I posted the answer on the other forum, and then I saw you posted here as well. I'll also post my answer here too.
Hi Josh,
Sorry for the lag time!
Your pre shot routine is one of your most important fundamentals that a lot of people do not give the proper attention to. It is not a physical fundamental to be worked out, but a mental one. Anytime you are having problems with any part of your fundamentals, you bring it to your conscious - until it can be unconscious. What this means is that if you are say, having trouble keeping your arm straight as you follow through, I advocate the player practicing a whole hour or so hitting balls. When they start the final arm motion forward, I have them say, "straight" to themselves. You are consciously telling your muscle what it needs to accomplish. Another example is when someone stands up from a shot, I'll have them quietly say, "frozen" to themselves the moment after contact. They are in essence again telling themselves to stay frozen as they shoot. If you do this for an hour, this facet should be ingrained so that one can go ahead and put it back to being unconscious.
Same thing with you. I myself have been working really hard on playing slower - I have also been working on making my pre shot stronger. In practice what I have been doing is stand before the shot, and go through everything verbally I need to accomplish. I do not have a problem addressing the ball properly, but after I stand in line I go through decisions. Even if position is natural, I will stand there and visualize exactly where I want it to go. A lot of times I go too fast when I see that position is natural, either roll up or stop position. It is here when you just go ahead and roll it up that sometimes you didn't take exactly enough time to see where the most perfect spot is, and am haphazard about it. I am finding to truly do this when it isn't natural, you have to do it on every shot. Same thing every time. Another example is that I'll decide that I'll put bottom outside english on a ball, to come around 3 rails. I'll go ahead and shoot this ball without truly seeing where it is going to contact each rail. You need in your pre shot to push yourself that much further and exactly know where it is going to contact the first rail, how then the outside is going to widen it from that point, and then see where it will contact the next rail. If you do this, you are constantly improving instead of just shooting. You can see once you've struck the ball if it did in fact follow the line that you saw in your pre shot. Then you can see if what you thought was going to happen is reasonable or not. Sometimes I think a ball is going to do this or the other, when in fact, the amount of stroke I thought I needed to put on there would have never sufficed. If you truly pay attention in your pre shot, and visualize the line, you can learn about what is possible and what your stoke will get you almost every time.
This takes a huge amount of discipline! To make your pre shot routine stick, you have to go about shooting balls in heart-wrenchingly slow. It is not about the fun of shooting balls in at this time. You have to resign yourself that this will be a part of that "un-fun" practice that no one wants to do. Again, being able to do this kind of practice is what's going to separate you from everyone else who just wants to throw 9 balls out there and try to run them out. There are people that their only practice this way and then think that they have practiced!
It is easy to get side tracked. There are times when I am going through the tough practice of working on my pre shot, seeing absolutely everything before I am down on the ball, when I am down, trying to have the same number of practice strokes on all of the shots, etc, that I forget what I am trying to do and start firing balls in. The answer is that you have to want it bad enough, that you will sit and do the focused approach time and time again, bringing the problem to your conscious, until the answer becomes unconscious. Not everyone can do this. And that is why every one can't play top level pool. I see it in you, Josh. You just have to block out all else while you are doing this practice. It doesn't matter who walked in the door, what Louis is saying to Kevin, what song is playing, etc. Hear and see none of this. You are there to do a job, and all your focus and effort is into getting this down.
I promise you, you do that, and you'll raise another level.
Good luck!
Tina Pawloski
