Possible breakthrough in my shot making...

[JimS]

Like every moderately skilled player I often agonize over shot making, or aiming, and have never been able to figure out what the hell I'm doing when I'm "on" and what happens to cause me to "lose it".

This morning I lost it and I tried everything I could think of, every aiming technique I"ve learned, to try to get "it" back, but nothing worked.

I like to get real low when I shoot and I"ve noticed before that sometimes I get so far down on the shot that I tilt my head... sometimes a pretty severe tilt... up to 45 degrees. This morning, while down on a shot, and taking my practice strokes, I noticed that the top line of my glasses was tilted at about a 30 degree angle, which it often is, and which I pay little or no attention to, but when I straightened it out I made the difficult cut I'd been working on for about 10 or 15 shots in a row, and hadn't been able to make. About time I thought and then I made it again, and again and this is a shot I'm not "supposed" to make time after time.

I concentrated on keeping my head level on the next 15 or so table length cut shots, some of which I'm probably supposed to make on the first try but others that I'd say I'm probably not necessairly supposed to make on the first try, if at all, and I made everything I looked at.

Maybe I've stumbled on something that was a big factor in my "losing it".

Time will tell.... but I thought I'd pass it along as perhaps being something of significance to somebody else.

(I've found these holy grail types of things before only to realize on my next outing that my feet are definitely still mired in mud. So I'm not ready for stardom just yet ... but based on preliminary findings I'm excited. Hope is what practice is all about. )

 

[plshrk22]

Have you read the book, "The Inner Game of Tennis"? If you have not, you really should. You are describing what he talks about when you focus on something else besides the object ball or your main objective. He always advises his students to look at the details of the ball and focus on that, NOT how you are going to swing or were you want the ball to go. You are thinking about how your head is tilted apposed to thinking about were or how you are going to make this next shot. You are letting your body do what it already knows and has learned, muscle memory.

All that aside. GOOD WORK!

 

[mosconiac]

I was thinking the same thing, plshrk22. Sure the realignment of his head would have helped a great deal in the aiming aspect, but focusing on the task of realignment probably releaved his mind of the tedious details of delivering the cue to the CB.

 

[td873]

Like every moderately skilled player I often agonize over shot making, or aiming, and have never been able to figure out what the hell I'm doing when I'm "on" and what happens to cause me to "lose it".

Everyone will always have inconsistencies in your game from day to day. There is nothing you can do about that.

With respect to your particular topic, the key thing to actually recognize is what your worst game is (i.e., when you lose it). Is it can't make a ball at all? Is it can't make 3 balls? Is it can't run a rack? Or maybe can't run 20 balls in straight. We'll call this your "B" game (i.e., how you shoot when you're not on). A lot of average players have "off" nights where they can't run 5 balls. However, as you progress, your might be off if you can't string 2 racks together. It's all relative.

Your goal (at this level) should be to raise your "B" game. This will do two important things: (1) raise your minimum level of play, and (2) raise your average level of game play. If you are having trouble consistently pocketing balls, you can look forward to a series of leaps in improvement - since when you get consistency here, your B game will jump; and THEN you'll jump again when you incorporate that into your position game.

Lastly, remember that winning at pool often requires grinding out matches with your B game, rather than running over people with your A game. Just the way it works...

-td