Over the last day or so I’ve been reading various posts in this room about the highs and lows of shooting pool. Stuff like, “I’m selling all my equipment and moving back in with my mother,” “I’m never playing again… except maybe that tournament next week,” “Heaven can wait ‘till I run a six pack,” and so on. God knows there’s been many a time when I’ve slumped over the table with my head on the cloth, fist pounding the slate, begging the ghost of Willie to tell me what the @#$% I have to do to make that @#$*&^& shot!
It got me thinking about how I try to cope with the ups and downs of learning this game, and just a few other perspectives I’ve found helpful along the way. Closing in on 48 years of age, I’m not quite an old-timer yet, but at the same time I’ve got enough mileage on me to have made, I think, some time-tested observations. For me, these perspectives have allowed me to have fewer fist-pounding days, and more satisfying playing sessions. In no particular order:
1. Respect the difficulty of the game. If progress came easily, then everybody would be a pro. Real pro’s have spent their youth playing this game, and quite often it is really the only thing they know. When I was studying to get into a good college, the budding pro was shooting balls. When I was away at college, he was still shooting balls. When I began a career and worked toward moving up the ladder, again, he was still shooting balls. Now I watch that guy shooting balls on TV and my subconscious says, “Hey, I’ve been playing off and on since I was a kid. I could be almost as good as that guy if I just played a little more.” It is an unrealistic standard for someone who hasn’t actually put in the thousands of hours it takes to get really good. So realize this is a very difficult game to master, and give yourself the right to do it wrong… a lot.
2. I think this is an important point: You hear people often say it’s not enough just to shoot balls. You have to work on your weaknesses and do some drills to get better. But I think there is something even beyond the recognition that drills will make you a better player. I think the real benefit of shooting a lot of balls, and doing a lot of drills is that it helps you find the correct way to play the game. Let me explain better with an example. Let’s pretend Willie Mosconi is able to possess your body – you’re still in there, but he’s doing all the pool playing using your body. If you could experience first-hand the way he delivers the cue and controls the table, you’d immediately jump years in ability. (Who knows, you might even find out once and for all if he used a slip stroke).
I’ve mentioned this before, but when I was first learning to ski out west a friend brought a camcorder and taped me coming down a hill. Before looking at the video I thought I was making it down pretty nicely. After seeing the video I was so embarrassed at how bad I looked! I made the beginner’s mistake of turning my entire body while making turns across the fall line, instead of keeping my torso straight down the hill and turning with my hips and legs instead. On my very next run I was able to experience the correct way to do it, and suddenly skiing became fun. Before watching the video I was practicing how to keep my weight forward and plant my poles and so on, but I was clueless that the entire thing was just wrong.
Beyond a certain level of ability, there are just so many subtleties to the game of billiards that ultimately nobody can observe enough to be able to teach you how to deliver a perfect stroke. We are doomed to learn through trial and error what works and what doesn’t. And guess what? The stroke that got you good enough to run 10 balls ain’t nearly good enough to get you to run 50 balls. If you tell a beginner to relax his shooting hand, that means something different to him than it does to a 100 ball runner. So, yes, practice is important so that your body gets the “muscle memory” so to speak, but I believe it is helpful to recognize the ultimate goal: all the practice is a way to help you find that perfect stroke that nobody can teach you.
3. The journey is the fun part. If you could run 1000 balls every time on command, you’d probably never pick up a cue again. When I find a weakness in my game, I really enjoy working on that weakness because when I master it, I know it will lead to higher runs. Also, when working on a particular problem I will often notice something else unexpectedly that helps my game even more. For instance, let’s say I’m working on a drill where the cue ball is coming off the bottom rail for position up table. I might shoot the same shot from both sides of the table and find that I get different results from each side. This tells me I’m seeing things differently when cutting to the left vs the right, or maybe my body is getting in the way and causing me to stroke differently. In any case, I’ve uncovered something that might even be more important than the problem I was originally trying to fix.
I’ve also learned that not everything can be fixed in one or two or ten practice sessions. We can’t all have Willie possess our body, so we have to struggle along with different arm angles and grip positions and on and on and on until we find something that really works. But, eventually you will figure it out if are patient and realize that item #2 above is at play.
Another example: Earlier this year I was typically running 30-40 balls a day, sometimes more, but I started writing down what had caused my run to end. A pattern showed up that often when I had to hit a longish shot at a small angle hard, I would miss. So I set out to see how to hit balls hard and not miss. This led to a good 6 months’ worth of fooling around with every variable you could imagine. It took me away from my game and lowered my playing ability, but eventually I found the right combination (I think), and my stroke is now better for it. I’m just at the point of really starting to try and run balls again, but I couldn’t have gotten through this process without believing in the bullet items I’ve gone over here.
