I just got back from Demitrius Jelatis's 3 day boot camp and felt compelled to write up a review. For anyone not aware what this is, just google it and his website should pop up with info describing what his boot camps are all about. I'll discuss some of what we learned below.
Alright, I could probably spend several hours writing about my experience, but I'll try to sum it up in a few paragraphs, even though it will probably still be lengthy.
A little background first.
1.I've followed Demi's podcasts for a while and have always been fascinated by them. Just look up MN Pool Bootcamp on youtube if you are interested and there are tons of free videos with various topics and guests.
2.I moved out to MN from Denver a few years ago and even when I lived in Denver, this was a bucket list item for me. So I knew this was a no brainer once I moved to the same state.
3.I'm a 655 Fargorate with only 364 games. 3/4 of the games are from bar table tourneys and that's mostly what I play on.
A little more background that I think is important prior to the review. Demi does mental game coaching via zoom and I participated in this last winter. It consists of 3 two hour sessions with 3 students per session. I've read most of the mental game books such as inner game of tennis, pleasure of small motions, etc., etc., and for $250 this was worth every penny and some. What Demi teaches with mental game is eye opening and I've never seen or read anything exactly like it. I'm 42, have younger kids, and competing at pool hasn't been a priority for me for at least 5 years (minus some online ghost tourneys during covid), but I finally played in a couple team tourneys over this last fall and winter. It was important to me to play in at least 1 singles tourney. At the time, I was a 628 FR, took 3rd in a decent field, and played so well that I raised my FR to 655! So a 27 game FR jump! Now at the time, I felt I was playing very well, but the tourney happened in between the 2nd and 3rd session and I was still able to use much of what I was learning during the tourney. An added benefit to the sessions is they are recorded, so I can revisit any of the material that I want at any time. Considering I don't really play pool much during the summer and I'm hoping to ramp up a little for this fall/winter again, I plan to absolutely do that.
Now on to the actual bootcamp. Since I only live a few hours away, I was able to drive to his house. Accommodations were nice. All meals are covered. He has a beautiful 9' diamond with 4 1/2" pockets. The cloth was recovered a few months ago, but it gets a ton of use, so the table is broken in and playing absolutely perfect IMO. At the right speeds, you can wobble balls in a little, but for the most part, you have to hit them good to drop. Basically, the table plays tough, but fair.
I'm not going to lie, I knew I would be a little intimidated by doing all of our training on a 9' diamond. I have a 7' diamond at home, but live more rural and don't have immediate access to a 9' table without traveling a couple hours. So I probably only average 2 hrs/year playing on a big table for the last several. Well, by the end of day 1, the intimidation factor was long gone. I was hitting the ball fantastic. I have the flaw that many decent bar table players have, where I can get (especially under pressure) that short punchy/buntey kind of stroke. It works, but it can often break down and can be a real guessing game when using that combining with lots of spin. Demi didn't really change my fundamentals per say, but had me experiment with more of long flowy and fluid kind of stroke and I immediately fell in love. It was like crack and I'm most definitely addicted to it. We did a couple drills that really helped smooth my stroke out and get me in gear. Demi teaches so many things over the entire bootcamp, but a few of the key things are focusing on impeccable pattern play that just makes so much sense, once you see how he plans and executes pattern play on both easy and difficult racks. For my level, I know I needed to work on moving and safeties and we did plenty of that. He also teaches several cue ball maneuvers and has a core group of them, many of which I already know and use, but many of them he hits slightly different. That slightly different makes a huge difference though, especially with pocketing balls where you are 5' away from your object ball, have a steep or flat angle, and need to stun a rail or two, use spin, and not get wild. You use the same techniques on the touch shots where you are close to balls, but need to hit a small target. The way he hits balls and combines stroke and speed was just magic once I started to truly get it. The ironic thing is, he uses some interesting mental game tactics, especially on certain touch shots.
