Everyone can look. But only a few can see.

Pressure works in many ways besides eroding one's composure. For veteran cooks, the pressure can bend their will. It may be something as trivial as distraction - considering things besides their winning abilities. Note this isn't sharking, it's how pressure works. Pretty soon, turnover. This, I believe is part of why the chemicals bring teh machine. Bullet proof mindset.
 
dquarasr said:
But isn’t breakdown of mechanics often because of pressure?
Click to expand...
Sure pressure can cause a break down of mechanics, but I wouldn't say they are 100% interwoven or mutually exclusive. You can have a break down of mechanics without any pressure at all. I think this is what Lou is saying. Pressure is when your heart starts to beat a little faster and you palms might start to sweat. Your body is reacting in a fight or flight type of manner. Your brain is interpreting a danger feeling and sending signals out to your body. Pressure is mental and the reaction is physical.
 
lfigueroa said:
Seeing is overrated.

I know this from personal experience and, over the years, wearing glasses, contacts, and eventually having cataract surgery. I still know some old guys that can barely see the balls but know where they are and can shoot great.

Seeing well is great but you are overstating things. Good luck with your video.

Lou Figueroa
Click to expand...
Lou, I think you guys are describing two different things, I can't speak for OP, but I don't think he means "see" literal like with your eyes. He's more talking like if you come up to a bank shot and just know it's dead. I know you're a great writer and expect the most out of words and their meanings, but I think he's talking about a concept that is difficult to put into words. Almost like you see it with your "inner eye" or you "feel" the game. Knowledge mixed with rote level of shooting and some spacial awareness all rolled into one. We could almost get to talking about entering the zone or whatever. I think most people experience this with enough play time but it's not a place most players get into regularly.

As in, you see the shot, know it fully confident, feel good about it and fire it in. I don't know how you would describe it. It's not "see" but kind of "seeing the deeper connection" or such.

A combination of seeing it, recognizing the shot is within your repertoire, confidence, etc. You know when you're in dead stroke and can't miss? You're "SEEING" everything that day. It feels like you have a special connection with the table and equipment that day. You don't seem to exist as much apart from the table that day, kind of ego-less playing. I'm not sure if I'm even barking up the right tree here but I think I'm at least in the forest.

@jjohnson Am I in the forest or lost in the weeds?
 
Read a lot of the comments on streaming matches. They're always like "he should go two rails with this shot", when anyone who runs out knows that shot isn't there. The OP is right that everyone sees the game differently. Some people have no clue what they're looking at or even what's possible.
 
easy-e said:
Read a lot of the comments on streaming matches. They're always like "he should go two rails with this shot", when anyone who runs out knows that shot isn't there. The OP is right that everyone sees the game differently. Some people have no clue what they're looking at or even what's possible.
Click to expand...
Streaming chats are a TRIP. The level of ignorance and pure stupidity sometimes(mostly) can be somewhat startling.
 

Everyone can look. But only a few can see.​


What does this even mean? I don't think the OP did a very good job of articulating his point. This can be interpreted in many different ways and no one would be wrong.
 
boogieman said:
Lou, I think you guys are describing two different things, I can't speak for OP, but I don't think he means "see" literal like with your eyes. He's more talking like if you come up to a bank shot and just know it's dead. I know you're a great writer and expect the most out of words and their meanings, but I think he's talking about a concept that is difficult to put into words. Almost like you see it with your "inner eye" or you "feel" the game. Knowledge mixed with rote level of shooting and some spacial awareness all rolled into one. We could almost get to talking about entering the zone or whatever. I think most people experience this with enough play time but it's not a place most players get into regularly.

As in, you see the shot, know it fully confident, feel good about it and fire it in. I don't know how you would describe it. It's not "see" but kind of "seeing the deeper connection" or such.

A combination of seeing it, recognizing the shot is within your repertoire, confidence, etc. You know when you're in dead stroke and can't miss? You're "SEEING" everything that day. It feels like you have a special connection with the table and equipment that day. You don't seem to exist as much apart from the table that day, kind of ego-less playing. I'm not sure if I'm even barking up the right tree here but I think I'm at least in the forest.

@jjohnson Am I in the forest or lost in the weeds?
Click to expand...

Well, boogie, OK, I can buy that but he is not doing a very good job of describing it as well as you just did.

