Gregg said:
Scott Lee's school (same as Randy G's) focused on the PEP (Personal Eye Patterns). I thought this was one of the best aspects of the school, and found myself going from "Not paying attention" to my eye patterns to "Having a preset routine for my eye patterns". This may differ from shooter to shooter, and does have slight variations, focusing on the cue ball and the object ball.
Take the class, and you will find your own.
i live in belgium , and there isn't any class i can take...
My only class and improvements come from AZB and good reads on the internet... if scott wouldn't mind giving me some info on the PEP, and how i can find mine myself, or if he would contribute to this thread i'd very happy .
PS: i tried last night to play , and only alowed my eyes to look at 3 points: cb; ob, pocket. i wasn't looking all over the place when walking around the table and i used a longer quiet eye technique. (really, you would be surprised how much things your eyes see before a shot)
conclusion: even though i didn't play long enough to really measure how big the difference is, this is what I noticed in the short time i tried it:
main advantage: - I shortened my time to get instroke and most of all to really focus. Usually the first 30min of losening up my arm are 4/10 on the concentration scale. Now i was 8/10 on the first pot. If this is true, then i'll finaly be able to remove a problem i had in tournaments: aka it takes me 5 racks before i'm really concentrated for each and every match, no matter of there is only 1minut in between them and by then its often to late. I really have a concentration problem, because i'm always checking out the cute barrgirl , or a shot at another table or what cue someone is using, or the stroke of someone, or the drink on my table, or the keys someone might be hijacking, or the heightdiffernce of the tables, etc etc etc....
I have some kind of concentration disorder.
potting: I didn't see much improvement in the potting % overal, as I only had time to play for an hour and I already have a pritty good potting % so that 1 or 2 misses more or less can't be linked to the technique, but i was potting them more in the centre of the pocket.
zone: I felt a concentration buzz so soon, that i got into the zone after my 3th rack. I'm not sayint it WILL always put you in the zone, but it surely will help. I felt i was on the right path to getting in stroke very quick since the first straight in longpot.
I have been thinking about it, and its similar to what happens when you go to sleep. When you can't sleep and you have your eyes closed, you look at the black image, and wonder around with your eyes. (does it make sence when i say that you are looking with your eyes closed?). When you have the black image in front of you, but you don't "look" at it, like shutting of the link between your eyes and the brain, thats when you will fall asleep. Your eyes dont move, less information even if you are just staring at a black image. I think that reducing the amount of things you see, will give you brain less useless information, Its exactly like a computer:
At home, low stress facture, your CPU and RAM memory work at 100%. Even if you look around wich gives your brain 100% information, you have enough power to process it all.
When in tournaments or moneygames, the external stress and internal stress (ID) will reduce your power to process things. So your power to process things will only be 50%, but if you keep looking at many things, the load will still be 100% and thats when you choke. IF you only look at CB, OB, Pocket, you reduce the load so that the processingpower is enough to run the job smoothly.
I have a National Ranking tournament saterday: i will use this in tournament where there is alot of presure and alot more distractions then at home, and i will let you know how it went.
I just KNOW that starting from B/A level players, if you want to get better (besides practise) its not your technique but your emotions/confidence/attitude/eyes that need to be finetune and i think for myself its the path to go to improve my game. It all just makes so much sence.