I think that’s mostly what I had on my mind. I hope something I’ve written will help somebody to keep motivated. Two pages of text is kind of short for me, but I hope you’ll understand.
It got me thinking about how I try to cope with the ups and downs of learning this game, and just a few other perspectives I’ve found helpful along the way. Closing in on 48 years of age, I’m not quite an old-timer yet, but at the same time I’ve got enough mileage on me to have made, I think, some time-tested observations. For me, these perspectives have allowed me to have fewer fist-pounding days, and more satisfying playing sessions. In no particular order:
1. Respect the difficulty of the game. If progress came easily, then everybody would be a pro. Real pro’s have spent their youth playing this game, and quite often it is really the only thing they know. When I was studying to get into a good college, the budding pro was shooting balls. When I was away at college, he was still shooting balls. When I began a career and worked toward moving up the ladder, again, he was still shooting balls. Now I watch that guy shooting balls on TV and my subconscious says, “Hey, I’ve been playing off and on since I was a kid. I could be almost as good as that guy if I just played a little more.” It is an unrealistic standard for someone who hasn’t actually put in the thousands of hours it takes to get really good. So realize this is a very difficult game to master, and give yourself the right to do it wrong… a lot.
2. I think this is an important point: You hear people often say it’s not enough just to shoot balls. You have to work on your weaknesses and do some drills to get better. But I think there is something even beyond the recognition that drills will make you a better player. I think the real benefit of shooting a lot of balls, and doing a lot of drills is that it helps you find the correct way to play the game. Let me explain better with an example. Let’s pretend Willie Mosconi is able to possess your body – you’re still in there, but he’s doing all the pool playing using your body. If you could experience first-hand the way he delivers the cue and controls the table, you’d immediately jump years in ability. (Who knows, you might even find out once and for all if he used a slip stroke).
I’ve mentioned this before, but when I was first learning to ski out west a friend brought a camcorder and taped me coming down a hill. Before looking at the video I thought I was making it down pretty nicely. After seeing the video I was so embarrassed at how bad I looked! I made the beginner’s mistake of turning my entire body while making turns across the fall line, instead of keeping my torso straight down the hill and turning with my hips and legs instead. On my very next run I was able to experience the correct way to do it, and suddenly skiing became fun. Before watching the video I was practicing how to keep my weight forward and plant my poles and so on, but I was clueless that the entire thing was just wrong.
Beyond a certain level of ability, there are just so many subtleties to the game of billiards that ultimately nobody can observe enough to be able to teach you how to deliver a perfect stroke. We are doomed to learn through trial and error what works and what doesn’t. And guess what? The stroke that got you good enough to run 10 balls ain’t nearly good enough to get you to run 50 balls. If you tell a beginner to relax his shooting hand, that means something different to him than it does to a 100 ball runner. So, yes, practice is important so that your body gets the “muscle memory” so to speak, but I believe it is helpful to recognize the ultimate goal: all the practice is a way to help you find that perfect stroke that nobody can teach you.
3. The journey is the fun part. If you could run 1000 balls every time on command, you’d probably never pick up a cue again. When I find a weakness in my game, I really enjoy working on that weakness because when I master it, I know it will lead to higher runs. Also, when working on a particular problem I will often notice something else unexpectedly that helps my game even more. For instance, let’s say I’m working on a drill where the cue ball is coming off the bottom rail for position up table. I might shoot the same shot from both sides of the table and find that I get different results from each side. This tells me I’m seeing things differently when cutting to the left vs the right, or maybe my body is getting in the way and causing me to stroke differently. In any case, I’ve uncovered something that might even be more important than the problem I was originally trying to fix.
I’ve also learned that not everything can be fixed in one or two or ten practice sessions. We can’t all have Willie possess our body, so we have to struggle along with different arm angles and grip positions and on and on and on until we find something that really works. But, eventually you will figure it out if are patient and realize that item #2 above is at play.
Another example: Earlier this year I was typically running 30-40 balls a day, sometimes more, but I started writing down what had caused my run to end. A pattern showed up that often when I had to hit a longish shot at a small angle hard, I would miss. So I set out to see how to hit balls hard and not miss. This led to a good 6 months’ worth of fooling around with every variable you could imagine. It took me away from my game and lowered my playing ability, but eventually I found the right combination (I think), and my stroke is now better for it. I’m just at the point of really starting to try and run balls again, but I couldn’t have gotten through this process without believing in the bullet items I’ve gone over here.
I think that’s mostly what I had on my mind. I hope something I’ve written will help somebody to keep motivated. Two pages of text is kind of short for me, but I hope you’ll understand.
