Controlling your self-reproach
- Thread starter PKM
- Start date
stretch the timeframe
The best way I have found to keep it in perspective is to stretch the time frame. Laugh a little inside and admit that was a bonehead move, but you are having a good game, good match, good tournament, good month, good year, go back as far as necessary to put things in a positive frame. If there has never been a positive stage in your life, get excited. You can probably get your own comic strip or run for high office.
Hu
The best way I have found to keep it in perspective is to stretch the time frame. Laugh a little inside and admit that was a bonehead move, but you are having a good game, good match, good tournament, good month, good year, go back as far as necessary to put things in a positive frame. If there has never been a positive stage in your life, get excited. You can probably get your own comic strip or run for high office.
Hu
PKM said:
Just blame it on everyone else, hell, I do
PKM said:
Smile and scratch your head like Efren. Works for him.
Actually, remember any shot you miss and make it a point to practice that shot over and over at your first opportunity. Don't quit until you make it at least twice in a row.
On one of the recent billiards shows on TV Mitch Lawrence gave a quote that he attributed to Arnold Palmer (if I remember correctly) I can't find it online but it went something like this and I really liked it.
"Don't think of shots as good or bad. When you think a shot is good, you expect that all your shots should be good. When you think a shot is bad you begin to question your ability. Just let a shot be a shot, and move on. It is what it is."
"Don't think of shots as good or bad. When you think a shot is good, you expect that all your shots should be good. When you think a shot is bad you begin to question your ability. Just let a shot be a shot, and move on. It is what it is."
Here's my take on it...
Humans are emotional creatures. We all have 'performance expectations' in everything we do...our jobs, our hobbies, our relationships with our significant others, and our families. As long as we perform up to our expectations, everything is fine. But as soon as we fail to perform, or make some kind of error, we are quick to jump on ourselves with negative emotion. The problem is we fail to reward ourselves when we do something well. Why? Because we EXPECT to do it well...we practice it, we know it by heart. That's the downfall. Negative thoughts and emotions accumulate in our minds. Unless you balance the negativity with positive reinforcement (when you do something well...or even close to well), the negative thoughts will build up until there is a boilover or meltdown. This comes out as behavior all over the spectrum...from the guy who hurls his cue across the room (or breaks it in two), to someone like Efren, who just smiles, shakes his head and sits down.
Want to overcome the negatives? Start consciously giving yourself pats on the back every time you do something even close to good, let alone excellent.
See if that doesn't help to balance things out. Trust me, this works for anyone, in any part of their lives...and that goes double for playing pool!
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Humans are emotional creatures. We all have 'performance expectations' in everything we do...our jobs, our hobbies, our relationships with our significant others, and our families. As long as we perform up to our expectations, everything is fine. But as soon as we fail to perform, or make some kind of error, we are quick to jump on ourselves with negative emotion. The problem is we fail to reward ourselves when we do something well. Why? Because we EXPECT to do it well...we practice it, we know it by heart. That's the downfall. Negative thoughts and emotions accumulate in our minds. Unless you balance the negativity with positive reinforcement (when you do something well...or even close to well), the negative thoughts will build up until there is a boilover or meltdown. This comes out as behavior all over the spectrum...from the guy who hurls his cue across the room (or breaks it in two), to someone like Efren, who just smiles, shakes his head and sits down.
Want to overcome the negatives? Start consciously giving yourself pats on the back every time you do something even close to good, let alone excellent.
See if that doesn't help to balance things out. Trust me, this works for anyone, in any part of their lives...and that goes double for playing pool!
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
i had a terrrible problem with this years ago, noe I dont care if I miss, comes with experience and age I guess. I'll remember the shot and practice it another time if i miss a hard one, if I blow an easy one-so what I missed, scratch a flea off your head like efren smile and run the next 34 racks of rotation.
PKM said:
Here is something that I wrote many years ago that deals with this specific topic ...
Thought Process After a Miss
The trick is putting missed shots and mistakes behind you and moving forward. Don't let one bad shot ruin the entire match. What you think, and what you say to yourself while you are sitting in the chair can affect your performance when you get out of the chair. I have a three thought process that I use, and I believe that if you start to apply this you will start to see a major difference in your attitude.
