I have been correcting my stroke for some time, braking it all down and back up again and i read many interesting posts, articles etc, about consiousc/unconsious, small muscle memory, etc.
I made this small article, (based on info from articles from other sports, but that aply to pool as well, and changed every sport name to pool).
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The top pool players or performers in any field for that matter, think differently when everything is on the line. The great performers focus on what they are doing at the time and absolutely nothing else, they let it go and don’t think or care about the results at the moment.
It should be noted that when your mind becomes totally focused on a task, all doubt and uncertainty is pushed to the side. In short, you stop experiencing a body that is inhibited by mental or physical distractions. The mind becomes one with the job at hand.
For me, this is a very difficult exercise to develop. however, I can focus to this extent on some occasions. Most of the time I’m oblivious to any distraction, such as the phone or my wife talking to me or even being observed while I’m playing.
Here is another example which is an easy and a meaningful one for understanding the power that can be derived from totally focusing on an event and not the outcome. Consider for example what would happen if I asked you to walk across a board that was 12 inches wide, 15 feet long feet long and a foot off the ground. I’m sure you would be able to complete that task without any difficulty at all.
On the other hand, what if I extended the board between two giant skyscrapers with a drop of about 200 feet to the ground? I would be willing to bet a walk across that same board would cause considerable anxiety for most of us. I’ll bet some of you would not be able to do it. The skill level required to walk across the board is exactly the same, whether it is 12 inches or 100 feet off the ground.
The difference is the psychological response to the perceived uncertainty. Instead of totally focusing on the task, your attention is directed to the possibility of what could happen. If you were totally focused on walking across the board … if your mind became one with that task … you would not experience any fear or uncertainty. Walking the board would be, well, a “cake walk.”
Our thoughts create our reality, where we direct our focus is the direction we tend to go. The key to success is to focus the full power of our conscious mind on things that we are engaged in, not things that we fear. Actually it is a marriage of muscle memory and the ability to play by instinct by focusing on the task.
Muscle memory can best be described as a type of movement with which the muscles become familiar over time. For instance, newborns don’t have muscle memory for activities like crawling, scooting or walking. Although almost every thing we do requires a certain amount of muscle memory
Although the precise mechanism of muscle memory is unknown, what has been determined is that anyone learning a new activity, or practicing an old one has significant brain activity during this time. Muscle memory thus becomes an unconscious process. The muscles grow accustomed to certain types of movement
Your muscle memory can actually play against you if you’ve constantly been practicing something the wrong way. It’s a lot harder to teach someone who’s been playing pool for a few years because the first step is breaking them of all the bad habits they’ve acquired, which are now part of the muscle memory. Your muscle memory has to be overcome, and new neural pathways formed to be a better athlete.
Sadly, that old adage "practice makes perfect" is a lie. If it was true, we'd all be competing on the WPA, after a couple of hours on the table. The reality is that practice makes permanent. Perfect play only comes from perfect practice.
This is why every player should start with an instructor, so they practice a perfect stroke, instead of playing on there own for several years, and see an instructor when they hit a plateau (like I did...).
Its harder to overcome an old habit, then to create a new one. Learning a 10y old child how to stroke will be far easier then to learn a 20y recreational player who plays once a week, and wants to take up pool seriously how to do a perfect stroke. (Like I did 3years ago)
One of the first things pool players learn is that the stroke is way too complex an athletic motion to control consciously. That's why it often takes hours of diligent practice to make even the smallest improvement in your game. Lasting game improvement only occurs when you have locked the new motion into your ‘muscle memory’ so it becomes automatic - a conditioned response.
There are 4 laws of performance optimization:
1. Define optimal performance: it is critical to define the optimal motion you are trying to learn. If you repeat a bad stroke you will simply get more consistent at hitting it poorly. You want to develop a stroke motion that has a minimum of moving parts so it's easy to repeat consistently.
