone in on them. Some days the visuals were easy to pickup at ball address...some days were not so easy.
Nowhere in the study has Stan or any of the other CTE experts indicated that the stroke was not important.
Or that CTE was a "magic bullet". I think you have pointed this out to others over and over.
The "detractors", of course, have made a
history of overlooking those things.
Thomas Sowell was always one of "my heroes".....even though he probably(?) never picked up a pool stick. That is why I post this image of him herein.
Stay happy, my man and keep on punching.
Lowenstein
