TAR Pros On Aim Systems & Jump Cues

And in particular, Busty has been the poster child explicitly for CTE systems for 10 years on these forums. Now you hear straight from HIS mouth he doesn't use a system.

Someone who paid something like $1k for that Dragron Promotions lesson tour w/ Busty said that when asked about how he aimed, he replied "ghost ball" to the fellow. On TAR, he seems to say "feel" often. When Donny Perryman from Lambros Cues and I hung out w/ Busty briefly at the Hopkins Milliion Dollar 9-ball, the three of us discussed pivot aiming at-length (specifically cte). In fact, and I quote, Bustamante said "He can't imagine how anyone can play at the pro level shooting at a ghost ball."

Maybe he doesn't want to get pulled into a conversation he doesn't wanna have on camera?

You guys can say / think what you will - have at it. When someone strokes into center ball from an offset position, it is what it is.
 
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I was at that Dragon Promotions school, though not the person Dave is referring to, I didn't ask Busty how he aimed. But I did shoot with him over a 2 day period, and was aware of CTE etc. at the time, and he definitely uses some sort of pivot aiming and backhand english, even though it may be completely subconscious at this point.

Efren demonstrated several systems for kicking, including how he figured the famous Z kick against Earl. I'm sure he's like me or other 3 cushion players, where once you know the systems you can quickly just see the angles without consciously doing the math all the time. After a while the angles and patterns become so ingrained that because of the earlier work with the system, and evaluating results based on various speeds and spins, it allows you to go "off the grid" and make seemingly crazy hits and shots, something he is famous for more than perhaps any other player.

Whether they admit to it or not, I believe many of the pros either have learned or currently use certain techniques to help with certain shots, banks, kicks, etc. To what degree they use these systems or methods will vary. And most of them are not going to say sh!t about it, not while they are active players... When asked what type of spin he was putting on certain shots, Busty said "I use the feelings". So he didn't even want to tell US exactly what he was doing, much less his current competition... :)

Scott
 
To learn how Bustemante aims we must first "empty our own cup" :-)

Someone who paid something like $1k for that Dragron Promotions lesson tour w/ Busty said that when asked about how he aimed, he replied "ghost ball" to the fellow. On TAR, he seems to say "feel" often. When Donny Perryman from Lambros Cues and I hung out w/ Busty briefly at the Hopkins Milliion Dollar 9-ball, the three of us discussed pivot aiming at-length (specifically cte). In fact, and I quote, Bustamante said "He can't imagine how anyone can play at the pro level shooting at a ghost ball."

Maybe he doesn't want to get pulled into a conversation he doesn't wanna have on camera?

You guys can say / think what you will - have at it. When someone strokes into center ball from an offset position, it is what it is.


I have admitted I did the same thing when I was competing full time. I've talked to several champion players that wanted to work with me, but there was always an aspect of their game that they considered "sacred," and didn't want to disclose to the general "pool public".

My intention is to show everything I know and now I "real eyes" that the ones that are supposed to get the information will, and the ones that aren't (supposed to get the info) will be unable to. This is a strange phenominon and it's one that's very interesting to me about human nature. Once we have a belief imprinted in mind it's almost impossible to take in anything new, even if that information would be useful. Bustemante knows this and I respect his desire to keep his techniques to himself. It's certainly much easier and if he explained his system for aiming it would be scrutinized by all disbelievers anyway, and if he didn't persistently want them to learn, then no one would.

It's like the story of the professor that visits the master and the master ends up pouring tea on him to get his attention. "If we want to learn, we must first empty our cup, when our cup{mind}is full, no new tea{wisdom} can enter"......'The Game is the Teacher'

Here's the story and more of an explanation for those that "have eyes that want to see".....The following is from this link: http://purifymind.com/EmptyCup.htm


The Japanese master Nan-in gave audience to a professor of philosophy. Serving tea, Nan-in filled his visitor's cup, and kept pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he could restrain himself no longer: "Stop! The cup is over full, no more will go in." Nan-in said: "Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup."

You have come to an even more dangerous person than Nan-in, because an empty cup won't do; the cup has to be broken completely. Even empty, if you are there, then you are full. Even emptiness fills you. If you feel that you are empty you are not empty at all, you are there. Only the name has changed: now you call yourself emptiness. The cup won't do at all; it has to be broken completely. Only when you are not can the tea be poured into you, only when you are not is there no need really to pour the tea into you. When you are not the whole existence begins pouring, the whole existence becomes a shower from every dimension, from every direction. When you are not, the divine is.

The story is beautiful. It was bound to happen to a professor of philosophy. The story says a professor of philosophy came to Nan-in. He must have come for the wrong reasons because a professor of philosophy, as such, is always wrong. Philosophy means intellect, reasoning, thinking, argumentativeness. And this is the way to be wrong, because you cannot be in love with existence if you are argumentative. Argument is the barrier. If you argue, you are closed; the whole existence closes to you. Then you are not open and existence is not open to you.

When you argue, you assert. Assertion is violence, aggression, and the truth cannot be known by an aggressive mind, the truth cannot be discovered by violence. You can come to know the truth only when you are in love. But love never argues. There is no argument in love, because there is no aggression. And remember, not only was that man a professor of philosophy, you are also the same. Every man carries his own philosophy, and every man in his own way is a professor, because you profess your ideas, you believe in them. You have opinions, concepts, and because of opinions and concepts your eyes are dull, they cannot see; your mind is stupid, it cannot know.
 
