So While I'm Getting things Off My Chest and to go along with my other recent thread (Pool Manners II) I thought that after several years of this being on my mind I'd finally address this a sort of public way, after all, we are all pool players.
So I consider myself to be an honest guy, to play fair and to always give my best effort but as we all know on any given day our best effort may really suck, and on any other given day our best effort might warrant a win in the finals of the US Open, or at least a "lights-out" performance. So there are times we all play good, or bad for whatever reason. We, as players, on some occasions will make mistakes, we miscue, or use too much or not enough english or don't see a run out pattern, we have mental breaks or make mental mistakes. There are also occasions where maybe we accidentally bump a ball or double stroke the cue ball, or god forbid - spill our beer, we make what I call a physical mistake. But has anyone else ever, while in a match, ever made an "emotional mistake?"
In the team portion of a pool event an emotional mistake can be detrimental to the entirety of the team effort. Generally I'm a pretty cool, even keeled player and rarely ever get rattled regardless of the score or situation. I can get mad like anyone else but I'm a fairly emotionless player. I smile, I might make small talk, mostly "vanilla" if you know what I mean. But this one time I just exploded. I was playing bad, I was sweating, I couldn't make a ball, I wasn't playing good defense, and worst of all, my opponent was having a good time and wasn't laughing at me but was just having a good time. Then without warning it happened, I just blew up, right there in the tournament room, the first match of our finals in the team event. This was so out of character for me that it sort of sent a shock wave through our team and we weren't the same team for that match, and for a long time afterwards.
Where as even when losing we seem to be having some fun, the rest of the match was very quiet. Not angry, just very cautious, like it was being played on egg shells. Have you ever lost a friend or relative and people just aren't sure if they should approach you and if they do they're not sure what to say? It was kinda like that, so maybe they just stare searching for some words or something to say.
Now the other team really could have ground me into dust if they wanted to, but they really didn't. It did happen once or twice where maybe they did say something, but what I had done really hadn't left us any room to react.
In the end, after we'd lost, I apologize to anyone that I could find but no one really knew what to say. Everyone was well aware that was not my normal behavior, but I felt just awful about it for a looooong time, and for that long it pretty much took all the fun out of it for me.
A couple of years later I was able to speak with some of those guys about it and they all pretty much said the same thing, "It was a long time ago, shit happens" or "we've all been there."
So my emotional mistake cost me, and us, big, for a long time. We just we weren't the same and it took me, and us as a team a long time to get back any kind of swagger.
Mental mistakes and physical mistakes, easy, you just bear down and pay attention, give your actions and process a little more thought, you don't be stupid.
So if there is such a thing as an "emotional" mistake, how do you recover from it? How do you play through it or past it so it doesn't consume you?
So I consider myself to be an honest guy, to play fair and to always give my best effort but as we all know on any given day our best effort may really suck, and on any other given day our best effort might warrant a win in the finals of the US Open, or at least a "lights-out" performance. So there are times we all play good, or bad for whatever reason. We, as players, on some occasions will make mistakes, we miscue, or use too much or not enough english or don't see a run out pattern, we have mental breaks or make mental mistakes. There are also occasions where maybe we accidentally bump a ball or double stroke the cue ball, or god forbid - spill our beer, we make what I call a physical mistake. But has anyone else ever, while in a match, ever made an "emotional mistake?"
In the team portion of a pool event an emotional mistake can be detrimental to the entirety of the team effort. Generally I'm a pretty cool, even keeled player and rarely ever get rattled regardless of the score or situation. I can get mad like anyone else but I'm a fairly emotionless player. I smile, I might make small talk, mostly "vanilla" if you know what I mean. But this one time I just exploded. I was playing bad, I was sweating, I couldn't make a ball, I wasn't playing good defense, and worst of all, my opponent was having a good time and wasn't laughing at me but was just having a good time. Then without warning it happened, I just blew up, right there in the tournament room, the first match of our finals in the team event. This was so out of character for me that it sort of sent a shock wave through our team and we weren't the same team for that match, and for a long time afterwards.
Where as even when losing we seem to be having some fun, the rest of the match was very quiet. Not angry, just very cautious, like it was being played on egg shells. Have you ever lost a friend or relative and people just aren't sure if they should approach you and if they do they're not sure what to say? It was kinda like that, so maybe they just stare searching for some words or something to say.
Now the other team really could have ground me into dust if they wanted to, but they really didn't. It did happen once or twice where maybe they did say something, but what I had done really hadn't left us any room to react.
In the end, after we'd lost, I apologize to anyone that I could find but no one really knew what to say. Everyone was well aware that was not my normal behavior, but I felt just awful about it for a looooong time, and for that long it pretty much took all the fun out of it for me.
A couple of years later I was able to speak with some of those guys about it and they all pretty much said the same thing, "It was a long time ago, shit happens" or "we've all been there."
So my emotional mistake cost me, and us, big, for a long time. We just we weren't the same and it took me, and us as a team a long time to get back any kind of swagger.
Mental mistakes and physical mistakes, easy, you just bear down and pay attention, give your actions and process a little more thought, you don't be stupid.
So if there is such a thing as an "emotional" mistake, how do you recover from it? How do you play through it or past it so it doesn't consume you?