By the end of day 2, I think we ended our training around 11:30pm. Demi headed to bed as we usually eat around 9am and start training by 9:30, but I decided to hit a few more balls. Things were really coming together as I was playing rotation, I was getting out from everywhere and the cue ball was on a string. I felt I had the long, flowy, and smooth stroke really working for me and I wasn't having to think about it at all in between shots. At one point, I had a little draw shot from the 2-3 where I had to get 3/4 table length draw with the balls about 5' away and hit it perfect. Too perfect really as it rebounded off the short rail nearly getting me out of position. Just for the heck of it, I was throwing 10 balls on the table and I thought I would start with a mostly table length draw shot to get from the 1-2 ball. I would put the 1 ball near the long rail on the 2nd diamond and the cue ball near the opposite 1st diamond. After 5, 6, 7 attempts and no miscues, I decided to see how far I could go. By the time I was done, I put the 1 ball about 4" from the kitchen short rail near the corner and maybe only 2" off the side rail and I had the 2 ball on the short rail I was shooting from just past the middle diamond and I put a 3ball blocker about 1 diamond uptable from it. I would put the cueball just inside the 1st diamond, so it was as far back as I could go where I could still comfortably bridge from the rail. Basically, my goal was to do a table length draw shot where the cue ball would hit the rail I'm shooting from to get shape on the 2, with the cue ball and object ball roughly 8' apart. Surprisingly, I was able to execute this over and over again with no miscues. Sometimes, If I made the 1 in thin side of the pocket, the cue ball would rocket off on the wrong path, but for the most part I was able to execute over and over again with no miscues. I've hit this shot before from time to time if I'm feeling really good about my stoke, but I've never been able to do it repeatedly like this with no miscues and get that amount of draw over and over again. I couldn't believe it. So then I went back to just trying to run the balls in order and after a couple more racks of that, I thought lets just try that draw shot one more time with 1 shot at it, and I hit it perfectly. It was like 1:30am now and I knew I needed to go to bed and did, but just lied there in bed for a half hour thinking wow that was electric. Now the funny thing is, we didn't even really work on the draw stroke. We did do one drill where we were hitting a stop shot at a firm pace, where you aren't pocketing the object ball and have a limit on how many rails the object ball can go. We did this just prior to ending our training that day. It's designed to help get the stroke nice and loose, but we never even drew the ball. I think the whole key was that I got dialed in and comfortable with a more fluid stroke, was in a good mental state, and combined with everything else we were working on, it just all came together. I'm not only referred to the draw shot, but just the way I was effortlessly running balls in general. Lastly on this piece, like Demi stresses, like any power shots, it's just a tool, put it in the tool box and use only when needed. I mention this whole draw shot thing because it was kind of random how it happened and that I was able to repeat it over and over and I really think it stemmed from much of what we worked on, even though we never actually worked on drawing balls.
Wow, I knew this would happen where It would turn into a novel. In summary, I would give the whole experience an A. Demi loves the game as much or more than anyone I've ever met. His knowledge of all aspects of the game is superb and he can back it up on the table. You can ask him anything or work on any shot and there isn't any secret that he has, that he won't show with you. He's developed his own systems and a vocabulary to go along with it. He can explain it and demonstrate it in a way that makes too much sense and more importantly, he could teach me how to do it in a way that I could repeat on the table in real time. He can be intense and he wants you to get as much as possible out of the experience. It wasn't always fun as sometimes training is challenging and a lot of work, but there's a lot of fun to be had too. When you break for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we had lots of fun discussions on mental game, game theory, matches he's played where he learned things, and so much more. It was a highly rewarding experience and I couldn't recommend more to anyone wanting to take there game to a higher level.
Alright, I could probably spend several hours writing about my experience, but I'll try to sum it up in a few paragraphs, even though it will probably still be lengthy.
A little background first.
1.I've followed Demi's podcasts for a while and have always been fascinated by them. Just look up MN Pool Bootcamp on youtube if you are interested and there are tons of free videos with various topics and guests.
2.I moved out to MN from Denver a few years ago and even when I lived in Denver, this was a bucket list item for me. So I knew this was a no brainer once I moved to the same state.
3.I'm a 655 Fargorate with only 364 games. 3/4 of the games are from bar table tourneys and that's mostly what I play on.
A little more background that I think is important prior to the review. Demi does mental game coaching via zoom and I participated in this last winter. It consists of 3 two hour sessions with 3 students per session. I've read most of the mental game books such as inner game of tennis, pleasure of small motions, etc., etc., and for $250 this was worth every penny and some. What Demi teaches with mental game is eye opening and I've never seen or read anything exactly like it. I'm 42, have younger kids, and competing at pool hasn't been a priority for me for at least 5 years (minus some online ghost tourneys during covid), but I finally played in a couple team tourneys over this last fall and winter. It was important to me to play in at least 1 singles tourney. At the time, I was a 628 FR, took 3rd in a decent field, and played so well that I raised my FR to 655! So a 27 game FR jump! Now at the time, I felt I was playing very well, but the tourney happened in between the 2nd and 3rd session and I was still able to use much of what I was learning during the tourney. An added benefit to the sessions is they are recorded, so I can revisit any of the material that I want at any time. Considering I don't really play pool much during the summer and I'm hoping to ramp up a little for this fall/winter again, I plan to absolutely do that.
Now on to the actual bootcamp. Since I only live a few hours away, I was able to drive to his house. Accommodations were nice. All meals are covered. He has a beautiful 9' diamond with 4 1/2" pockets. The cloth was recovered a few months ago, but it gets a ton of use, so the table is broken in and playing absolutely perfect IMO. At the right speeds, you can wobble balls in a little, but for the most part, you have to hit them good to drop. Basically, the table plays tough, but fair.
