System .v.s. Experience
- Thread starter The_JV
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Sorry. Ongoing disputes have a way of making their way into every thread.
i am not sure what you mean dan
I snipped the rest because the focus was meant to be on aiming.
Anyone can be taught to grab a circle template from a box, center it on a piece of paper and draw a perfect circle. It takes patience and skill to learn how to do it free hand. However when you ask those people to draw a circle smaller than the template is made for. Who would you bet your money on to complete the task with the best accuracy...?
Yes systems will speed up the low hanging results. I don't think that they arm the users with the adaptivity that's separates the good from the better.
No worries Dan.... I was just hoping not to have this particular thread to meet the fate of all the others...lol
Let's say your brain is a great concert hall, and your experience (which is stored in the subconscious as memories, feelings, senses, emotions, habits, developed skills, etc...) is an orchestra comprised of many musicians playing many different instruments. Your conscious mind is the conductor.
During normal performances the conductor does a good job, but makes a few mistakes here and there, maybe points or cues the percussion in too early, and the timpani player or cymbal player freaks out because he or she knows they aren't supposed to be coming in yet. Or sometimes a musician or two just doesn't play well for whatever reason, and they make little mistakes that bring threatening glares from the conductor. But overall the performance goes well and the mishaps typically go unnoticed by the audience.
A poor performance is the result of too many mishaps. Either the conductor's thoughts are somewhere else and he's doing a horrible job, constantly cueing in the wrong instruments at the wrong times, or eratically changing the tempo and expecting the musicians to follow his lead instead of going with the natural flow of the music. Or maybe too many musicians are performing below standard because they were up partying all night. Whatever it is, it's obvious to almost every audience member that something is way off.
When the conductor is performing his best, when his cues are spot on and he's not being too controlling with the tempo, and every musician is performing at top level, the overall performance is astounding. And the audience knows they are in the presence of perfection, a perfect performance. This is being in the zone.
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Nice analogy of the relationship between the concious and subconcious mind, and decent amount of words used, but how does that address the question you quoted...?...lol. I'm assuming there was a point that I'm failing to grasp
lol. Good one! Good luck with that!
It simply means if there is a bandwagon to jump on that will take you to a pot of money then starving professionals might want to jump on without thinking too hard. If someone wants to learn CTE it is good to be an instructor certified in CTE.
I don't mean to say everyone has ulterior motives, however. Stan is an excellent instructor and I think many assume there must be something to what he is saying so they go along with it. I doubt many or any pro player will actually adopt this method after they have already gained pro level status.
But they do. Using a system, and becoming proficient with the system, involves the same process of mindful experience that allows the player to understand how to tweak or adjust when needed. The mind, with its plasticity, learns to adapt and modify, regardless of whether or not the player uses a system.
Thanks. I forgot to answer the question!
"what happens to system users if and when they reach the 'zone'...?"
The answer is: The same thing that happens to non-system users when they reach or enter the zone. It's simply a perfect unification of body and mind, a perfect dance or balancing act between the conscious and subconscious processes. And it doesn't matter how those processes were developed (system or no system).
Oh please. I answered your question DIRECTLY as you asked it.
You don't need to rely on feel to do the aiming. Yes when you're aware of conditions being less than "perfect" then you adapt as needed. For example I was not really tuned into the importance of chalk on the cueball affecting shots in general. Yes, like a lot of players my age I know about the spit trick on frozen balls and vaguely something about using chalk to mess up a shot. But until Dr. Dave did the video on skids and chalk effects I never thought about wiping the cue ball off frequently. In other words there is a lot of information out there now that players can get on how to gauge conditions and how to adjust for them.
As this part of the forum is about aiming I just wanted to say that as far as good aiming systems go the feel part in getting to the shot line is largely, practically, gone and the shooter can then focus more intently on the feel needed to execute the shot.
Feel is a misused term, imho.
Feel is confused with doing a task over and over enough to allow the subconscious, if you will, to do it automatically, that is by "feel."
It isn't feel, it is over-learning to the point of just "feeling" it and doing it. But feelings aren't the things making the shot.
To be consistent and successful, this "feel" has to have been preceded by hard work in order to over-learn the task. bummer.
Jeff Livingston
Feel is confused with doing a task over and over enough to allow the subconscious, if you will, to do it automatically, that is by "feel."
