The Biggest reason Lower level players can't improve ????

Matt_24

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
A lot of responses on this thread. I know plenty of champion level players who are opposite eye dominant. That's no big deal. If you're fundaments and stroke are good....(you keep your head perfectly still, your stance is solid, and you can deliver your cue ball accurately to the intended target)..your brain will identify "why" you miss and you can adjust to get it right. This requires lots of practice *after* your fundamentals are perfect. No secret trick other than loving pool and putting in the time.
 

CocoboloCowboy

Cowboys are my hero's
Silver Member
A lot of responses on this thread. I know plenty of champion level players who are opposite eye dominant. That's no big deal. If you're fundaments and stroke are good....(you keep your head perfectly still, your stance is solid, and you can deliver your cue ball accurately to the intended target)..your brain will identify "why" you miss and you can adjust to get it right. This requires lots of practice *after* your fundamentals are perfect. No secret trick other than loving pool and putting in the time.

People who want to pay the price to be great at anything, have a better chance then those who only talk about being great.

Anyone can walk across the U.S.A. From Coast to Coast if your normal, it easy, just do it a step at a time. Sooner or later you will arrive at destination. Opposite Coast.
 

Tin Man

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
Anyone can walk across the U.S.A. From Coast to Coast if your normal, it easy, just do it a step at a time. Sooner or later you will arrive at destination. Opposite Coast.

That's true...if you are going the right direction.

If you lose your path you could get lost in the mountains and die before ever reaching the great plains.

That's what instruction is for. I know that I put in a lot of walking to get where I am today. I've come 1,000 miles from where I started. But I took a 5,000 mile route. If I had the right direction 25 years ago I could've either gotten here faster, gotten further with the effort I put in, or both.

#Geno believer
 

ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Without reading all the responses, just to answer the title of the thread, some of the immediate thoughts that come to my mind are:

LackIng natural talent for the game / hand/eye coordination and angles - sorry but it’s a fact.
Not able or willing to significantly improve faulty fundamentals.
Not knowing how to practice and just assuming the more they play, the better they’ll get.
Too stubborn to commit to the needed major changes they need to make.
 

DrCue'sProtege

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Without reading all the responses, just to answer the title of the thread, some of the immediate thoughts that come to my mind are:

LackIng natural talent for the game / hand/eye coordination and angles - sorry but it’s a fact.
Not able or willing to significantly improve faulty fundamentals.
Not knowing how to practice and just assuming the more they play, the better they’ll get.
Too stubborn to commit to the needed major changes they need to make.

I agree ChrisinNC. But in another thread I started the other day I raised some questions that pertain to your comments. Such as:

Faulty Fundamentals - They differ from instructor to instructor!!!

How to Practice - It differs from instructor to instructor!!!

Needed Major Changes - They differ from instructor to instructor!!!

Like my other thread stated - WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?????

R/DCP
 

genomachino

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Your correct and not correct at the same time...

A lot of responses on this thread. I know plenty of champion level players who are opposite eye dominant. That's no big deal. If you're fundaments and stroke are good....(you keep your head perfectly still, your stance is solid, and you can deliver your cue ball accurately to the intended target)..your brain will identify "why" you miss and you can adjust to get it right. This requires lots of practice *after* your fundamentals are perfect. No secret trick other than loving pool and putting in the time.

There are great players all over the place that are opposite dominant. And it isn't a big deal. Some naturally got the dominant eye in a more dominant position naturally so they got playing better allot quicker than someone that didn't. Some lower level players never get the left eye over at all resulting in a permanent 3 rating in APA for the rest of their lives. Once they learn this the results are off the charts. They can see the shots as well as the others and the time they practice is not wasted just shoving the balls around aimlessly.

Unfortunately. opposite eye dominant players have the right hand, right eye on the right side of their body. Coming down on the shot becomes very challenging because they are definitely not in the correct position when they first start. I know because I'm one of them. I know because I have worked with so many lower level players that stayed lower level all their lives because they didn't ever get over to the left eye naturally.

Players that reach the pro level get there from shooting allot and repetition. Just like chopping wood with an axe your eyes and hands will coordinate eventually so you are hitting the spot on the wood you want to. This is so much like aiming a pool shot. With the axe over your head instead of under, you can favor the dominant eye in turn get better at being accurate. Took me a long time to get the eyes right chopping wood naturally. In the meantime not hitting the spot on the wood correctly resulted in almost hitting my leg with the axe a few times. Once I learned to favor the left eye a little, not knowing why this was, I could chop the wood fast and safer. I was only 13 years old. The start of learning how all this worked.