1) Stay positive
2) Tell yourself - I will win regardless
3) Push it aside and win
If you go back to the chair disgusted, chances are you'll start mentally battering yourself with statements like, "Gosh, why did you do something so stupid?" or "I always screw up!" When you say things like that yourself, you increase the odds of repeating the process. If you return to the table and you are still fuming over the last error, chances are you will make further errors. Put it behind you, and NEVER allow your misfortune to be the key to your opponent's victory. If he is going to win, let him earn it. If you self destruct, you will hand him the victory on a silver platter.
Now lets look back at the times I mentioned earlier for Francisco Bustamante. It takes him 1:45 to 2:00 on average to break and run a rack of nine balls. Does this mean that he concentrates fully for 2:00 straight? No it doesn't. Remember I said that he sets up for 12-15 second between shots and then the shot actually takes 1-2 seconds? That's a total of 17 seconds per shot. That means he is applying his concentration for approximately 17 seconds at a stretch, give or take a few. Between racks, he shifts his concentration away from the balls, but it remains in the match. He wipes down his cue, examines his tip, gets a drink of water, whatever. Then he is able to reapply that concentration when he sets up for the break, and then reapply it to run out.
Many players make the error of trying to stay completely focused for the entire match with no breaks in concentration. Think of it like a rubber band. The more you concentrate, the more we stretch it. Well if we continue to stretch it, sooner or later it will snap. What usually happens is that our rubber band snaps during competition, then we get frustrated. Frankly, we just ran out of gas mentally.
I firmly believe that if you practice your mental game, you can develop it in much the same way that a bodybuilder builds a muscle group. The more you exercise your mental skills, and the greater the resistance, the stronger it will get. It needs to be fed correctly, tested, pushed, and then relaxed. We nourish our mind with the thoughts we allow in. We test our mind by using it in competition to overcome obstacles, which can be compared to bodybuilder lifting weights. We push our mind by overcoming the resistance to negative thoughts. We relax our mind by taking rest periods. If we don't work out, chances are we will become lazy.
Going into competition without being mentally fit is like trying to run a marathon without preparing for it. After running the first 50 yards, you'll get out of breath. After the second 50 yards you'll start asking what you got yourself into. Shortly after that you'll probably stop. I guarantee you will never see the finish line. A lot of pool players do the same exact thing. They don't prepare, and usually they don't realize that until after they are already running the race. By then it's too late. Laugh if you want, but there are many players out there that expect to win the marathon yet they don't have the energy required to make it around the block.
Many players shift their attention to technique. All the technique in the world will only get you so far. It does not assist your endurance. Mental endurance is the key to winning tournaments. Champions understand this. Champions use that to their advantage.
Excerpt from "The Growling Point" Copyright 1995 Blackjack David Sapolis
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PKM said:
I used to take it hard, too. Then I had an epiphany while watching Allison Fisher vs. Karen Corr at Valley Forge (back when the WPBA played at the Super Billiards Expo). Corr was faced with a regular, everyday shot that I would likely cinch, so she was definitely out. Then a funny thing happened and she rattled it. Allison got up and ran out, then did the same type of thing (hang a ball) in the next rack.
At that moment it hit me like a ton of bricks...here are players vastly beyond my skill level missing shots I would make most times. If it can happen to them, it can and will happen to anyone. That being the case, missed shots are inevitable...so why get upset about missing one. Everyone does it at every level of the game. It is the way in which the player handles the miss that helps separate them from the pack.
After that "duh" moment, it has been so much easier to stay focused after a miss. Now, string together a long series of misses over the course of several games and my focus erodes, but I am still far better off than I was before that experience. Hope this helps.
That is said
to be the biggest difference between an amateur and a pro:
That amateurs let a mistake bother them for hours afterwards, where pros
don't. (kind of like someone talking about their divorce all the time when it happened 10 years ago ... LOL)
Like anything else, you can never get mistakes back. All you can do is insure they don't happen again in the future. The best way is to correct your errors in practice or with an instructor, so you will know better next time.
to be the biggest difference between an amateur and a pro:
That amateurs let a mistake bother them for hours afterwards, where pros
don't. (kind of like someone talking about their divorce all the time when it happened 10 years ago ... LOL)
Like anything else, you can never get mistakes back. All you can do is insure they don't happen again in the future. The best way is to correct your errors in practice or with an instructor, so you will know better next time.