2. Consistency is critical: The more consistently you repeat any motion the stronger your 'muscle memory' will become. Most pool players struggle to make lasting game improvement because they don’t have the time to repeat the stroke exercise as much as needed. Each stroke is a new adventure for them. If you would stroke as often as you would walk or talk, it would become so automatic that it wouldn’t be interfered by distraction from outside. If someone is looking at your feet when you walk, do you walk differently? So how come you stroke differently when people are watching you?
3. Focus on Feel: When your mind is focused on stroke mechanics your ability to build muscle memory suffers. Have you ever taken a pool lesson only to find you could not repeat the improved stroke after the teacher had gone? That's because your mind has a difficult time internalizing a new stroke when it's focusing on aspects of your mechanics. Two exercises I have used, and that seem to be very helpful at braking old habits, are based on reducing the feedback you get with your eyes, so more attention can be focused on the feel.
1. The first exercise is playing with your eyes closed. You can’t see any distraction, making you feel the stroke better. You can’t see if the stroke is straight, you have to feel if there is anything weird about how your muscles and the total movement feels.
2. The second exercise is by laying your cue on the rail instead of the bridge hand, and only using one hand to stroke, but using your regular alignment and body position. Just do some practice strokes, and your body will automatically adapt your stroke so that the cue wont move to the left or right anymore. It’s a unconscious improvement, that gives you the time to focus on how the corrected position of your body parts feels.
4. Real Time Results: Practicing an athletic motion in slow motion has its benefits but to build muscle memory you need to perform the action at 'game' speed and intensity. A good example: one day I was hitting the balls so well, and I was potting every single bal. I took out the video camera, and wanted to tape a big run. Only to find out, that as soon as the tape was on, I wasn’t able to perform. My focus was on the video camera and the big run, where before the camera was on, my focus was on the task.
It does appear though, that despite practice, attitude problems can interfere with muscle memory. Nerves can lead to tightened muscles that can’t quite perform. A sense of being unable to perform as you would wish may also affect muscle memory. The processes are still complex, and the “confidence factor” needs to be taken into account when developing a logical and effective strategy to accelerate at whatever it is you want to become proficient in.
================================================
I made this small article, (based on info from articles from other sports, but that aply to pool as well, and changed every sport name to pool).
================================================
The top pool players or performers in any field for that matter, think differently when everything is on the line. The great performers focus on what they are doing at the time and absolutely nothing else, they let it go and don’t think or care about the results at the moment.
It should be noted that when your mind becomes totally focused on a task, all doubt and uncertainty is pushed to the side. In short, you stop experiencing a body that is inhibited by mental or physical distractions. The mind becomes one with the job at hand.
For me, this is a very difficult exercise to develop. however, I can focus to this extent on some occasions. Most of the time I’m oblivious to any distraction, such as the phone or my wife talking to me or even being observed while I’m playing.
Here is another example which is an easy and a meaningful one for understanding the power that can be derived from totally focusing on an event and not the outcome. Consider for example what would happen if I asked you to walk across a board that was 12 inches wide, 15 feet long feet long and a foot off the ground. I’m sure you would be able to complete that task without any difficulty at all.
On the other hand, what if I extended the board between two giant skyscrapers with a drop of about 200 feet to the ground? I would be willing to bet a walk across that same board would cause considerable anxiety for most of us. I’ll bet some of you would not be able to do it. The skill level required to walk across the board is exactly the same, whether it is 12 inches or 100 feet off the ground.
The difference is the psychological response to the perceived uncertainty. Instead of totally focusing on the task, your attention is directed to the possibility of what could happen. If you were totally focused on walking across the board … if your mind became one with that task … you would not experience any fear or uncertainty. Walking the board would be, well, a “cake walk.”
Our thoughts create our reality, where we direct our focus is the direction we tend to go. The key to success is to focus the full power of our conscious mind on things that we are engaged in, not things that we fear. Actually it is a marriage of muscle memory and the ability to play by instinct by focusing on the task.
