Misses Begat Misses

[Leigh]

Thanks for the insight. I think I might be fairly middle of the road. Sometimes hard on myself and demanding but I have no doubts in my ability to improve. Maybe it’s a fighter mentality. That being said, after reading your post, I’m thinking that going through bouts of being hard on myself is just a form of self indulgence that distracts from what needs to be done.

 

[Dan White]

Thanks for the insight. I think I might be fairly middle of the road. Sometimes hard on myself and demanding but I have no doubts in my ability to improve. Maybe it’s a fighter mentality. That being said, after reading your post, I’m thinking that going through bouts of being hard on myself is just a form of self indulgence that distracts from what needs to be done.

Learning how to learn from your failures at the table takes a lot of discipline and practice! I knew a guy in a straight pool league who would come completely unglued anytime he screwed up a shot. First of all, he had no right to get so upset because he wasn't a pro calibre player. He should accept that as long as pool isn't a full time job he is going to make errors (and still would even if he were a pro).

Once you get into the mindset that mistakes are telling you something that you need to figure out, that's when you can make great strides. I find it particularly useful when I find a mistake that I make often. That shows there is some fundamental thing going wrong. Fixing that will likely fix a bunch of other problems, too.

 

[Leigh]

It reminds me of what my dad jokingly says, “don’t get mad. You’re not that good.”

 

[straightline]

Yeah, who is anyway? It can be more about individual ideals than anything else.

 

[BilliardsAbout]

An old drill I used to prefer was to hit ten highly difficult shots to warmup, for example, cue ball near a corner pocket, o.b. dead center of table, stop shot into the diagonally opposite corner pocket.

This will warm you even faster! https://www.liveabout.com/pool-definition-kitchen-368623