Practice time - drills vs running balls

[slach]

I tend to spend 80% or so of my practice time doing various shooting drills and reward myself with a little play time running balls. I enjoy both but was thinking I may be over doing the drills. What percentage do you think is a good mix so you can play your best? Overall I spend about 20 hours a week practicing and 8 hours playing matches (about half the match time is spent sitting). I play at the run a whole rack is cause for celebration level.
Thanks, Steve

 

[Cameron Smith]

I tend to spend 80% or so of my practice time doing various shooting drills and reward myself with a little play time running balls. I enjoy both but was thinking I may be over doing the drills. What percentage do you think is a good mix so you can play your best? Overall I spend about 20 hours a week practicing and 8 hours playing matches (about half the match time is spent sitting). I play at the run a whole rack is cause for celebration level.
Thanks, Steve

I'm of the belief that practicing drills makes you good at drills. They're certainly useful to teach you various skills, but you need to spend time practicing applying them to a real game. Furthermore, it's best for it to be in solo practice rather than in a match. In solo practice you can try again and again, where as in a match it may only come up once.

I don't really do many drills, just long straight in shots at the beginning of each session and if I'm playing snooker I'll practice the black off the spot. Other than that I'll warm up with some break shots so that I don't miss anything silly.

In a 2 hour practice session, I'd say about 30 minutes of it is warm up/drills. The rest is practicing game scenarios, any mistakes I made in a previous match. If I miss position I'll set the shot up again. I also usually have an element of my fundamentals I want to tweak or improve, right now it's my grip hand position and eye patterns.

 

[Ratta]

You need to both!
For sure straight-pool is in my opinion by far the best practice game- you need the highest grade of concentration like in no other game-so you learn also to keep focus all the time. Furthermore in straight-pool you need the whole arsenal of shots, techniques and cueball control.

On the other side in my opinion you have to work on your technical abilities and weaknesses permanently.
It s just to find the right *dosage* of practicing/playing/tournament.
And also each human is individual-so you the amount of practice is also different for everyone.

lg
Ingo

 

[Dan White]

I'm no instructor, but...

I'd say the newer you are at the game, the more you should be doing drills. Work on a problem area until you think you've got it, then break open some balls and recreate the situation like you are running balls. Move the cue ball with your hand if you have to. Sometimes you get good at something when you do it 100 times in a row, but then you have to see if you've still got that skill when it comes up "out of the blue."

Mostly, I think you will improve most when you are enjoying what you are doing. If you like drills more than just running balls, then do drills. Just make sure you are working on your biggest weaknesses first.