The whole thing about "seeing" the shot so that you're confident about your execution is, IMO, a combination of two things: first and foremost a head position that places your eyeballs in the optimal position for your brain to process what you're seeing; second would bring in what I've been saying about an accurate, repeatable stroke. If you've acquired a good visual and your cue and arm are aligned and moving so you know what they're going to do, then I think you've got what you're alluding to.

Lou Figueroa
 
easy-e said:
Read a lot of the comments on streaming matches. They're always like "he should go two rails with this shot", when anyone who runs out knows that shot isn't there. The OP is right that everyone sees the game differently. Some people have no clue what they're looking at or even what's possible.
Click to expand...
I agree, some people have less awareness of what they are looking at. There is most often a lot more detail than they realize. And most often being aware of these details gives a person a very real advantage. Everyone should accept/know/realize this from life's experience. And yes, I am talking about actually seeing, SEEING the details. In time, with practice, this may become subconscious/intuitive: a feeling. But if you cannot even imagine what those details are then how can you SEE them? How can you use them to your advantage? If you can't see a problem how can you solve it?
 
So, what is seeing? The right shot? How to cinch the one you select? Some of the Pinoy guys I've been around used the term "see". "He kahn see." (good shooter) or "Kahnnot see." (fading player) I'm pretty sure they (the Pinoys) all had natural self training.

This is what I look for and see:

Jimmy Reid EAO SL.jpg


Rock is on the bottom. Object ball on top. The vertical line AB is the stick line. That's "see" part for me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bbb
ShootingArts said:
There is this fellow Efren Reyes people like to talk about. Somebody can refresh my memory as to when exactly he had his eyes fixed. Many of his great years, his eyes were bad. The balls generally don't move while you are aiming and the pockets definitely don't.

All the building blocks anyone needs to be a world champion are out there. You have to have adequate physical and mental abilities to be able to use the information, and it isn't all handed to you, you have to dig! You also have to have the willpower and determination needed to win.

Probably the biggest catch, you have to be open to receive information from wherever you find it and be able to sort what applies to what you are doing and what doesn't. The lightning reflexes needed in a lot of activities don't help a whole lot playing pool. Other things from those activities can and will help.

Some things come easier to some people than others. Allen Hall claimed that he ran the balls his first time ever on a pool table. After he told that story for years I heard the story of him having a toy table he had played on for years before that. Might be one reason for his super compact stroke.

Nobody becomes a champion without paying their dues. It might not be as obvious as some others and those blessed with talent may not have to work as hard, they still have to work. Talent can be a two edged sword too. It takes you so far, then it isn't enough to keep going further. Those that faced barriers long before have the knowledge and work ethic to keep moving forward. Those with tons of raw talent may not have these things, talent has been enough in the past.

Nobody is sitting on secrets not available to the rest of us. The secrets might be spelled out in a book about something that isn't even a cue sport, but they are out there.

Gold is where you find it. There are often a few ounces of gold to a ton or more of stuff dug up to sort the gold out of it. A lot of dross to go through for a little gold. I can't recall ever reading a totally worthless book that was supposed to teach something. Some books had tons of valuable stuff in them. Some only had one or two sentences that advanced my cause. Those one or two sentences could be as valuable as a whole book.

Right here on AZB I often read posts saying something can't be done. The people saying that haven't tried to do these things with the same dedication some others have put into learning these things. I put many thousands of hours into pattern reading. Granted that much of that pattern reading was on a checkers and then chess board, it still carried over and made learning to read patterns on a pool or snooker table much easier.

Spot shape is regarded by many as impossible. My spot wasn't a dot, more like a two inch spot. I spent five or six thousand hours from the time I started working on spot shape until I obtained that two inch spot on the vast majority of my shots. Sometimes my spot shape was much smaller when it needed to be, a quarter inch or less. Of course I knew I was going to need that ridiculously precise shape so I made sure I was shooting from a foot or two away from the object ball and not from the other end of a nine or ten foot table.

It isn't sight or any one thing that makes a winning player. If I had to pick one thing as most important it would be the six P's taught at the nuke. Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Last I knew they had shortened that to five P's in this PC world.

