How can we learn BEST from Champions?

[CJ Wiley]

I used to practice with Buddy Hall in Tampa Florida when we both lived there and he was always an inspiration.....at times I would try to imitate his stroke/grip/tempo and found out that it worked really well for Buddy and not so well for me....that's the issue, even though we all have common denominators in our games, we still have to find a way to do it our own way.

Buddy has shown me things that don't work for me, but work for other people and I've learned the same type things from Omaha John, Mike Lebron, Efren, Hopkins, David Howard, Earl Strickland, Jr. Weldon, Jersey Red, Eddie Taylor, Big John, Doug Smith, etc... you pay attention around guys like this you'll often pick up key bits of wisdom, especially if you know how to elicit it.

Sometimes you can use it directly, and other times you have to tweak it a bit to conform to your own personal style....learning to improve is more of a journey than a destination

Just like travel broadens our horizons, so does understanding how others experience their personal reality, especially at the highest level...and ultimately, we that strive to discover the perfection in the game of pool realize that to achieve this we can not express ourselves through the game, the game {paradoxically} must express its self though us..... and this, in appearance is as unique as a fingerprint.

 

[ENGLISH!]

Champions, or winners, just get it done. It does not matter how, their way, your way, my way, their mother's way. They just get it done. They WILL themselves to WIN. It's not a technique. Sure you have to have knowledge & the talent to employ it, but it's something inside of them, not anything one can really see on the outside.

Like I always told my children when they were playing sports. If you give it your BEST effort & hold nothing back & have nothing left to give when you walk off, then you walk off the field a winner, regardless of the score. In team sports you need multiple efforts of that nature.

My wife is a 3 time Championship pitcher & the best game I ever watched her play was in a Championship loss. She was one of 3 players left from the championship years & the rest were just 'mediocre rookies'. I watched her DO everything she could to try to help & WILL that team to a win but it was just too big of a task, given the inexperience of the other players.

Is it a WILL to WIN...or is it a refusal to LOSE? Whatever it is, it's something inside that makes them Champions. I don't know if it can be learned. You may have to be born with it or maybe you can learn it, but IT is not even releted to the sport or game they play. It is something else.

Maybe it is simply a TRUE understanding of COMPETITION. If you compete, you give it ALL that you have, your BEST effort & if you compete, you are 'suppose' to win.

In the words of Vince Lombardi, 'Winning isn't everything, but it's the only thing worth striving for'.

The quarterback for the old Detroit Lions, Bobby Lane, NEVER lost a game...time just ran out on him.

Look at the picture of Y.A. Tittle, with him kneeling on the ground with his helmut knocked off & blood streaming down the side of his face. I know what he said when he got up. He said, 'huddle up!'

There is no quit or give up in a Champion. It is their WILL that makes them Champions...whether they win or not. They loose one day, WIN another day, & then, 'all of a sudden' Their Champions

Bottom line is... it comes from deep down inside. The problem is can one find it...if it is even there. It may or may not be. What we can learn from Champions is to look for IT whenever we compete and if we look often enough maybe one day we'll dig it out of ourselves & then we will become A Champion!

Sorry the rantting. Just my long 2 cents.

 

[CreeDo]

Good point CJ.

Almost all of us learned how to hit balls long before we decided we wanted to be serious about pool. It takes a very weird kid to say "I've never picked up a cue but I'm going to start working at becoming a pro pool player, and I'm going to research extensively how I want to train before I even try hitting a ball." ...no, that kid probably doesn't exist.

Instead we all just started shooting without worrying about which eye is dominant, whether we keep the elbow still, whether or not to pause on the backswing, whether to use a system for aiming, kicking, banks, etc.

So, like it or not, we all have shooting habits. To start learning something new, like buddy's nice backswing pause, a player has to figure out how to adapt it to his personal set of habits. It may be he can't... if you have a roller coaster stroke and have been using it for 20 years, you may never be able to hit the ball like buddy. You can still learn something by watching him though.

 

[Okie]

Champions, or winners, just get it done. It does not matter how, their way, your way, my way, their mother's way. They just get it done. They WILL themselves to WIN. It's not a technique. Sure you have to have knowledge & the talent to employ it, but it's something inside of them, not anything one can really see on the outside.
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There is no quit or give up in a Champion. It is their WILL that makes them Champions...whether they win or not. They loose one day, WIN another day, & then, 'all of a sudden' Their Champions

This may be the best words I have read on this forum!

 

[The Saw]

I used to practice with Buddy Hall in Tampa Florida when we both lived there and he was always an inspiration.....at times I would try to imitate his stroke/grip/tempo and found out that it worked really well for Buddy and not so well for me....that's the issue, even though we all have common denominators in our games, we still have to find a way to do it our own way.

Buddy has shown me things that don't work for me, but work for other people and I've learned the same type things from Omaha John, Mike Lebron, Efren, Hopkins, David Howard, Earl Strickland, Jr. Weldon, Jersey Red, Eddie Taylor, Big John, Doug Smith, etc... you pay attention around guys like this you'll often pick up key bits of wisdom, especially if you know how to elicit it.