First Understand it
When you get down to the nub of it, there are only a few reasons that people play pool: We take stick in hand for enjoyment (diversion), to achieve at a complex skill, and perhaps to make money through gambling. All of these should be enjoyable activities yet it is common to see players get so angry they could gnaw on the stick. I often wonder why they allow themselves to get like that. There really isn't any need to. Some people never get angry and of course most people handle anger in different ways. The source of an individual's behavior is one of the more interesting topics in life. Knowing why someone does something, I can often predict what they will do in similar situations and this of course also helps me as a psychologist to understand how to change behavior.
Behavior is altered only for those who desire to change. First there must be a reason: Those who make an ass of themselves and those who destroy a $1,000 stick are prime candidates. For others, the strong emotions that hurt their game is sufficient. Whatever the reason, the person can change when the reason is sufficient to require new tactics.
Some people say they simply cannot control their child's temper tantrum, its in their genes, their family history or simply the way they have always been. All of us know what it like to get to the edge of losing control of our emotions. When that happens we usually find that we do not like the consequences of letting go completely and do not allow ourselves to continue in a situation that would pull these emotions from us. Most people were fortunate in having parents who taught them that they could, and would, control their emotions. This major learning task sustains us through life. The people who lose their temper, especially those who say they "can't help it," are the ones who were not taught in childhood that they can control their emotions. Unless the person has a special form of neurological dysfunction this is not true. There is no reason for anyone to lose their temper to the point that they are out of control and act in a stupid fashion. Often, my first task as a psychologist, is to persuade the person that emotions are controllable. Consider the idea that I have, at one time or another, worked in every major prison in Ohio. I have never met an individual who could not control their temper when they chose to (excepting brain damaged individuals).
What we don't learn at home we learn at school or as we enter the working world. At times Some of us find that anger can often be used to get the response that we want from other people. People in supervisory positions learn that, while employees may not like them, they do get the work done. Some people believe that anger is needed to improve their concentration, strengthen their resolve. or that by pushing their emotions to the edge they push themselves to the edge. None of these are good or productive habits. All are self defeating at some point. Strong emotions interfere with performance, at all times in all situations. Even professional fighters learn to control their emotions to improve their performance. There are much better ways to improve performance than through the use of anger.
Individual who get angry at themselves during a pool match or in similar circumstances are truly unfortunate. In general these people are placing unrealistic expectations on themselves and then get angry because they cannot live up to an impossible standard. The self anger is probably the most disruptive emotion of all. Hustlers are well aware of this and if they can get you angry at your own performance they know they have all of your money. You literally give it to them as a method of punishing yourself. How silly. The easiest way out of this self destructive situation is to first learn what you can and cannot do with a pool stick and then realize that in pressure situations you will only be able to perform at 75% of your usual game. If the other guy's game is better than yours, then know that going in, and don't expect great things or luck of yourself. Realistic self appraisals are not easy to accomplish and it will take some time by yourself at the table with no one around to find the number of balls you average per run in 8-Ball or in 9-Ball, to know how consistently you can cut a 35 degree cut from seven feet away, and how much English you can use on a 5 degree cut from six feet. When you know these things then there is no need to become angry when you miss X, Y or Z shot.
To be angry with yourself when you are tired, hungry, or on edge because you have bet more money than you can afford to lose is to exhibit a kind of mental disturbance. After all, you are a grown adult and should know what you can and cannot handle. I prefer to tell people with whom I play that I can and have missed every shot on the table. Of course I have made most of them too but not with any consistency. Knowing why you play and what you expect out of the game is probably the best way to keep yourself in control and control is what the game is all about.
When you get down to the nub of it, there are only a few reasons that people play pool: We take stick in hand for enjoyment (diversion), to achieve at a complex skill, and perhaps to make money through gambling. All of these should be enjoyable activities yet it is common to see players get so angry they could gnaw on the stick. I often wonder why they allow themselves to get like that. There really isn't any need to. Some people never get angry and of course most people handle anger in different ways. The source of an individual's behavior is one of the more interesting topics in life. Knowing why someone does something, I can often predict what they will do in similar situations and this of course also helps me as a psychologist to understand how to change behavior.