Shooting pistol at the hip would be the same. If you were left eye dominant you would need to get the head over a little and favor the opposite eye if opposite eye dominant. You can do it but it's a little more effort. But back in the old days if you got shot doing this because everyone shot from the hip and you were in a duel, being opposite eye dominant would be a problem if you didn't practice allot and got the eye over there naturally. Not a very fair fight. One guy is right eye dominant and the other is opposite and never naturally got under the left eye more dominantly correct. Resulting in a crappy shooter. In a duel, dead shooter.

Fortunately in pool we don't get shot. We just feel like it when we play for some money and the other guy shoots our nutz off.

It is not a trick to learn manually how to get the eyes in the most correct position. It can be learned by anyone by someone that understands how this all works.

Some of the players I have showed this to have become some of the top players in the world. How does this happen? They got the eyes in the most correct position possible at a young age. They skipped the natural learning curve of trying to get the eyes there from shooting a million balls and repetition. Learning how to get the eyes there manually they were able to make the other things in the game work so much better and quicker.

From doing over 2,000 lessons teaching how this all works and seeing the almost unbelievable results, there is no doubt that this is the most important thing any pool player could learn. Anyone that I teach experiences the same results. They just know how it is. They can see it with their own eyes. I even get calls sometimes when they tell their friends and the friends just blow them off. They know for sure and the friend discards it as goofy because he just doesn't know.

One of the testimonials on here from JV was that this would help many higher level players. I seen him play on some videos he sent me. Anyone can watch the same videos on this thread. He plays at a professional level for sure. But he could clearly see from our perfect aim lesson that this even helped him envision the shot better and gave him more confidence in the shot. It does happen naturally to a certain extent but by manually knowing you can get it perfect and perfect is so much better than guessing because it just doesn't look quite right.

Even other teachers that teach pool might think they understand this totally by just knowing someone needs to get the dominant eye in a dominant position but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

There is no video of this or book that gets this correct. This had to be figured out from scratch. Took 5 years on the road doing 15 to 20 lessons per week. A local teacher has trouble even dong one or 2 lessons a week. Run out of students that don't know it all.

Seeing the same things over and over it was pretty safe to say that this was a problem and this is how to fix it. I had unlimited guinea pigs, pool players, to practice the art of Perfect Aim and perfect it.

Just like many players on these threads that say this is how it is or that is how it is for sure, they have no idea really at all. I know this because I know much more of the story there is.

The first year I was teaching what I thought I knew it all. But in all reality, I only knew just a small portion of what Perfect Aim would eventually become. I named it Perfect Aim but it is not an aiming system. It became a complete shooting system that would help any player envision their shot perfectly all the time.

Coordinating the stance, grip, cue, stroke and dominant eye from the preshot to the ball going in the hole.

I had some Top teachers even try to discredit me, saying i just teach aiming which is so far from the truth. I teach every aspect of the game because this effects every aspect of the game.

This makes the game of pool so much more fun. And the players that unknowingly discredit what I teach are doing all players everywhere a great disservice.

From the beginner to the pro this is a must to know. At any level this will allow the player to improve so much faster.

Just like with a gun with a crooked sight, I'm just showing players how to fix their natural sights manually. But unlike a gun there is so much more that has to be done with a pool shot to make it work correctly. So much more.

Thanks for the input. Just trying to help the game of pool and the players that play the great game we all love. .:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
 

genomachino

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I have some answers to your questions..

I agree ChrisinNC. But in another thread I started the other day I raised some questions that pertain to your comments. Such as:

Faulty Fundamentals - They differ from instructor to instructor!!!

How to Practice - It differs from instructor to instructor!!!

Needed Major Changes - They differ from instructor to instructor!!!

Like my other thread stated - WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?????

R/DCP

I'm going to compare this to a rifle, Easy to understand.

1, Faulty fundamentals;

Fixing fundamentals is so easy. Like fixing the foundation on a house. If you know what to do you can get it plum easily. Good instructor can fix these for sure. But if the sights are crooked on the gun it doesn't matter how you stand or hold it. You cannot hit the target consistently.

2. How to practice.

Just like the pool shot. You can shoot 1,000 rounds a day and practice like hell, but if the sights are crooked on the gun you might figure out you have to aim a little to the right or the left to hit the target. Be much simpler to just fix the sight. Now when you hit the bullseye you know you got it right. Now you can practice shooting all shots on the table with the dominant eye lined up correctly. Now you get some mileage from your practice.

3, Needed major changes.

So many players have really good fundamental, Many of them just need a few tweaks to adjust the stance and stroke to fit their dominant eye. It has to be a nightmare for some of these teachers even world class teachers, when they are not getting good results. Sometimes by changing the stance they might get the player to naturally, accidently get the eyes in the correct position. I definitely change the stance a little to get the eyes there. And there are so many other things that so many players don't know that will help them shoot. The teachers knowledge dictates what he can show you and what he assumes you might not know. But if the sights are crooked on the gun the results can be very limited no matter how much you can learn. it just doesn't seem to work.

