Shaking your head and sighing when you miss position

A

AimingVoodoo

Banned
I have noticed that an amazingly large percentage of players will do something along the lines of shaking their head when they get out of line. It could come along with a sigh, grunt, or other visible frustration. Even some professionals are guilty of doing this.

A wise piece of advice: When you get out of line, you must not allow ANY negative thoughts to enter your mind. Do not allow yourself to commit any sort of head shaking.

You must release the last shot from your memory. Simply get down and shoot the next ball. If you do not do this, your chances of making the next shot decrease as a direct result from the negativity that is creeping into your mind.

This is an extremely important topic, and will raise your playing level instantly once you learn to control it.
 
AimingVoodoo said:
I have noticed that an amazingly large percentage of players will do something along the lines of shaking their head when they get out of line. It could come along with a sigh, grunt, or other visible frustration. Even some professionals are guilty of doing this.

A wise piece of advice: When you get out of line, you must not allow ANY negative thoughts to enter your mind. Do not allow yourself to commit any sort of head shaking.

You must release the last shot from your memory. Simply get down and shoot the next ball. If you do not do this, your chances of making the next shot decrease as a direct result from the negativity that is creeping into your mind.

This is an extremely important topic, and will raise your playing level instantly once you learn to control it.
Click to expand...

Good advice, AV, but many readers won't pay it any attention. They love the drama interjected by head shaking and sighs. :D

Roger
 
I shake my head and smack the table and point to a spot a few inches from where I am even if I got purrrfekt... Always like the guy in the chair to get his hopes up..........
 
AimingVoodoo said:
This is an extremely important topic, and will raise your playing level instantly once you learn to control it.
Click to expand...

I wholeheartedly agree. Usually what I will do is, smile and walk toward my opponent in an unassuming manner. Then, just as he, assuming it's a male, is ready to shoot, I punch him in the jaw when he's not looking. This is a great stress relief and ensures that I have completely forgotten my last miss or imperfect leave.
Works like a charm every time.
 
Quite often I shake my head, sigh and then laugh at how bad I actually play.

Is this allowed?
 
I don't know, I'm not a professional player, so I can't proclaim to know what it takes to raise your game.

I think it's good to allow emotion into the game of pool. It's a competition. In a number of other professional sports I see plenty of emotion. What makes the greats great isn't that they don't shake their heads and lower their shoulders when they make a mistake, it's that they focus on the next play VERY well.

There's a reasonable amount of disappointment that is okay, and then there's beating yourself up and letting yourself implode over it. I think it's easy to see when you're going on tilt sorta speak. A little head shake or a wince on a missed position isn't what you should be focusing on, you need to focus on this next shot, the only thing that matters.
 
Koop said:
I wholeheartedly agree. Usually what I will do is, smile and walk toward my opponent in an unassuming manner. Then, just as he, assuming it's a male, is ready to shoot, I punch him in the jaw when he's not looking. This is a great stress relief and ensures that I have completely forgotten my last miss or imperfect leave.
Works like a charm every time.
Click to expand...

That only works for me if my opponent is a 10-year-old female. The guys, and the older girls, always punch back...and much harder! :angry:

Roger
 
AimingVoodoo said:
When you get out of line, you must not allow ANY negative thoughts to enter your mind. Do not allow yourself to commit any sort of head shaking.

You must release the last shot from your memory.
This is an extremely important topic, and will raise your playing level instantly once you learn to control it.
Click to expand...

This is a great tropic. I have nights that start out bad...turn into frustration and I'm done. I have a hard time getting back to relaxing and concentrating.
However I'm at stage where I simply sit down after missing. No expressions, no "I suck", no nothing. No need to make a total jackass out of myself. I'm already a halfass jackass.
 
I try to ask myself if my opponent left me this shot could I still get out. A vast majority of the time the answer is yes! No big deal ... It seems to help me move on to the next shot and clear my head.
 
AimingVoodoo said:
I have noticed that an amazingly large percentage of players will do something along the lines of shaking their head when they get out of line. It could come along with a sigh, grunt, or other visible frustration. Even some professionals are guilty of doing this.

A wise piece of advice: When you get out of line, you must not allow ANY negative thoughts to enter your mind. Do not allow yourself to commit any sort of head shaking.

You must release the last shot from your memory. Simply get down and shoot the next ball. If you do not do this, your chances of making the next shot decrease as a direct result from the negativity that is creeping into your mind.

This is an extremely important topic, and will raise your playing level instantly once you learn to control it.
Click to expand...

It's just missplaced energy, or lack of understanding of what happened, or duplication of anothers actions or, or or, or the player could be doing it to get in your pocket at a later time.
 
I have a tendency to pout when I get a little out of line. Honestly, I believe it helps me focus. It shows that I am actually aware that I am getting a little out of line.

That's just me!
 
Shake head,

"Explicative",

Slam table,

Point to intended location,

Look up at the gods in spite,

So somethin like " There you go buddy , run 'em out!!"

