Quality vs quantity
- Thread starter shag_fu
- Start date
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
If I successfully address whatever I went into that session and gain some insight into that particular shot/situation/cue delivery, then I deem that a quality session.
It really comes down to what you are working on. But work on something. It is rare to luck into fixes to common issues by just playing racks out. It does happen, but just rolling balls out and popping them in is pretty low quality practice imo. Okay for a warmup or maintenance but not improvement.
I think a lot of it is whether you are actually paying attention to what you are doing. Do you try to analyze what went wrong? Are you working on weaknesses or "just rolling balls out and popping them in"?
I also recommend "progressive" drills that keep track of your progress for you - keeps you reaching for the next incremental improvement.
pj
chgo
And with a little practice a player can construct their own "progressive practice" drills that cover their particular pocketing/position/safety problems.
lately I've been finding some combo of the above to be enjoyable, and I think helpful
a few months ago, I started playing ghost with throwing balls out and running them
I could get through three and four pretty easily, then on five I'd run them about half the time
for a few weeks maybe a month now, I haven't been keeping track- just haven't felt like it
not great to gauge progress, I know, but I have been gauging progress in other ways
establishing a plan beforehand and focusing more on each shot has helped a lot
it's taken me years to get to this point, but I'm using more of the cb than I ever have
I'm considering different ball paths, I'm seeing what balls are going to do before I hit them
I seem to have more margin in my game- I'm still missing my spots, but not by as much
just the past few nights I've been stringing 6s 7s and 8s, playing loose, but with intent
not to say I don't still have issues- I do
but even those I'm getting better at identifyinganyway- if I were doing more focused drills, I might have picked this stuff up sooner
and I have done plenty of drills over time. but I'm of the mind that as bob suggests above
if one shows they care about what they're doing, stuff adds up.
ps, quality vs quantity, one thing I think has been working for me is actually playing less..
I would typically play 1-1.5hr.- lately I'm playing 45min.-1hr. now and getting more out of it
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I think that in order for there to be quality practice time spent, you have to go into the practice session with a question in mind. Going about trying to answer the question is quality time, even if you don't find the answer during that session. Finding out what isn't the answer is just as important.
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
The progressive ghost runouts are one of my fav practice formats. It def can be done wrong, but paying attention to detail and planning things out carefully like you have been makes it quality practice. Would def take 45min of that over 90min of autopilot runs.lately I've been finding some combo of the above to be enjoyable, and I think helpful
a few months ago, I started playing ghost with throwing balls out and running them
I could get through three and four pretty easily, then on five I'd run them about half the time
for a few weeks maybe a month now, I haven't been keeping track- just haven't felt like it
not great to gauge progress, I know, but I have been gauging progress in other ways
establishing a plan beforehand and focusing more on each shot has helped a lot
it's taken me years to get to this point, but I'm using more of the cb than I ever have
I'm considering different ball paths, I'm seeing what balls are going to do before I hit them
I seem to have more margin in my game- I'm still missing my spots, but not by as much
just the past few nights I've been stringing 6s 7s and 8s, playing loose, but with intent
not to say I don't still have issues- I do
anyway- if I were doing more focused drills, I might have picked this stuff up sooner
and I have done plenty of drills over time. but I'm of the mind that as bob suggests above
if one shows they care about what they're doing, stuff adds up.
ps, quality vs quantity, one thing I think has been working for me is actually playing less..
I would typically play 1-1.5hr.- lately I'm playing 45min.-1hr. now and getting more out of it
These runout racks are very useful for bringing attention to weak spots which u can address in a more bunched rep drillish manner between ghost sets. The combo of runs and focused reps on shots that end runs is the most common practice session for me. Fun and useful.