It isn't feel, it is over-learning to the point of just "feeling" it and doing it. But feelings aren't the things making the shot.
To be consistent and successful, this "feel" has to have been preceded by hard work in order to over-learn the task. bummer.
Jeff Livingston
Ah maybe you should pay attention to what you're quoting. My reply to Bob that you quoted was a full day prior to your first post in this thread. Yes things changed as the clock spun forward. Did you need a good boy cookie because the day before I thank Bob for his input...?
Normally I'm very thankful to positive input. However after your DIRECT reply to the original question you subsequently crapped on the thread with your typical song/dance.
That said, I thank you for the original DIRECT reply to the original question.
Again, I think you may not be answering, at least what I meant to ask...lol
In my personal example I spoke of how I phyically blur over my PSR and the micro adjustments in aim when I'm in "the zone". Otherwise my PSR is very deliberate and those micro adjustments are made conciously. To clarify... My PSR for example has me placing my back foot on the shot line, my lead foot shoulder width apart.., etc (see traditional snooker). While in the 'zone' I don't bother with correct placement. I may bend both knees, etc...
In the case of CTE, I believe once you find the ship in the background of the picture, you point your nose one way, shift another, do the hookie pookie, and enjoy the glory. If a CTE player enters the 'zone', will they still follow all the steps, or just cut to the chase like I do...?
If they do blur over the process, I'd argue that they aren't a system user at that point, and have simply reverted to HAMB experience.
Exactly. Playing by "feel" simply means that you can look at a shot and FEEL confident that you know it, based on experience. And experience can either be rooted in trial and error or in a more systematic learning method like a system. It all leads to the ability of knowing, or "feeling", when something we're doing matches something we've already learned how to do.
Correct, when I try to answer in that context then it must be with the caveat, as Bob Jewett illustrated with the bad frozen rail instruction from Mosconi's book (which is the same advice I read or was taught by someone long ago), then it must be stated that all systems are not equal in either application or accuracy. And when I mention that CTE is accurate in my experience it is not meant to turn your thread into an advertisement or argument for or about CTE but instead merely to illustrate that in the context of your question if one is armed with an accurate system then one has the edge over the non-system player IF both players have a similar level of experience/table time.
Some people do indeed have exceptional eyesight and coordination. I played a guy on my table who is somewhere between 650-610ish. We talked about systems and he stated that he doesn't use any and just sees it. He cut balls at crazy angles as good as anyone I have ever seen.
My first wife somehow had an exceptional break. I mean a pro-level break. To the point that a few times good local players made games where she was their designated breaker. She had zero idea why her break was so good. Neither did anyone else around us. Just one of those people whose timing or whatever was somehow naturally dialed in.
There is a guy who is one of if not the best marksman with a slingshot in the world. When asked how he got so good he said he didn't know but since he was a boy he could just hit what he intended to hit. These people are exceptional, meaning they the are the exceptions to the normal. Conversely there are many who literally can't hit the center of a wall within ten feet if they are ten feet from the wall. This is to be expected in race of beings that is so diverse genetically and psychologically. While we are all "human" it is really clear that there are traits among individuals that can put them above or below the average performance for any task.
There is literally no one-size-fits-all approach to anything. Especially a task like "American-style" pocket billiards (pool) which by its nature encompasses all the skills that one needs for all other disciplines. That doesn't mean that a pool player will ever truly be as good at billiards as a dedicated billiard player, or that a pool player would ever be as good at snooker as a dedicated snooker player. What it does mean however is that to be a successful pool player one MUST learn enough from those disciplines to have a well rounded game.
Systems are just tools. Really that's it. They are tools like chalk is a tool. Like a bridge is a tool. They are tools like a low-deflection/radially consistent shaft is a tool. Diamonds on the rails are tools. Even the spots on a measle ball are tools. So are the edges and centers of the balls.
When we aim a straight in shot we are often told to aim the cue ball into the pocket as a way to not focus on the object ball. That's a direct objective instruction to use the available reference in order to maintain a straight line. When Dr. Dave figures out that a ball going into a rail at 45 degrees means that it takes a path past the table center that is not on a scratch line then everyone who learns and implements that is immediately a better player because they have just learned a simple constant that was not obvious but which works reliably for complex position play. Of course a reasonably experienced player can learn to avoid the scratches and "know" the object ball paths through repetitive practice. But imagine what a relief it is for a player who is plagued by these two and three rail scratches who has not yet done the requisite amount of practice to develop the right feel to avoid them if that player learns to measure the path through a simple method?