Break down cue,

Smoke tires out of the parking lot,

Drive back realizing I forget to pay my tab,,

Pay tab,

Realize I actually made a ball even tho I missed position,

Walk back over to table,

Grab house cue off the wall,

Run out.


I have a "Pre" shot routine too.

Its all about consistancy.
 
laserbrn said:
I don't know, I'm not a professional player, so I can't proclaim to know what it takes to raise your game.

I think it's good to allow emotion into the game of pool. It's a competition. In a number of other professional sports I see plenty of emotion. What makes the greats great isn't that they don't shake their heads and lower their shoulders when they make a mistake, it's that they focus on the next play VERY well.

There's a reasonable amount of disappointment that is okay, and then there's beating yourself up and letting yourself implode over it. I think it's easy to see when you're going on tilt sorta speak. A little head shake or a wince on a missed position isn't what you should be focusing on, you need to focus on this next shot, the only thing that matters.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%.
 
Always and never are never true, always.

Do not accept inferiority/ strive for perfection. If you want to get better, you must acknowledge an error...
 
I spoke to a friend of mine years ago in an attempt to brag about winning a tourney (he was/is better than me & I wanted a pat on the head from him I guess), so he asked "What was different, why did you win?" I thought for a moment & said "Because I just shut up & played". He told me to do that more often.

Seriously, I play my best when my mind is quiet & sort of in a melancholy state...no peaks, no valleys. Just shoot, assess the next shot/situation, repeat.
 
AimingVoodoo said:
I have noticed that an amazingly large percentage of players will do something along the lines of shaking their head when they get out of line. It could come along with a sigh, grunt, or other visible frustration. Even some professionals are guilty of doing this.

A wise piece of advice: When you get out of line, you must not allow ANY negative thoughts to enter your mind. Do not allow yourself to commit any sort of head shaking.

You must release the last shot from your memory. Simply get down and shoot the next ball. If you do not do this, your chances of making the next shot decrease as a direct result from the negativity that is creeping into your mind.

This is an extremely important topic, and will raise your playing level instantly once you learn to control it.
Click to expand...


The very worst offenders of this are 14.1 players.

Lou Figueroa
 
Originally Posted by laserbrn
I don't know, I'm not a professional player, so I can't proclaim to know what it takes to raise your game.

I think it's good to allow emotion into the game of pool. It's a competition. In a number of other professional sports I see plenty of emotion. What makes the greats great isn't that they don't shake their heads and lower their shoulders when they make a mistake, it's that they focus on the next play VERY well.

There's a reasonable amount of disappointment that is okay, and then there's beating yourself up and letting yourself implode over it. I think it's easy to see when you're going on tilt sorta speak. A little head shake or a wince on a missed position isn't what you should be focusing on, you need to focus on this next shot, the only thing that matters.

I agree 100%.


I don't, support the 100%, but that's me:

It's personal, yet I feel it's better to utilize your mistakes as your teachers, and to remember Exactly what and why it happened as your play and the tables play conditions constantly change during an event. Why waste time with all the body mannerisms? Yes your letting it out, but are you getting better at showing emotion or discust, or are you getting better at committing, missing and learning and improving with each shot? Whitey NEVER lies, and if you spend your time after a mistake figuring out WHY or showing discust, which action will help you the most in accoplishing your objective, which is to win your match and increase your skill. Efren is a perfect example of HOW one should act when a mistake has occurred, laugh/smile, and acknowlege your error and move on, Alex P. too smiles and moves on, the other mannerisms I feel, can do more harm than good, but again, to each his own, but its good to not let the monkey hang around, because that's pretty much all they do and accomplish Nothing. :)
 
Reaction..

I do not care if I am out of line. I just accept it as part of the game and look for a way to get back in line. I practice with a friend and he gets totally pissed when he gets out of line, invariably he then shoots the next ball quickly and misses. I go in and win. After several practice sessions of this I pulled him aside and explained to him that being out of line is not his problem. Everyone gets out of line on occasion but his reaction was an issue. The next time he got out of line I made him bear down and focus on his next shot, he made it and got out. He still lets his emotions get the better of him but I am working to get him to keep his emotions controlled and understand that he can still win if he accepts the challenge of his next shot, stays down and focuses.. No one is in line perfectly all the time, No One...
 
I very much agree on this subject. I've found most people who does this have a hard to progressing in their game. They get stuck at levels and cannot improve. Sure, some exceptions to the rules.. like Mika etc, but A, B and C players, it hurts their game big time.

It's funny when I see people who don't play very good get mad that they don't play as if they think they can. Most people over rate their own games and think they play better than they do. Having such high expectations will almost always lead to failure.

Its best to not be too mad when you do something bad or too happy when you do something good. Like when you make a GREAT shot, you get excited about it and end up missing the next shot that was a hanger. It happens all the time. You always hear people saying "hes a stone cold killer" or "killer instinct", well that's because they don't show the emotion. They put their head down and run right though you. "Never count your money, when you're sittin at the table".
 
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