How often/long do you shoot practice drills..?
Practice Drills...
- Thread starter ArkansasKingpin
- Start date
Until you can't do them wrong.
Surely it depends on the drill...
15 mins shooting stop shots is more than enough... however, 15 mins doing the wagon wheel is not long enough to figure it out, and do it more than once, correctly, if at all.
I try to do around a 30 min session and include both practice drills and playing racks just to keep the interest up. I will then take a short break, come back for another 30 minute session of drills, racks and then spend the last 10 mins of this session practicing my safety's.
I usually try to get 30 - 45 minutes in at least 3 times a week. I practice almost exclusively using 99 Critical Shots of Pool. But, I have a few other drills I run. I don't like to practice too many drills because honestly, I will get bored with it and my concentration will lag.
Greg
Greg
Surely it depends upon your Brain.....SPF=randyg
Joel, I have been great. School is busy. Right now I'm packing for a Road Trip. Ending up in Fargo, Nd. at Mike Page's beautiful room.
What do you have up your sleeve????
randyg
haha love instructors! If you only need 15 minutes to practice why charge for hours of instruction?
I can practice for hours and not get bored. Practice until you are no longer trying to improve or learn something! Practice can include playing the ghost, breaking, stroke, potting etc. do that in 15 min... If you can, I have a 7 min abs video for you, only $77.
I can practice for hours and not get bored. Practice until you are no longer trying to improve or learn something! Practice can include playing the ghost, breaking, stroke, potting etc. do that in 15 min... If you can, I have a 7 min abs video for you, only $77.
Ha! I know that during practice sessions when I'm really trying to learn something new, I will focus on one or two specific items. The brain doesn't really deal with a LOT of new information coming in too quickly very well; but when I go out for a hardcore practice session, it's about 4 hours - in 20-30 min chunks for each thing I want to work on. Then I take a 15 minute break, to let that info sink in, then choose a new skill to practice.
Other times, I just want to practice "in general" so I will do layouts or position drills over and over until I feel like I really "own" those shots/layouts. The "L" drill and "9 Down the Line", for example.
I will occasionally play the ghost, but I generally do it warming up - start small to get in stroke, 4-ball ghost, then 5-ball ghost, then 6-ball ghost, etc... keep adding another ball when I win a race to 5. During that time, I will usually find the shots that give me trouble - and I note them for my next "learn this shot" session.
You sound like a good practice partner. I do about the same in my practice. I usually like to end my night with a race to 30 against the ghost (when I hardcore practice).
wagon wheel drill
Thank you for mentioning this great drill. It is my favorite. But I have forgotten the proper placement of the balls. I sort of ball-park it now. Do you know the proper framework for the drill?
Thank you for mentioning this great drill. It is my favorite. But I have forgotten the proper placement of the balls. I sort of ball-park it now. Do you know the proper framework for the drill?
Well, I'm still learning so much about the game, that I really gotta practice a lot of things. I've tried just playing with friends, even with a pressure, but I just don't get the kind of results from playing with people for a week that I can get after one night of pure and focused practice, alone and uninterrupted.
Unfortunately, almost no one I know feels the same way, or likes to practice the way I do. Which is probably fine - although I hate that I spend more time setting up balls then I do shooting them. lol
A race to 30?!? wow... I haven't tried anything near that long. About 6 months back, when I thought I was shooting pretty good, I did a race ... until I got tired of it. I quickly found out that I was not, as I had thought, consistently getting out. I decided to end the torture down 2 to 16. LOL I haven't tried a long race with the 9B ghost since then.
A target ball goes on each diamond starting at the side pocket and goes all around the table until the opposite side pocket. As for the initial object ball and cue ball I don't know for 100% sure. Some layouts give you BIH, and other don't. There's at least 2 great videos on youtube (that I can't get to right now) that show it. Look up FastMikie and ForceFollow - each of those guys have the Wagon Wheel drill. Also, Liz Ford's blog has a Wagon Wheel drill layout, but she uses variations of follow instead of draw (as the other two used). You can get that layout from her blog: http://sticksandballsandholes.blogspot.com/
You spend the hours learning how to make the most of that 15 minutes of perfect practice.
Knowing how to practice is what makes it possible to maximize your practice time.
Steve
Maybe we need to clarify what practice is. For me, it is spending time working on the physical act of shooting....what I do with my body when I shoot.
After practice, I may spend some time applying those things to ball movement and shot making.
So practice to me is training myself how to move...the rest is just fun, and using those skills to get better at the game.
Steve
After practice, I may spend some time applying those things to ball movement and shot making.
So practice to me is training myself how to move...the rest is just fun, and using those skills to get better at the game.
Steve
I believe your definition of "practice" may be different from RandyG's 15 min of "practice". I don't think you're talking about the same thing but you are using the same word to describe both processes.
Thank you for bringing that up. The physical movement is basis for the practice myself and a few others are talking about... but I doubt most people would call shooting the same shot until you make it 10 or 20 times in a row "fun"... that's real work. Maybe it shouldn't be called practice, and should instead be called work?
In the end, I'm guessing that most of us are all doing the same (or just about) things; but we're giving different labels to different activities.