Sometimes you can use it directly, and other times you have to tweak it a bit to conform to your own personal style....learning to improve is more of a journey than a destination

Just like travel broadens our horizons, so does understanding how others experience their personal reality, especially at the highest level...and ultimately, we that strive to discover the perfection in the game of pool realize that to achieve this we can not express ourselves through the game, the game {paradoxically} must express its self though us..... and this, in appearance is as unique as a fingerprint.

Big John getting props.... I like. But I just have to throw an LOL in there seeing his name in that group.....

 

[3kushn]

I think many folks get balled up trying to imitate a certain favorite champion's mechanics which in most cases creates problems. But if there was an opportunity to personally watch all your mentioned champs (Omaha John, Mike Lebron, Efren, Hopkins, David Howard, Earl Strickland, Jr. Weldon, Jersey Red, Eddie Taylor, Big John, Doug Smith...) in one place for a long time, and come up with common denominators, a player may benefit.

For me, since I don't have the opportunity to personally regularly watch true champions and the videos and live stream cameras only show the balls being struck, and not the stroke, I pay attention to shot selection for improvement. With certain exceptions on a given day, most top players will choose the same shots in the same manner/order.

 

[NolesFan83]

Anytime i watch a pro play I usually get better for the first week, then my bad habbits take over. I had a friend tell me he could tell i was playing in a big boy tourney(pro one) because everything in my game got tighter. You cant beat knowledge. Even if i lost i feel like i won cause I just watched a pro do it the "right" way. I figure i can only get better so why not try it like they did. But in the end it comes down to how I transfer that knowledge into my own game. And so far, without any formal instruction, and a fair amout of dues paid, in an area dominated by leagues, i feel i can give anyone that walks thru those doors a hard time. Thats what i get from champions. I get that swagger at the table to say, sure lets play for 50 and give someone a run for the money.

 

[ironman]

I used to practice with Buddy Hall in Tampa Florida when we both lived there and he was always an inspiration.....at times I would try to imitate his stroke/grip/tempo and found out that it worked really well for Buddy and not so well for me....that's the issue, even though we all have common denominators in our games, we still have to find a way to do it our own way.

Buddy has shown me things that don't work for me, but work for other people and I've learned the same type things from Omaha John, Mike Lebron, Efren, Hopkins, David Howard, Earl Strickland, Jr. Weldon, Jersey Red, Eddie Taylor, Big John, Doug Smith, etc... you pay attention around guys like this you'll often pick up key bits of wisdom, especially if you know how to elicit it.

Sometimes you can use it directly, and other times you have to tweak it a bit to conform to your own personal style....learning to improve is more of a journey than a destination

Just like travel broadens our horizons, so does understanding how others experience their personal reality, especially at the highest level...and ultimately, we that strive to discover the perfection in the game of pool realize that to achieve this we can not express ourselves through the game, the game {paradoxically} must express its self though us..... and this, in appearance is as unique as a fingerprint.

YOu mention two very interesting names there to me, being Jr Weldon and Omaha John. I was lucky to see both in Denver years and years ago and fell in love with their styles. It was tragic what happened to John so early in life and causing him to withdraw. He in my mind, was tremendously talented, had a big heart, and A good guy.
JR Weldon, I haven't heard heard of in many years other than playing golf in Florida. He new how to get the cash.
I got the chance to practice with Buddy many years ago when he lived in Shreveport. With every slightest detail, Buddy seemed to always carry it to next degree and I more than often got lost in his explanations. Buddy was an absolute perfectionists and could tolerate little more.
Then I ran around with Danny Medina during his hayday and though it worked for him ( except in Dallas), he ran every red light on the table. If he could see it, he thought it was supposed to fall.
If we could throw them all in a blender, there is no telling what the finished product might be.
I was thinking about this last weekend at the Teas open while watching Bob Vanover. The man is just shy of 80 years old and kept dropping shot after shot. It was an honor to have him there again. I have been feeling sorry for myself and almost 61 and as I wqatched Bob, it hit me, "hell, I'm just a kid"!

 

[DRW]

I used to practice with Buddy Hall in Tampa Florida when we both lived there and he was always an inspiration.....at times I would try to imitate his stroke/grip/tempo and found out that it worked really well for Buddy and not so well for me....that's the issue, even though we all have common denominators in our games, we still have to find a way to do it our own way.

Buddy has shown me things that don't work for me, but work for other people and I've learned the same type things from Omaha John, Mike Lebron, Efren, Hopkins, David Howard, Earl Strickland, Jr. Weldon, Jersey Red, Eddie Taylor, Big John, Doug Smith, etc... you pay attention around guys like this you'll often pick up key bits of wisdom, especially if you know how to elicit it.

Sometimes you can use it directly, and other times you have to tweak it a bit to conform to your own personal style....learning to improve is more of a journey than a destination

Just like travel broadens our horizons, so does understanding how others experience their personal reality, especially at the highest level...and ultimately, we that strive to discover the perfection in the game of pool realize that to achieve this we can not express ourselves through the game, the game {paradoxically} must express its self though us..... and this, in appearance is as unique as a fingerprint.

This may be one of the best posts pertaining to what CJ is talking about. It's going to confuse a lot of people because of the simplicity of what he conveys. Great post CJ' Hope to see more in the future.:smile: