Kinister's First Shot

[Bob Jewett]

... Also, while I regard Bob Jewett as a great authority on the physics of the game, I must respectfully disagree with his statement that repetitive training on one shot is no good. I think it really helps isolate a particular variable. ...

My point was that you should avoid exact repetition of a particular shot without any variation at all. One example is a local guy who for half an hour at a time will put the cue ball on the headstring, the object ball half way to a foot pocket and perfectly straight in and will shoot the identical shot for the whole practice session. The only case where that might be a useful thing to do, in my view, is where he has a serious fundamental flaw he is working on.

If you are practicing rolling one ball diameter ahead on Thursday, I think it would be useful to practice pulling the cue ball back one ball diameter on Friday, and that would be more useful that repeating what you did on Thursday. Further, if you are working on the one-ball-roll-through, I hope you are trying from different distances.

I like to think of the various shots as parts of the pool-playing landscape, and your job as a player is to explore as much of it as you can handle, and become familiar with a wider and wider territory. You need to push back your frontiers. If you only know the east side of Main Street and never go over to the west side, life is tough.

 

[KMRUNOUT]

My point was that you should avoid exact repetition of a particular shot without any variation at all. One example is a local guy who for half an hour at a time will put the cue ball on the headstring, the object ball half way to a foot pocket and perfectly straight in and will shoot the identical shot for the whole practice session. The only case where that might be a useful thing to do, in my view, is where he has a serious fundamental flaw he is working on.

If you are practicing rolling one ball diameter ahead on Thursday, I think it would be useful to practice pulling the cue ball back one ball diameter on Friday, and that would be more useful that repeating what you did on Thursday. Further, if you are working on the one-ball-roll-through, I hope you are trying from different distances.

I like to think of the various shots as parts of the pool-playing landscape, and your job as a player is to explore as much of it as you can handle, and become familiar with a wider and wider territory. You need to push back your frontiers. If you only know the east side of Main Street and never go over to the west side, life is tough.

Ok Bob, I think we agree. I have tried the exact same shot for long periods of time, but I usually will vary it somewhat on another attempt. There are certain "reference" shots that I find usefull for repairing fundamentals. For example, object ball dead center table, cue ball on the head spot. This is exactly a 1/2 ball hit into either corner. Since you know exactly how to aim it, I find it helpful to hit this one for a bit to help repair any visual errors, or of course stroking flaws. However, while I might shoot the same shot 50 times (rare), I will vary speed, tip placement, and whether I shoot it into the left or right pocket.

Thanks for the input,

Kerry