Behavior is altered only for those who desire to change. First there must be a reason: Those who make an ass of themselves and those who destroy a $1,000 stick are prime candidates. For others, the strong emotions that hurt their game is sufficient. Whatever the reason, the person can change when the reason is sufficient to require new tactics.
Some people say they simply cannot control their child's temper tantrum, its in their genes, their family history or simply the way they have always been. All of us know what it like to get to the edge of losing control of our emotions. When that happens we usually find that we do not like the consequences of letting go completely and do not allow ourselves to continue in a situation that would pull these emotions from us. Most people were fortunate in having parents who taught them that they could, and would, control their emotions. This major learning task sustains us through life. The people who lose their temper, especially those who say they "can't help it," are the ones who were not taught in childhood that they can control their emotions. Unless the person has a special form of neurological dysfunction this is not true. There is no reason for anyone to lose their temper to the point that they are out of control and act in a stupid fashion. Often, my first task as a psychologist, is to persuade the person that emotions are controllable. Consider the idea that I have, at one time or another, worked in every major prison in Ohio. I have never met an individual who could not control their temper when they chose to (excepting brain damaged individuals).
What we don't learn at home we learn at school or as we enter the working world. At times Some of us find that anger can often be used to get the response that we want from other people. People in supervisory positions learn that, while employees may not like them, they do get the work done. Some people believe that anger is needed to improve their concentration, strengthen their resolve. or that by pushing their emotions to the edge they push themselves to the edge. None of these are good or productive habits. All are self defeating at some point. Strong emotions interfere with performance, at all times in all situations. Even professional fighters learn to control their emotions to improve their performance. There are much better ways to improve performance than through the use of anger.
Individual who get angry at themselves during a pool match or in similar circumstances are truly unfortunate. In general these people are placing unrealistic expectations on themselves and then get angry because they cannot live up to an impossible standard. The self anger is probably the most disruptive emotion of all. Hustlers are well aware of this and if they can get you angry at your own performance they know they have all of your money. You literally give it to them as a method of punishing yourself. How silly. The easiest way out of this self destructive situation is to first learn what you can and cannot do with a pool stick and then realize that in pressure situations you will only be able to perform at 75% of your usual game. If the other guy's game is better than yours, then know that going in, and don't expect great things or luck of yourself. Realistic self appraisals are not easy to accomplish and it will take some time by yourself at the table with no one around to find the number of balls you average per run in 8-Ball or in 9-Ball, to know how consistently you can cut a 35 degree cut from seven feet away, and how much English you can use on a 5 degree cut from six feet. When you know these things then there is no need to become angry when you miss X, Y or Z shot.
To be angry with yourself when you are tired, hungry, or on edge because you have bet more money than you can afford to lose is to exhibit a kind of mental disturbance. After all, you are a grown adult and should know what you can and cannot handle. I prefer to tell people with whom I play that I can and have missed every shot on the table. Of course I have made most of them too but not with any consistency. Knowing why you play and what you expect out of the game is probably the best way to keep yourself in control and control is what the game is all about.
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PKM said:
The first thing to recognize, imo, is that a miss doesn't imply a mistake. Take a particular person and a few particular shots. Suppose one of these shots is easy, one is moderately tough, and the third is tough. Imagine the player's percentages on these three shots in game situations are
easy: 96%
moderately tough: 75%
tough 25%
Let's talk about misses out of 100 tries instead
easy: 4
moderately tough: 25
tough 75
Something that many players fail to appreciate is that these miss percentages are made up of three components.
Imagine you shot each of these shots a hundred times doing everything right, i.e., you're not distracted, you aim carefully, you go smoothly through your pre-shot routine, you stay down, you follow through, and so forth. Would the miss percentages go to zero? No they wouldn't. We all have what I'll call an intrinsic miss percentage on each of these shots. These come from limits in the precision of our aiming, our sight, our ability to stroke straight, limits in our ability to hit an exact spot on the cueball. These can change over time, but they don't change over a few practice sessions or a few weeks. It takes many months or years to impact these intrinsic percentages.
