GREAT Article about performance!

sixpack

sixpack

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
This is a great article about performance science. I think the applications to becoming great at pool are obvious. Thoughts?

http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/great_1.html

Cheers,
RC

EDIT - in case you don't want to read the article: The summary is that becoming world class takes about 10 years of deliberate practice and is completely irrespective of talent.
 
Last edited:
This article does have some insights that can be applied to playing pool:

For example: Simply hitting a bucket of balls is not deliberate practice, which is why most golfers don't get better. Hitting an eight-iron 300 times with a goal of leaving the ball within 20 feet of the pin 80 percent of the time, continually observing results and making appropriate adjustments, and doing that for hours every day - that's deliberate practice.

Consistency is crucial. As Ericsson notes, "Elite performers in many diverse domains have been found to practice, on the average, roughly the same amount every day, including weekends."

Evidence crosses a remarkable range of fields. In a study of 20-year-old violinists by Ericsson and colleagues, the best group (judged by conservatory teachers) averaged 10,000 hours of deliberate practice over their lives; the next-best averaged 7,500 hours; and the next, 5,000. It's the same story in surgery, insurance sales, and virtually every sport. More deliberate practice equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance.​
 
For the sake of debate, sure we can apply these principles to pool, yes.

But how can one define "deliberate practice"?

Not only that, what may work for one player may not do anything for another.
 
Ok so how do you relate the eight iron example to pool? Spending a day practicing banks, break shots, kicks.

How do you practice position play and regular shotmaking? Set up the same shot 50 times in a row until you do it correctly 98% of the time. Then are you going to do that with all combinations of shots. That might take a while.

This example is a lot easier to relate to golf when you only have about 12 different shots total in the game. Bowling is even simpler, only about two different shots.
 
Simply setting up a rack of balls, breaking them and seeing if you can run out is simply the weakest way to practice "Shot Making" It may be a decent way to practice your Stroke, but not shotmaking. You need to set up the same shot over and over till you are proficient. Then start making variations of the shot making fuller or thinner hits with inside or outside english, not only for pocketing the ball but for learning CB control.

The infinate amount of shots "is the reason" you need to break shots down into catagories then break those into sub catagories then break those down otherwise there's no structure to the madness. This is why most players can't run on average more than 3 balls in 9 ball or 4 in 8 ball. They never parctice shots and vary the CB so by ball 3 or 4 they're so out of line they're done.
 
mnShooter said:
Ok so how do you relate the eight iron example to pool? Spending a day practicing banks, break shots, kicks.

How do you practice position play and regular shotmaking? Set up the same shot 50 times in a row until you do it correctly 98% of the time. Then are you going to do that with all combinations of shots. That might take a while.

This example is a lot easier to relate to golf when you only have about 12 different shots total in the game. Bowling is even simpler, only about two different shots.
Click to expand...

The point that I think they are trying to make with the 8-iron example is the same as the typically saying, "amatures practice until they make a shot and pros until they can't miss." They are basically saying that you have to practice certain exact scenarios that you have an exact requirement for the outcome and practice it until you can complete it with a certain degree of accuracy. There are many common pattern shots where this is more than applicable.
 
I think that was a great motivator for Life in General..

and most certainly Pool! in fact I gave it to two of my lower handicaps to read ! Thanks for the post! ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top