yea the curtain video was never put out to promote Stans methods, but rather to discount a few bashers claims.I know a tiny bit of the history. I also know that there's more than one way to make balls. There are different aiming systems, different perceptions and I've tried many. What is working for me now is working for me. Whatever works for the person shooting the balls, more power to them. I'm honestly not a CTE basher, hell I even bought the book and the additional cue ball. The system works, but I found one that takes way less rebuilding of my entire game. Would I be better switching to CTE? Maybe, but I can't invest the months of downtime and getting destroyed until it clicks. I play pool competitively with friends who are serious about pool for 25-35 hours or more a week. No time for losing, even temporary or I'll never hear the end of it!I'm just not in a place in my life to switch aiming systems, even if I do see potential in them. I tried some of the basic CTE stuff and it works. The point is, I'm not a CTE basher but basing your game off how well you can pocket balls with a curtain means very little. Sure, it's a neat trick, but that's what it is. Even if you're a master at shooting behind a curtain, it's surely not how you play in a tournament, league night etc.
I used to just see the contact points and fire and did pretty well but with age my vision changed and so anymore seeing contact points, especially several diamonds away, got to be sketchy and less accurate. With CTE I only actually aim at the cue ball and it's always close by so in my case it helps. With covid I don't get to the pool rooms much anymore but I have a 9 ft diamond pro at home so I play daily. My brother and I used to play 1 pocket on it a lot, but cancer got him a couple months ago so here lately I am relinquished to playing alone, usually working on aiming, banks, and such and CTE plays a big part in it.
The thing that gets me is, years ago when Stan was on here promoting and teaching CTE there were the skeptics who always tried to diminish his work, for some reason. And lately coming back on here more regularly I see that even with Stan gone, actually banned from what I hear, that same handful of people are still here pounding his work, and it's amazingly apparent to me that, after all these years, they still have a very limited amount of knowledge about Stans work, making examples of this or that that Stan said in some video, usually incomplete and out of context and trying to make him and his work seem like snake oil. I just can't see what their point is.