The intrinsic misses out of 100 tries on the above shots might be,
easy: 1
moderately tough: 18
tough 60
Note that for the moderately tough and the tough shots, these intrinsic misses account for the majority of the misses. There's nothing to do about these missed shots other than to hit another 10,000 balls. Most of the time a reasonably careful player misses a moderate or tough shot, it's just because--well--he's not Efren! He has to expect to miss those shots. It's a mistake to think that because you missed there must be something in particular to practice or there must be something to do differently. For many of us that's most of the time not true, imo.
The second reason to miss is perception problems. Imagine you watched someone play for a month and noticed them hit 400 spot shots, 300 of which they made, 80 of which they hit into the long rail and 20 of which they hit into the short rail. So on average they're aiming a little thin. If they thickened up their aim a bit, they might miss 40 on each side, improving their percentage. It is absolutely amazing that many of us go for years missing the same shots the same way. Even when we realize this, it is hard to change. The perception of what looks right is very powerful. It is important, imo, to try to keep a running log of sorts in your head on different shots to try to be aware of these systematic problems.
The third reason to miss is you failed to do something or you did something wrong. Most common is you actually forgot to aim. Next comes stance & alignment, not getting low, not following through, lifting your head... These are mistakes. These, of course, are all things to pay attention to.
To PKM I would say that you must accept that there's no shot on the table you make 100.00% of the time. You must accept that you will miss shots. You'll have intrinsic misses, perception misses, and mistakes. If you're doing well, most of your misses are of the first type, and there is nothing to do about them. It's the second two you have to pay attention to, because these are under your control. If you expect zero mistakes, you are deluding yourself.
mikepage said:
A very good post. After every competition I review and ask myself did I play to about 95% of my best performance. Reasonably or not, that is where I set my bar for competition. I am supposed to be able to peak and play my best under pressure. Win or lose, if I can look back and not see more than a few genuine errors I probably played as well as I could have expected to during that point in time. This lets me be satisfied with my performance sometimes when I don't win but also can leave me unhappy with the way I played after a win. Luck is nobody's friend long term and getting lucky is small comfort although a little jingle in my pocket does ease the pain!
Hu
I control it by knowing I'm a good player overall, and that all my misses have reasons.
If a spectator sees me rattle a straight-in shot near the short rail, they just see an easy shot missed, and if you look at yourself the way the spectator sees it... you might see the same thing.
But don't look at it like the spectator does, ...be honest with yourself and look at it with the unique knowledge that you've got of what you were trying to do vs. what you ended up doing. Often it results in mental conversations like "well, it was a bit too straight to get the shape I wanted, so I tried to cheat the pocket and hit with force, so I rattled it. Even though it's easy, I had a good reason for hitting it the way I did, so I can't really blame myself for missing it... I actually was trying something tricky and that makes it a missable shot."
These mental conversations can lead to insights about the right way to play the shot next time, and the few seconds it takes to have the conversation somehow leads to you cooling down, especially once you see you have a valid reason for missing (and there's always a reason, even if it's just "I don't know how to cut that shot yet")
If a spectator sees me rattle a straight-in shot near the short rail, they just see an easy shot missed, and if you look at yourself the way the spectator sees it... you might see the same thing.
But don't look at it like the spectator does, ...be honest with yourself and look at it with the unique knowledge that you've got of what you were trying to do vs. what you ended up doing. Often it results in mental conversations like "well, it was a bit too straight to get the shape I wanted, so I tried to cheat the pocket and hit with force, so I rattled it. Even though it's easy, I had a good reason for hitting it the way I did, so I can't really blame myself for missing it... I actually was trying something tricky and that makes it a missable shot."
These mental conversations can lead to insights about the right way to play the shot next time, and the few seconds it takes to have the conversation somehow leads to you cooling down, especially once you see you have a valid reason for missing (and there's always a reason, even if it's just "I don't know how to cut that shot yet")
pool said:
That is pretty much what opened my eyes too. I was always trying to be excellant and get frustrated. Then I saw a few pro's either on TV or locally miss and sure enough, it changed my outlook. Shake it off, think about what happened, and focus a lil more next time. Doesn't hurt to drink either.
ez
How does one practice and improve their mental fitness and endurance?Blackjack said: