I usually tell people that the whole idea of shooting rhythm and trying to keep a certain pace is crap. I've heard guys talk about counting practice strokes and whatnot and I cringe, because my theory is you should only shoot when you are good and ready, and there are 0 doubts in your mind. Never before.
But I noticed something -
At the end of the night, when my buddy says "one more rack", I always say "ok speed pool". We play 8 ball at warp speed, taking 0 time to plan or worry about leave. We just pop balls in, literally running around the table. We can get in like 3 more games in 10 minutes.
When I play this way, I don't miss. I get worthless leaves and I spin in every ball, but I make everything I aim at.
I don't recall all the shots in this particular runout, but a lot of them were ugly. Here's how it ended:
My thinking is - when you let your subconscious brain take over and reduce the game to pure hand-eye coordination with no thinking, you get a little edge in shotmaking. Maybe that's the power that earl taps into when he goes 1-2-stroke on every shot.
I'm not saying I run out more when I play this way, I definitely don't, but maybe I can find a way to mix the speed pool style shotmaking with my usual methodical game and end up getting out more.