Using your example of going into an important match would you rather that you did or did not know this truly reliable way to plot the cueball path before you went into the match?
45° rule - Dr. Dave Pool Info
Answers to frequently-asked questions about the 45° rule for getting position to and through the center of the table.
billiards.colostate.edu
Does knowing this rule/principle/method/system that mean that the shooter will never scratch again when using it? Of course not because knowing that something works and doing it consistently are not the same. Here we come to the axiom that an amateur practices until the get it right and a pro practices until they can't get it wrong.
But let's then think about that in reference to the 45 degree rule here.
Say that you have two players of similar skill whom you know are both feel players who got to their skill levels without anything beyond the basic instruction most people get when they start. You set up say 20 different shots where people commonly scratch off two or three rails.
You tell these players to shoot these shots and get position at places that are to the left and right of the pocket and within a diamond of the pocket. Let them both shoot them with no other instruction and ten shots per setup. Record the results. Then one of them is taught the 45 degree rule and gets an hour to practice it. The other gets an hour to practice however they want to in preparation for test #2.
Both players are then retested in an hour.
It is my belief that the player who learned the 45 degree rule will scratch less and get to the desired position zone more often than the player who just practiced by feel. And the more that the player who learned the 45 degree rule uses it going forward the stronger they will become at quickly seeing the 45 degree path and adjusting off of it as needed using spin and speed to change the route.
I can tell you that this one principle drastically changed my game for the better. It made it so that pretty much all apprehension about heading towards corners when sending the cueball around the table is gone. It boosted my understanding of cueball paths and allowed me then to expand my useable range of position play considerably. Like many players I had spent time playing with a piece of paper to indicate where I wanted the cueball to go to and doing HAMB repetitive practice to develop my feel for the shots. But after learning the 45 degree rule I was able then to actually measure the route objectively and focus much more on the speed of the shot with full confidence that I was not going to scratch and was not going to screw up position because I was over/under compensating in the attempt to avoid the scratch.
I used to believe ONLY in HAMB. LIke I would read about kicking and banking systems and just take a half-hearted interest in them at best and I did learn the basics enough to see that they worked but didn't really think that they were needed. I really thought that they were not needed if a player had a functioning brain. What possible need could there be when everything was right there in front of your eyes? Jeez if you can't figure out the direction of travel easily then maybe take up a different hobby....... I read McGoorty and his claim that Hoppe said that the systems work but only if one uses them perfectly - which I read as a way of saying that systems were a crutch.
Then Hal Houle changed my perspective on that forever. With ONE shot. I won't go into detail on the story I have told dozens of times but the very short version is that he asked me to set up a shot I had trouble with and within a few minutes I was nailing that shot easily. From that day my perspectives on systems changed and I saw them not as crutches but as tools. Professionals in every field have tool boxes filled with professional tools. Some of these tools are common to the profession and some are modified to work better and some are fully new inventions that the professional just made for themselves to get specific tasks done easier and reliably.
And to that, and in conclusion, I will give you an example from the last two years of renovations on my house. While trying to figure out the circuits in my house we went though and were turning breakers on and off and talking through the phone to map them. This involved two people and somehow didn't result in an accurate map. The electrician came in and had a tool that they could put on the breaker and it sent a tone that only activated when a matching receiver was on the same line (or something like that). Within 30 minutes they had accurately mapped the lines in the same house that myself and my friend hadn't been able to do over a period of more than an hour. The electrician didn't do anything different in terms of someone being at the breaker and someone inside the house. But because they had the right tools and knew how to use them they were more accurate in less time and reaped the reward for that, $175 an hour. In the amount of time I spent trying to achieve the same result - "by feel" - I could have sold several cases and easily paid for the electrician.
I can speak to that from personal experience. No, the "zone" for a CTE user is a relaxed place where most shots are quickly "seen" in terms of which perception is correct and the shooter moves from standing to shooting position briskly and smoothly. But some shots require a little more effort to be sure of the perception choice and a CTE player in the zone simply does that without any jarring break in rhythm. There is a satisfaction that comes with deliberately assessing the shot to be doubly sure the aim is correct followed by a successful shot that enhances the "zone" experience. In other words "the zone" for a CTE player is where the player is in full focused application of the system with no distracting thoughts.