I'm not going to lie, I knew I would be a little intimidated by doing all of our training on a 9' diamond. I have a 7' diamond at home, but live more rural and don't have immediate access to a 9' table without traveling a couple hours. So I probably only average 2 hrs/year playing on a big table for the last several. Well, by the end of day 1, the intimidation factor was long gone. I was hitting the ball fantastic. I have the flaw that many decent bar table players have, where I can get (especially under pressure) that short punchy/buntey kind of stroke. It works, but it can often break down and can be a real guessing game when using that combining with lots of spin. Demi didn't really change my fundamentals per say, but had me experiment with more of long flowy and fluid kind of stroke and I immediately fell in love. It was like crack and I'm most definitely addicted to it. We did a couple drills that really helped smooth my stroke out and get me in gear. Demi teaches so many things over the entire bootcamp, but a few of the key things are focusing on impeccable pattern play that just makes so much sense, once you see how he plans and executes pattern play on both easy and difficult racks. For my level, I know I needed to work on moving and safeties and we did plenty of that. He also teaches several cue ball maneuvers and has a core group of them, many of which I already know and use, but many of them he hits slightly different. That slightly different makes a huge difference though, especially with pocketing balls where you are 5' away from your object ball, have a steep or flat angle, and need to stun a rail or two, use spin, and not get wild. You use the same techniques on the touch shots where you are close to balls, but need to hit a small target. The way he hits balls and combines stroke and speed was just magic once I started to truly get it. The ironic thing is, he uses some interesting mental game tactics, especially on certain touch shots.
By the end of day 2, I think we ended our training around 11:30pm. Demi headed to bed as we usually eat around 9am and start training by 9:30, but I decided to hit a few more balls. Things were really coming together as I was playing rotation, I was getting out from everywhere and the cue ball was on a string. I felt I had the long, flowy, and smooth stroke really working for me and I wasn't having to think about it at all in between shots. At one point, I had a little draw shot from the 2-3 where I had to get 3/4 table length draw with the balls about 5' away and hit it perfect. Too perfect really as it rebounded off the short rail nearly getting me out of position. Just for the heck of it, I was throwing 10 balls on the table and I thought I would start with a mostly table length draw shot to get from the 1-2 ball. I would put the 1 ball near the long rail on the 2nd diamond and the cue ball near the opposite 1st diamond. After 5, 6, 7 attempts and no miscues, I decided to see how far I could go. By the time I was done, I put the 1 ball about 4" from the kitchen short rail near the corner and maybe only 2" off the side rail and I had the 2 ball on the short rail I was shooting from just past the middle diamond and I put a 3ball blocker about 1 diamond uptable from it. I would put the cueball just inside the 1st diamond, so it was as far back as I could go where I could still comfortably bridge from the rail. Basically, my goal was to do a table length draw shot where the cue ball would hit the rail I'm shooting from to get shape on the 2, with the cue ball and object ball roughly 8' apart. Surprisingly, I was able to execute this over and over again with no miscues. Sometimes, If I made the 1 in thin side of the pocket, the cue ball would rocket off on the wrong path, but for the most part I was able to execute over and over again with no miscues. I've hit this shot before from time to time if I'm feeling really good about my stoke, but I've never been able to do it repeatedly like this with no miscues and get that amount of draw over and over again. I couldn't believe it. So then I went back to just trying to run the balls in order and after a couple more racks of that, I thought lets just try that draw shot one more time with 1 shot at it, and I hit it perfectly. It was like 1:30am now and I knew I needed to go to bed and did, but just lied there in bed for a half hour thinking wow that was electric. Now the funny thing is, we didn't even really work on the draw stroke. We did do one drill where we were hitting a stop shot at a firm pace, where you aren't pocketing the object ball and have a limit on how many rails the object ball can go. We did this just prior to ending our training that day. It's designed to help get the stroke nice and loose, but we never even drew the ball. I think the whole key was that I got dialed in and comfortable with a more fluid stroke, was in a good mental state, and combined with everything else we were working on, it just all came together. I'm not only referred to the draw shot, but just the way I was effortlessly running balls in general. Lastly on this piece, like Demi stresses, like any power shots, it's just a tool, put it in the tool box and use only when needed. I mention this whole draw shot thing because it was kind of random how it happened and that I was able to repeat it over and over and I really think it stemmed from much of what we worked on, even though we never actually worked on drawing balls.
Wow, I knew this would happen where It would turn into a novel. In summary, I would give the whole experience an A. Demi loves the game as much or more than anyone I've ever met. His knowledge of all aspects of the game is superb and he can back it up on the table. You can ask him anything or work on any shot and there isn't any secret that he has, that he won't show with you. He's developed his own systems and a vocabulary to go along with it. He can explain it and demonstrate it in a way that makes too much sense and more importantly, he could teach me how to do it in a way that I could repeat on the table in real time. He can be intense and he wants you to get as much as possible out of the experience. It wasn't always fun as sometimes training is challenging and a lot of work, but there's a lot of fun to be had too. When you break for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we had lots of fun discussions on mental game, game theory, matches he's played where he learned things, and so much more. It was a highly rewarding experience and I couldn't recommend more to anyone wanting to take there game to a higher level.