You should buy the TAR shane aiming video on vimeo. After watching that, I don't think there is anyone that will agree that what Shane does is anything like what the aiming system gurus advocate. He's just putting a picture to what works. And its different for every cut angle. And its different for every type of cue shaft. ANd its different for every type of spin he uses. That sure sounds like feel to me...

No it sounds like he has calibrated his shaft to the cut angles. That's using an objective reference to align with.

He says CLEARLY that he uses one part of his shaft for shallow cuts, one part for nearly straight ins, and one part for severe cuts.

If he does this every time then it's a systematic way to aim.

Shane doesn't agree with you. He calls what he does a system in the clip I saw on YouTube. I mean really if he is using his shaft to aim with then that by itself is not feel. Any time you are using a tool to measure something then it's not feel, it's objective reasoning.
 
Are you going to follow me around now;)

Shane says he uses a different part for different shots. Look especially at that one shot when Jennifer moves the CB like an inch and then asks him what he does. He makes it up on the fly and says something like I go a little past the edge, or something like that (this is from memory I haven't watched it in a couple weeks).
 
Are you going to follow me around now;)

Shane says he uses a different part for different shots. Look especially at that one shot when Jennifer moves the CB like an inch and then asks him what he does. He makes it up on the fly and says something like I go a little past the edge, or something like that (this is from memory I haven't watched it in a couple weeks).

Not at all I just happen to not agree with you. The point is that he is using his shaft as a reference device and he adjusts accordingly off that baseline.

But beyond that I can tell that there are pros who just say they use "feel" because for whatever reason they simply don't want to divulge what they are doing or perhaps can't really explain it in a technical way. I sat with Johnny for an hour in Hangzhou and asked him flat out and he described to me what he does. But in interviews he remains vague about it and simply says he aims using his own method.

I played Busty the week before the TARCAST and picked his brain. He doesn't aim entirely by "feel" in the sense that you and Johnny mean it but he definitely does not have a set in stone set aiming steps either.

Appleton claims to use a system on some shots, says that the SEE system is similar to what he has always done.

As well there are many other pros who are "out of the closet" so to speak and their results are clear.

The thing that bugs me I guess is that for all these years you all have asked for pros that do use aiming systems and we gave them to you and now you don't want to accept them. Now you go back to pros that were never clear about what they do and say aha, someone somewhere claimed that this guy uses a system and he says he doesn't so therefore systems are invalid.

That's obviously nonsense. An erroneous claim that someone uses something when they don't doesn't invalidate the thing.

Does it bolster "feel" if Busty says he uses feel to aim? Sure, now go put in the same amount of table time and action time as Busty and you will "feel" it too. Here is the question that hasn't been answered and won't be answered by any of the old school players, could they have been even better if they had had a more solid foundation? And the followup question is will the current generation be even better due to a more systematic approach to aiming? We won't know the answer to that for years to come.

Techniques like aiming systems, especially if they are controversial, take time to be adopted, learned and ingrained into the fabric of the game. So it will be at least another decade of players learning them before we can say that they have made a difference or not.
 
I didn't say aiming systems were no good here. I have bought two of them and at least 5 more DVD's that had an aiming system in them. I tried them all and always came back to feel. I'm sure they help some players. Every DVD I have that is not just aiming system I came away with something useful to me. This thread is just a small sample of the top pros that use or don't use them. If it were meant to be an Aim System basher I'd have put it in the aiming forum. Johnnyt

I think Alex said it best at about 1 hour 6 min into this video. The "feel" system...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y2qoCtdiak
 
The only reason pros are pros is the fact they do not share their secrets, not even with their brothers!! it is their $$ income.

Pool is known for words like feel, lucky, good stroke-and Alex P. tried to put a new twist on stroke yesterday, by saying "i stroke it differently every time depending on the situation and how he feels, b.s. he knows why he changes it!!, talented, sharp shooter, and many others to divert "wanna be" from becoming pros.

There is no substitute to learning all 4000 shots possibilities in pool, "Deep Passion" for the sport, and practice-it is hard work.

There is no silver bullet. The greatest myth about top players, is they have secrets that would make many top players if they knew the so-called secrets. Peoples stroke do change, depending on how they feel. Alex was telling the truth about that. Its just easy for some to claim they could be top players if only other top player would give them the big secret. The truth is, it takes natural talent, total dedication to the game and thousands of hours and no other detractions.
 
There is no silver bullet. The greatest myth about top players, is they have secrets that would make many top players if they knew the so-called secrets. Peoples stroke do change, depending on how they feel. Alex was telling the truth about that. Its just easy for some to claim they could be top players if only other top player would give them the big secret. The truth is, it takes natural talent, total dedication to the game and thousands of hours and no other detractions.

This is all true enough, a system isn't required to learn how to aim. I also know there isn't one big secret the pros are keeping from us.

However, for years, everything about learning pool was secretive. I never learned, or even heard of aiming systems before. This makes for interesting reading, even when it's not kept civil.

Recently, I posted an aiming issue and was given some helpful tips. Now, my head is adjusted slightly to the right and my game has improved, alot.
 
The best method is not a vote.

Of course many vote by their purchasing some sort or other
aiming information. Book, tape or disk. Or read with an innovative
inner mind postings of others.

The science is not over. Despite some very attractive preliminary
information.

If a knowledgeable person could interview say the 10 best
shooters alive, perhaps they could discover a number of primary
principles that leads to making balls and running racks. That is if
the top players wished to share all they knew.

Until those interviews occur and are transmitted, I will keep an
open mind about what is effective.

:)
 
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