Practicing via Feel Only

nataddrho · 2025-08-20T15:53:53+00:00

There is a huge amount of information available regarding systems based off of diamonds, which are absolute positional markers on the table. Sang Lee, and a few other high level players have mentioned that systems are kind of a crutch. Have any of you tried to approach practicing the game more organically? For example the things that I am focusing on are Practicing the quality of follow shots, making sure the cue is level at the maximum height or even tilted slightly upwards. This seems to help a lot with consistency, and it is a very subtle skill to develop. Practicing hitting ball fractions exactly from anywhere on the table, and recognizing that you actually did in fact hit the correct fraction. I am currently down to 1/3, 1/4, 1/5. 1/6th are quite hard but achievable. Ensuring that your tip hits the cue ball exactly where your brain intends it to, and the cue continues in a straight line, (slightly upwards if follow, level if center, down into the table if draw) Watching a tremendous number of matches to make your shot selection match that of pros Feeling kiss situations and making adjustments necessary Really working hard on your pre-shot routine so that it becomes carved in stone. For example Look at table Choose correct shot based off of knowledge Run your mental simulator over and over again until your brain gives you the ball-fraction-tip-location combination for that shot Taking care to set up and align each shot, and then execute precisely When I do all of these things, I play very well, and it gives me a lot of confidence that my mental simulator CAN solve these problems, which even surprises me sometimes of some of the shots I attempt and actually make with deliberation. The challenge is to keep the mental simulator from getting worn out and losing focus, which I suppose is the ultimate challenge of this game. I definitely do need to practice a small number diamond systems to help with mental shortcuts and saving brain power, but I am not convinced that I should be spending a huge amount of energy on numerical systems compared to functional skill development. What are your thoughts?