Hu
Click to expand...
You're right. We coulda ruled the world!!👍🏻😂
 
jjohnson said:
<snip> ...I am motivated to make this video but it could take a few months. I'll do my best.
Click to expand...
(I am not intending the video to be an instructional video, at least not yet at this time.)
Just focusing on a particular shot, when you get down, what are you looking for?
How is your body positioned?
How is the cue stick positioned relative to the balls?
What are the relationships of the body, cue stick and the cue ball strike point?
There is a lot here already.
Proper analysis can be hard work in itself.
What do you want to accomplish with your stroke?
Many accomplished pool players have disdain for other pool players who are lazy and unappreciative of the effort required to succeed. They make it appear easy because they have efficiently perfected their technique. They still burn up the calories wasting little.
How does vision work?
These questions need to be answered.
This is a good beginning while not having even gotten to answering your questions.
A video is not even required except to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique.
SEEING can easily be explained in words.
I'm reminded of Thorsten Hohmann, I think it was a 14:1 match video, where he was being interviewed when the players were about to take a break. He was asked how he makes so many shots, or something to that effect. He said he would give an explanation when he gets back from the break. Upon returning he says, I just visualize the ghost ball at contact with the object ball, aligning their center lines to the pocket center. Then I aim the cue ball and shoot it to where I visualized the ghost ball. Simple, yes. Was he leaving anything out?
 
My oh my, just got meditated and this is some Far Heavy Shit Man.
I see a game a sport a recreation...no no wait....It's a fitness program.
Can you walk the talk? Well this is just "in fun" cause I have not got past page 1. Shrug.
"A fitness program " is my Rainman mumble as I stumble back to the table.
Have I asked, "You wanna play some"?
 
I think i know what you mean. There’s a lot of secret knowledge. A LOT.

A few major ones that I’ll never tell anyone.

Many of the pro’s don’t know some of it but they have such good feel and accuracy that it doesn’t matter if they “know” it or not.
 
jjohnson said:
(I am not intending the video to be an instructional video, at least not yet at this time.)
Just focusing on a particular shot, when you get down, what are you looking for?
How is your body positioned?
How is the cue stick positioned relative to the balls?
What are the relationships of the body, cue stick and the cue ball strike point?
There is a lot here already.
Proper analysis can be hard work in itself.
What do you want to accomplish with your stroke?
Many accomplished pool players have disdain for other pool players who are lazy and unappreciative of the effort required to succeed. They make it appear easy because they have efficiently perfected their technique. They still burn up the calories wasting little.
How does vision work?
These questions need to be answered.
This is a good beginning while not having even gotten to answering your questions.
A video is not even required except to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique.
SEEING can easily be explained in words.
I'm reminded of Thorsten Hohmann, I think it was a 14:1 match video, where he was being interviewed when the players were about to take a break. He was asked how he makes so many shots, or something to that effect. He said he would give an explanation when he gets back from the break. Upon returning he says, I just visualize the ghost ball at contact with the object ball, aligning their center lines to the pocket center. Then I aim the cue ball and shoot it to where I visualized the ghost ball. Simple, yes. Was he leaving anything out?
Click to expand...
If you would've thrown something in there about a 'Third Eye' kinda thing, this might've gone a whole diff direction.
 
jjohnson said:
Everyone looks at any given pool shot in exactly the same way. Players to rail birds. But not everyone SEES that shot the same way. I'm only talking about the balls and the lay on the table, not how to approach how to shoot the shot (different matter.) Seeing ranges from total darkness to crystal clarity. This is one thing that distinguishes mediocre players from great players. Even if you have perfect physical sight, you may still not be SEEING the balls. SEEING the balls perfectly intuitively instinctively is a god given gift. Only the best players have this ability. But did you know that you can be taught how to consciously SEE the balls? "Knowledge is power." It is money, as well. There are some online instructions that "spill the beans" so to speak. The knowledge they reveal definitely can take your game to the next level. But even they will not tell you everything they know. You just need to read many of the posts here to get a glimpse of the attitudes of some people toward other posters. Do you think they would share anything that would enhance your competitiveness to the detriment of their own? And even the personable posters may be reluctant to share the "truths" that they have garnered over the years. Life's lessons usually don't come cheap.
Click to expand...
If you're addressing looking at the balls consistently when down on the shot, I suggest you find your vision center and align your head the same way on every shot. That and good stroke fundamentals make a world of difference.

Vision Center - Dr. Dave Pool Info

Answers to frequently-asked questions about how to find your personal 'vision center' in pool.
billiards.colostate.edu
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top