Playing better when your tired?

center pocket

It's just a hobby, but a fun one.
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Jay Helfert posted this in another forum when giving Robley some advice.

Just remember this one piece of advice. Quiet your body when you get down to shoot. Be still and yet relaxed, with only your arm and eyeballs moving. Nothing moving but the correct parts. That's all for now. Play a lot of pool. You can't get too much practice. In fact when you practice until you get tired is when you will make the most improvements in your game. When you're tired, your body and mind finds ways to operate more efficiently. That equates to a better shooting technique. When you're are tired, you will unconsciously make minute adjustments to some part of your game (i.e. stance, stroke, bridge, aiming etc.), and often this very small adjustment will make you a little better player than you were before.


This got me thinking. When I was gambling alot and playing till 3am, I would get in this limbo kinda state and just start playing jam up. Usually I would start playing at like 7pm and at around 11 or midnight something funny would happen. I would start getting physically tired but I would drink coffee like its water and mentally I would be wide awake. It was a weird feeling but then I would start to play jam up, like 2 balls better than I was. Many a times I would be in a tough match when this gear would kick in and I would take down the cheese. Granted this didnt happen all the time, but i did happen enough to wear I could expect it.

So Jay if your reading this, is this what your talking about in your original post? Also any of you readers ever experienced what Jay or I are talking about?
 
smoothing out

I often think that the best way to play pool is with minimum effort and minimum ball movement. This is the style of play that I, and I think most people, naturally drift into when you are really tired, been up 24 hours tired.

One catch is that you can also develop bad habits taking shortcuts when you are tired. However most people that have played for a lot of hours have experienced this "smoothing out" I suspect. When I was very tired or had too much to drink I played a much different smoother style.

There is a school of thought concerning learning that we learn best when we are a little tired. This does seem to have merit too. I also fairly casually make shots when I am tired that I have trouble figuring out how to make when I am fresh. Many things long forgotten on a conscious level are still lurking somewhere when I just let things happen.

Hu





Jay Helfert posted this in another forum when giving Robley some advice.

Just remember this one piece of advice. Quiet your body when you get down to shoot. Be still and yet relaxed, with only your arm and eyeballs moving. Nothing moving but the correct parts. That's all for now. Play a lot of pool. You can't get too much practice. In fact when you practice until you get tired is when you will make the most improvements in your game. When you're tired, your body and mind finds ways to operate more efficiently. That equates to a better shooting technique. When you're are tired, you will unconsciously make minute adjustments to some part of your game (i.e. stance, stroke, bridge, aiming etc.), and often this very small adjustment will make you a little better player than you were before.


This got me thinking. When I was gambling alot and playing till 3am, I would get in this limbo kinda state and just start playing jam up. Usually I would start playing at like 7pm and at around 11 or midnight something funny would happen. I would start getting physically tired but I would drink coffee like its water and mentally I would be wide awake. It was a weird feeling but then I would start to play jam up, like 2 balls better than I was. Many a times I would be in a tough match when this gear would kick in and I would take down the cheese. Granted this didnt happen all the time, but i did happen enough to wear I could expect it.

So Jay if your reading this, is this what your talking about in your original post? Also any of you readers ever experienced what Jay or I are talking about?
 
I think there's a big difference between playing until you get tired and playing when you haven't had enough sleep the night before.

In the first case your body and mind adapts but in the second case when you haven't had enough sleep the night before you run into problems with the ability to maintain focus.
 
No Can When Tired

Maybe folks that have been playing awhile and have a developed stroke may play better when tired. Muscle memory and instincts tend to kick in as you are pass the "over thinking" stage. But for a newbie like me, who needs to concentrate to just get lined up right, we get worse as we get tired.
 
100% correct. You nailed it....................

I think there's a big difference between playing until you get tired and playing when you haven't had enough sleep the night before.

In the first case your body and mind adapts but in the second case when you haven't had enough sleep the night before you run into problems with the ability to maintain focus.

Tired and exausted are 2 different things. If you don't get enough sleep you get exausted real fast and that spells disaster for any pool player.

Great Post Geno................
 
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