Quiet Eye Theory

Thanks for sharing the very interesting information and your experiences. I now realize that my loosing focus is somewhere between the pause and the cue striking the cue ball. I still do not know exactly where that is but this is what helps me keep the focus until the cue ball is hit.

I focus on the cue ball before my final swing. My pause is a total stop for at least half second at the end of the back swing. By slowing the final forward stroke acceleration, my focus is maintained. The habit of rapid (jerky) initial acceleration seems to be where focus is lost. I think the focus goes to the left making the cue ball go left and the object then goes right.

I will concentrate with slow acceleration to confirm success. Thanks all.
 
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You can focus on keeping your elbow still, not dropping you shoulder , slowing acceleration on final stroke … etc .. etc .. etc .. during practice! I hope to God you’re not concentrating on all those things during a match. During your PSR you should have taken a few practice strokes, determined tip position and speed you need to get the CB where you need to be next.
At Set or Pause or somewhere in between you should be totally focused on the CP, if you use this system. You accelerate to Finish slowly or with more speed determined by where whitey goes next, but you accelerate through the CB like it’s not there. If after years of practice you still need to look at the CB to make sure you hit it right then you need to return to your fundamentals. If your stroke is true there’s no reason to look at it anymore after Set, unless you’re a CB last player
 
Somewhat related. I had cataract surgery, both eyes, multifocal lenses, in October 2022. So it's been a while. Of course there was a tremendous improvement in my vision, both near and far. I have noticed though, and it took me a while to figure it out, that it takes longer for my eyes to bring the object ball into sharp focus on longer shots. So aiming takes longer as my eyes move from cue ball to object ball. Sometimes this is literally a pain in the neck as it seems I have to stay down for an extended period of time.

Has anyone else experienced this?
 
Tennesseejoe said:
I focus on the cue ball before my final swing. My pause is a total stop for at least half second at the end of the back swing. By slowing the final forward stroke acceleration, my focus is maintained. The habit of rapid (jerky) initial acceleration seems to be where focus is lost. I think the focus goes to the left making the cue ball go left and the object then goes right.

I will concentrate with slow acceleration to confirm success. Thanks all.
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Exactly this for me as well. I can tell when this happens. If I accelerate too quickly, my head must move ever so slightly and that spot on the OB becomes blurry for that fraction of a second. When I focus on a slow start to the forward stroke this never happens. It's frustrating that I cannot seem to make this step permanent. I have to miss a ball to remember to reapply that step in the stroke. My PSR needs work.
 
Bad thing about tremors is, there's always something in front of you waving around
to spoil that 'quiet eye'. It's possible to overcome, but not all that easy....

td
 
tim913 said:
You can focus on keeping your elbow still, not dropping you shoulder , slowing acceleration on final stroke … etc .. etc .. etc .. during practice! I hope to God you’re not concentrating on all those things during a match. During your PSR you should have taken a few practice strokes, determined tip position and speed you need to get the CB where you need to be next.
At Set or Pause or somewhere in between you should be totally focused on the CP, if you use this system. You accelerate to Finish slowly or with more speed determined by where whitey goes next, but you accelerate through the CB like it’s not there. If after years of practice you still need to look at the CB to make sure you hit it right then you need to return to your fundamentals. If your stroke is true there’s no reason to look at it anymore after Set, unless you’re a CB last player
Click to expand...
Your psr hast to be hammered in during practice to the point its AUTOMATIC in comp. You can NOT think about this stuff when playing.
 
Stew boo said:
I pick an object about 7-10 feet away and see how long I can stare at it without my eyes reverting to something else. I'd recommend starting with 1 minute. The trick is to try and relax while you're doing it. And yes, you are allowed to blink, you just can't move your line of sight from that specific target.
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I used to do the same thing, and would specifically focus on elements of license plates as I was driving to the pool hall to practice.

I have a theory about this.

From an evolutionary perspective, what we call "dead stroke", and other sports/games have various different names for, is a state of utter focus, where all extraneous data is ignored, and all important data is prioritized. Reflexes are heighetned. Muscle movement is extremely refined and accurate. You are extremely aware of all "important" inputs coming in. I believe this to be an evolutionary adaptation that helped our hunter-gatherer ancestors operate at ultimate efficiency, under certain conditions.

The longer it has been since a successful hunt, and the hungrier you are.. The more likely you are to be EXTREMELY focused, when you are both actively seeking prey, and when you find the prey. The brain interprets this as "I am hyperfocusing for a long period of time... Whatever I am doing, seems to be super important to my survival. Time to trigger all the brain/body mechanisms that will help me with whatever I am focusing on..."

As such... Doing the type of targeted focus exercises you do, is "training" the brain to go into dead stroke. It's not just an exercise to improve eye muscle endurance (though it does that too..).

What is interesting about this is.. Some form of "dead stroke" exists in almost every human pursuit that requires fine muscle control, or heightened brain function. I achieved it in poker, and it became a lot easier to read people's probable card ranges, because I paid close attention to EVERY hand, and what each player did, in what position, how much they bet based on likely card range, etc. It felt exactly like pool dead stroke. Reading players got to be super easy when they didn't properly randomize their betting/playing patterns. My wife was super entertained when I would accurately call an opponent's hand, and then manipulate the betting pattern to induce them to go all in when they were dead money.

Now, that being said.. My only experience with this type of heightened performance has been exclusively in games that required a heavy "eye-brain" cooperation... Pool and Poker. But I expect that it also applies in games/sports with less of a visual aspect (Rubik's Cube, for example). Rubik's Cubers doing speedcubing require ultra precise muscle control and brain participation, but the visual aspect in the moment is not as necessary, as the brain basically knows all motions in order to get from current state to 'solved". The visual aspect is simply not as important, and their speed is not greatly affected when blindfolded.
 
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