Dealing With Slumps

S

Secaucus Fats

Banned
If you have been playing pool on a regular basis for a few years you’ve no doubt experienced a slump every so often.

Slumps seem to come out of nowhere and they are maddeningly frustrating. Sometimes it seems like no matter what we do, how hard we try, we just can’t seem to get it all together and wind up losing games that we know we should have won. That’s when the doubt and negativity set in and upset our mental apple cart.

In this disjointed ‘slump’ state, some of us tend to hyper-analyze our game and become victims of paralysis thru analysis.

Some of us experience the heebie-jeebies.

All of us get frustrated, pissed off, dejected. All of us have experienced this at some point or another. In fact, most of us have experienced this on a number of occasions.

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."--Unknown

Although I don’t love them, slumps do have their positive side as well.

Over the years, every time I have experienced a slump, I have been richly rewarded afterwards by a quantum leap in my game.

I just recently came out of a prolonged (3 months) slump that was absolutely brutal.

In the past 6 weeks I have been playing well enough to beat the best local players handily, time and again. I’m running out every time the lay of the table will allow for it, cinching when I have to, busting up clusters when I have to and getting pinpoint shape all along. I’m playing with no fear whatsoever and my cue is like a magical instrument.

League starts again in 2 weeks, those boys better look out cause there’s a new sheriff in town! LOL ;)

So, if you are currently experiencing a slump, or when you do…look at it as a blessing in disguise and persevere thru it. I know you’ll reap the rewards.

"What does not kill me, makes me stronger."--Friedrich Nietzsche
 
Damn...I've been on a slump since the first day I picked up a cue. When I get out of this, I should be a champ!
 
great post!

Secaucus Fats said:
If you have been playing pool on a regular basis for a few years you’ve no doubt experienced a slump every so often.

Slumps seem to come out of nowhere and they are maddeningly frustrating. Sometimes it seems like no matter what we do, how hard we try, we just can’t seem to get it all together and wind up losing games that we know we should have won. That’s when the doubt and negativity set in and upset our mental apple cart.

In this disjointed ‘slump’ state, some of us tend to hyper-analyze our game and become victims of paralysis thru analysis.

Some of us experience the heebie-jeebies.

All of us get frustrated, pissed off, dejected. All of us have experienced this at some point or another. In fact, most of us have experienced this on a number of occasions.

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."--Unknown

Although I don’t love them, slumps do have their positive side as well.

Over the years, every time I have experienced a slump, I have been richly rewarded afterwards by a quantum leap in my game.

I just recently came out of a prolonged (3 months) slump that was absolutely brutal.

In the past 6 weeks I have been playing well enough to beat the best local players handily, time and again. I’m running out every time the lay of the table will allow for it, cinching when I have to, busting up clusters when I have to and getting pinpoint shape all along. I’m playing with no fear whatsoever and my cue is like a magical instrument.

League starts again in 2 weeks, those boys better look out cause there’s a new sheriff in town! LOL ;)

So, if you are currently experiencing a slump, or when you do…look at it as a blessing in disguise and persevere thru it. I know you’ll reap the rewards.

"What does not kill me, makes me stronger."--Friedrich Nietzsche
Click to expand...

Yours is a great post and a great help to those that are wrestling with slumps of their own. Not really on subject for the thread but I'd like to add a little advice for when people realize that they are letting the slump get into their head and feed on itself.

Redefine the borders! It's a simple self-serving thing to do but it works. Been in a one month slump? Looking at your play over the last six months or a year it is only a minor down turn. Regardless of the length of a slump you can always extend the borders and make it seem minor compared to the overall picture. Often "slumps" only exist because we have chosen to define the borders by negative events anyway. Redifining borders helps you put "slumps" behind you, be they a single shot or a months long issue. Conquer the mental slump and often the physical flaws cure themselves or the solution is staring you in the face.

Hu
 
My slump of 2010 ended in September of 2010 and for close to 6 weeks I did not miss a ball I shot at....... I then entered into what I will now call the slump of 2011 because it has lasted 10 months..... I have never exited a slump and not poked my head into rarer air but I will not be calling this one a blessing anytime soon.....
 
Good post with some very good points. :thumbup:

Personally, I've experienced two types of slumps -- mental and physical. By mental, I refer to having some kind of mental block with certain shots or conditions. For example, I was in a slump not long ago with running out in nine ball and was dogging the seven, eight, or nine ball. It was not an isolated incident of "cranial flatulance" but it seemed like every game, I would try to get out but miss one of these key balls. It got into my head and I had a rough time getting over it. I don't know how or why it happened, but it passed. Now, I miss them all...lol. :D

Another good point you made is about analyzing your game too much. I find myself doing this and by doing so, create more problems for myself. An old timer at the local pool hall was watching me shoot 14.1 and helped me by saying, "Just shoot. It will come naturally." Well, for me it worked.

As for the physical block, I am referring to some flaw in the mechanics of my game, that is, stance, grip, bridge, etc. I kept missing some shots and frustration was setting in. One player watched me shoot and after a bit told me, "Your moving your right foot before your final stroke." When I find myself missing the same type of shots, I often review my mechanics for this is how I deliver the cue ball.

Enjoyed the quotations. Makes sense to me...:grin:
 
great post fats. definitly a positive motivator to a negative subject. one trick that has worked for me to get out of a slump is to go practice and just practice my aim on high speed shots. baseically shoot the balls in the pockets very hard. seems to me one im successsfully pocketing balls with high impact and moving on to the next ball very quickly it alieviates my anxiety. then i slow the gears and play like i should and there seems to be improvement as you stated.
 
great post and perfect timing as my "slump" arrived about 2 weeks ago. just can't seem to make the shots i did prior to that. most frustrating! :angry: so i start tweaking my stroke and that in itself is changing the muscle memory and then it's, "let the medicine work", but for how long? i play/practice every day but i have decided to basically take off for a several days. i am moving from here to the usa next week anyway. then some lessons and return to the game in mid september. got to get over this slump, i love the game too much to quit!
 
Wow, an incredibly well-timed post for me. I've been in a slump for the last several months, too. (Meaning that I was playing worse than usual, heh :p )

Last night I played about as well as I've played in a long time, and I went home wondering what I did differently... I hope it's not a one-night event, and that the slump is over.

Great post.
 
One thing that many players do is to falsely asses their true level of play.

No one plays at their very top gear all of the time. Many people will remember their very best level of play and then falsely assume that level of play is their average level of play. When this happens, any downward deviation from their top gear is seen by them as a slump when it actually is just a regression to the mean of their playing ability. Certainly progress is made that moves the average up over time but a short period of playing "above" your head does not mean that your "average" game has risen to that level.

Just my thoughts.
 
Slumps will definitely parallel what's ''not going well''
in your life and in turn are transferred on to the play surface. I find it easy to tell (especially if it's someone I know real well) if matters are not good away from the table.

I've always found slumps triggered by a major flaw in my game that was not corrected and then I tried to work on other areas of my game thinking that would ''fix it''...when in reality I was making it worse. What's even worse is too make up a STORY about what you percieve is needed to improve your game, but by NOT having the proper knowlege of the game you make it WORSE (instructor needed?). I think we all have seen players blame this or that on their error, when in reality, the answer to there problem was something completely different than they thought.
 
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