Pros make it look easy

jaybanthony

jaybanthony

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
As I continue forward in my Journey to become a solid player the more respect I have for the PRO Pool player, guys like Mika, Earl, Johnny, Shane, Corey, Thorsten Etc. This game is not easy to master at all, at least not for me. The way I feel lately is that the closer I get the farther away I am.

I play with a gentleman who is in his mid 60's and the man is a beast! even at that age. I watch him pocket balls and move the cue ball and it just amazes me how easy he makes it look. Plays all the games great......and despite those who say you have to live in a pool hall to be great, this man worked 8 to 10 hours a day for most of his adult life, including weekends!


So how much is there to this? How much of it is just talent vs time put in? Who knows, all I know is I continue to work my butt off in hopes of someday being able to play at a high level. My struggles continue and while they are sometimes very discouraging, I keep pushing forward, refusing to give up and wanting to be as good as I possibly can.

The biggest challenges in my game right now are mainly mental, learning how to shut off the little voice inside that tries to talk to you while you are preparing for a shot. Mental discipline is an absolute must in this game if you want to play at a high level....so how do we develop it, I don't know because I can be somewhat hot headed, I'll have to ask Ralf Souquet how he does it if I ever run into him.

until then, Just have to keep on fighting through the challenge. Please feel free to comment.

Great pool and success,
Jay
http://mypooljourney.blogspot.com/
 
It's not so much "practicing" as much as it is practicing what you need to practice.

Here is an excerpt from one of my books, The Growling Point -

Practice

Practice has 5 different parts.

Part 1: Transform Weaknesses Into Strengths
Part one of practice - turning weaknesses into strengths - or working on stuff that needs to be worked on. It's practicing what you don't know. I work on the weaker parts until I feel confident that I have learned something. If I am not getting a good result, I don't continue frustrating myself. I move on to something else.

Part 2: Build Upon Your Strengths
Fine tuning my strengths so that they do not become weaknesses. I try to learn something new that will make my strengths even stronger. It doesn't take much to stagnate your game, so you really have to take inventory to understand what you need to be working on.

Part 3: Test Yourself
Test yourself or take it into battle - sparring with another player of equal or better ability. This is where you put your skills up against somebody else to see where you are at. You test yourself, challenge yourself and your skills. If you wait until league or until the next tournament to test out your survival skills, you may crash and burn right out of the gate. You have to prepare your mind and your skills to work and be reliable under pressure situations. That means that you must accurately mimic the competitive environment during your practices. This will strengthen your nerves, and prepare your mind for competition.

Part 4: Evaluate Your Results
Evaluate the results you are getting during practice. If something is not working - or a certain technique is not effective, find out why and make the necessary adjustments. You should do the same at tournaments or league - Don't be that guy that loses a match at a tournament or league, shrugs his shoulders and then just plants himself at the bar telling war stories to a beer bottle. That guy is in that chair every week because that is what he has prepared himself for. Prepare yourself to improve and learn no matter what the results are. When you are constantly in the learning process, you become keenly aware that there is no such thing as losing no matter what happens - good or bad.

Part 5: Plan your next practice session immediately
You should plan for tomorrow when today's results are still fresh in your mind. Being prepared for everything is half the battle. Keep a notebook, journal, or log or what is going well, and what is NOT going well. This will show you what you need to work on - where you are growing, and where you are falling behind. This will also assist you in mapping out short term, long term and mid-term goals. You will be able to map your progress and improvement effectively, and you will KNOW YOUR GAME INSIDE AND OUT.

This is from another Chapter of the book...

I was a pool player. It was all I thought about. It was all that I did. It was all that I wanted to do. I was consumed and focused on taking myself as far as I could go with it. I finally hit a point where I lived, eat, breathed, and shit pool 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

I would practice by myself for up to 8-12 hours a day sometimes. I'd shoot balls all day taking maybe one break to go to bathroom. Other than that, I kept my eyes fixed on what was going on within the six rails of the table I was shooting on. I had no time for small talk. I had no time to break my concentration and watch what was happening at the other tables. Frankly, I could have cared less. They weren't on my boat. They were not headed towards my destination. If they got in the way, I would mow them down. Nothing personal. At the table, I held myself to a much higher standard than everybody else.

That was my attitude.

I wasn't a jerk about it, but it didn't take people long to notice that at the table I was all business and no bullshit.

People would look at me as if I was crazy. One day as I was leaving after an 8 hour marathon of practice, some guy sitting at the bar asked me, "Don't you ever get bored or tired?"

"Yes." I replied. "but I don't want to be the victim of the guy that is doing this more than I am, so I just keep shooting."

"Who the hell does this more than you?" He asked.

"Nobody, I hope."

That is how I had to approach my practices mentally and physically. I couldn't afford to be part of the boys or the "in crowd". I had to set my standards of acceptability and my work ethic to a level that was far above "everybody else". I didn't want to be "everybody else", so I found a way to avoid that trap like it was a pit of rattlesnakes. END

There was nothing easy about any of that.
:wink:
 
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Practice

Deadstroke: I enjoyed your replyto the above post. After a few years of playing league 8 and 9 ball (APA) I woke up one day and decided I did not want to do that any more. I got tired of the drunks, the noise, people rolling around the floor and rules that were rarely enforced. Also got tired of playing on unmaintained tables.

I found a pool hall not too far from my house (clean and run like a tight ship) and decided to play straight pool. I was lucky to hook up with a straight pool play half my age (I'm 81) who was looking to play with a serious player. My shot making is holding up fairly well on a larger table that I have to get use to. I find my biggest problem is strategy, and your reply was right on the mark as far as learning new ideas.

Old dog learning new tricks. :cool::cool:
The pup I'm playing with is very generous with advice.
 
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