Muscle memory can best be described as a type of movement with which the muscles become familiar over time. For instance, newborns don’t have muscle memory for activities like crawling, scooting or walking. Although almost every thing we do requires a certain amount of muscle memory
Although the precise mechanism of muscle memory is unknown, what has been determined is that anyone learning a new activity, or practicing an old one has significant brain activity during this time. Muscle memory thus becomes an unconscious process. The muscles grow accustomed to certain types of movement
Your muscle memory can actually play against you if you’ve constantly been practicing something the wrong way. It’s a lot harder to teach someone who’s been playing pool for a few years because the first step is breaking them of all the bad habits they’ve acquired, which are now part of the muscle memory. Your muscle memory has to be overcome, and new neural pathways formed to be a better athlete.
Sadly, that old adage "practice makes perfect" is a lie. If it was true, we'd all be competing on the WPA, after a couple of hours on the table. The reality is that practice makes permanent. Perfect play only comes from perfect practice.
This is why every player should start with an instructor, so they practice a perfect stroke, instead of playing on there own for several years, and see an instructor when they hit a plateau (like I did...).
Its harder to overcome an old habit, then to create a new one. Learning a 10y old child how to stroke will be far easier then to learn a 20y recreational player who plays once a week, and wants to take up pool seriously how to do a perfect stroke. (Like I did 3years ago)
One of the first things pool players learn is that the stroke is way too complex an athletic motion to control consciously. That's why it often takes hours of diligent practice to make even the smallest improvement in your game. Lasting game improvement only occurs when you have locked the new motion into your ‘muscle memory’ so it becomes automatic - a conditioned response.
There are 4 laws of performance optimization:
1. Define optimal performance: it is critical to define the optimal motion you are trying to learn. If you repeat a bad stroke you will simply get more consistent at hitting it poorly. You want to develop a stroke motion that has a minimum of moving parts so it's easy to repeat consistently.
2. Consistency is critical: The more consistently you repeat any motion the stronger your 'muscle memory' will become. Most pool players struggle to make lasting game improvement because they don’t have the time to repeat the stroke exercise as much as needed. Each stroke is a new adventure for them. If you would stroke as often as you would walk or talk, it would become so automatic that it wouldn’t be interfered by distraction from outside. If someone is looking at your feet when you walk, do you walk differently? So how come you stroke differently when people are watching you?
3. Focus on Feel: When your mind is focused on stroke mechanics your ability to build muscle memory suffers. Have you ever taken a pool lesson only to find you could not repeat the improved stroke after the teacher had gone? That's because your mind has a difficult time internalizing a new stroke when it's focusing on aspects of your mechanics. Two exercises I have used, and that seem to be very helpful at braking old habits, are based on reducing the feedback you get with your eyes, so more attention can be focused on the feel.
1. The first exercise is playing with your eyes closed. You can’t see any distraction, making you feel the stroke better. You can’t see if the stroke is straight, you have to feel if there is anything weird about how your muscles and the total movement feels.
2. The second exercise is by laying your cue on the rail instead of the bridge hand, and only using one hand to stroke, but using your regular alignment and body position. Just do some practice strokes, and your body will automatically adapt your stroke so that the cue wont move to the left or right anymore. It’s a unconscious improvement, that gives you the time to focus on how the corrected position of your body parts feels.
4. Real Time Results: Practicing an athletic motion in slow motion has its benefits but to build muscle memory you need to perform the action at 'game' speed and intensity. A good example: one day I was hitting the balls so well, and I was potting every single bal. I took out the video camera, and wanted to tape a big run. Only to find out, that as soon as the tape was on, I wasn’t able to perform. My focus was on the video camera and the big run, where before the camera was on, my focus was on the task.
It does appear though, that despite practice, attitude problems can interfere with muscle memory. Nerves can lead to tightened muscles that can’t quite perform. A sense of being unable to perform as you would wish may also affect muscle memory. The processes are still complex, and the “confidence factor” needs to be taken into account when developing a logical and effective strategy to accelerate at whatever it is you want to become proficient in.
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(me included). its easy to preach, but even harder to do what you preach 
makes me happy.