4. Who do you believe?


I am trying to help. There are so many players sitting on their couch trying to figure out things. If you want to be a doctor, what do you do? Go to school for 10 years or so. How do you know if that doctor is any good? If you find a good doctor out there hang onto him or her because there are many that are not as good.

If you want to be a plumber. On the job training. What you learn is what you can fix properly. Good ones and not so good ones.

With everything it's the same.

Every single person that i show this to says the same thing. It will definitely help their game. They are amazed by what they have learned about seeing and shooting a pool shot.

I got a pretty good track record. But you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

For some reason us pool players, me included. are the most hard headed, stubborn people in the world.

Lose 2,000 at the casino but won't spend $10 on a lesson. Think we can figure it all out on our own.

Got a $7,000 table in the basement. $2,000 cue but won't spend $100 to learn how to use it.

Some of this is warranted because of getting bad lessons from instructors that charge allot but didn't help you much. Kind of not their fault either because the sights were crooked on the gun and they didn't know how to fix it.

All I can say is read some of the replies on this thread from your fellow AZer's. They are trying to tell you all but you have to listen. They are all telling the truth.

Perfect Aim. I'm doing skype lessons everyday. Works just as good as being there for sure.

Results. They are trying to tell everyone. :thumbup:
 

iusedtoberich

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I thought of this thread two nights ago. I was driving home from work late, around 10pm. The moon in the sky was HUGE, mostly in front of me, but a bit to the left. I kept looking at it in amazement. It was so low in the sky, I felt like I could reach out and grab it. I got home, told the girl to get in the car, and drove 45 min back to the office to show it to her. It really only looked like that at one spot on the road. She had to go to the bathroom the whole time and was not pleased, ha ha. The next day she told me she read online that it was a supermoon.

Anyway, back to the thread, when I was looking at the moon, no lie, my car was veering to the left out of my lane. I corrected myself, and sure enough, it did it again. I chuckled and said to myself "the car follows the eyes" ;)

I hope to hit some balls again soon. I had knee surgery 3 weeks ago, and haven't touched the table since.
 

CocoboloCowboy

Cowboys are my hero's
Silver Member
That's true...if you are going the right direction.

If you lose your path you could get lost in the mountains and die before ever reaching the great plains.

That's what instruction is for. I know that I put in a lot of walking to get where I am today. I've come 1,000 miles from where I started. But I took a 5,000 mile route. If I had the right direction 25 years ago I could've either gotten here faster, gotten further with the effort I put in, or both.

#Geno believer


Well I would pack a map, water containers, pull a small wagon with the nessessary items for the trip to walk acros the USA. Plus I would have done some pre planning for the walk. Boy Scout thing Be Prepared.

Point is there are no magic pills to accomplishing great things in life, except maybe a plan, education, and last working hard & driven toward a goal. Better chance of reaching goal verses on TALK.

Tiger Woods, or Arnold Plamer could play a very respectable rounds of Golf with a borrowed set of clubs. Because they have skill, ability, and experence of playing great golf.

If you give someone with no skill, experence, etc. A set of custom golf clubs, 95 out of 100 will still play like novices.

It's not the Arrow, it's the Indian. I know when I play pool good, it's with the same Cue as the day I play terrible. I am like many pool players, inconsistant.

Truely great players, are always great, not flash in pan one day greats. Like on hit wonder in music.:smile: That is a luck thing.

Aiming systems are many, this subject has been beat to death IMHO. We are all different, so if you look how the great players, they way they stand, stroke, setup for a shot, they are all different. Find a aiming system that works for you, work with it, turning & tweek it. People who jump from system to system blow a lot of time, and again are inconsistant.

Think of feet, if your are a size 11, a size 10, or 12 shoe just will never fit your feet right. Got to find not only a Size & Brand that make you feet happy. Yes all Size 11's are not the same form brand to brand.

Perfect Amininmg is not "Perfect", it just another system that works for some people. Left be truthful, before Geno aka Gene show up on AZB years ago touching Perfect Aiming, he was not a household name.

Like Nick Verner, Earl Strickland, Efrin Reyes, Mike Siegel, Willie Mosconi. What is Gene record as a BIG TOURNMENT WINNER?

Think that is a good question. BTW the Great Ledgent of Pool, Fast Larry loaned my his copy of Perfect Aiming DVD years ago. My impression was so what???? Did not start a fire, or burn the house down. It's another aiming system.:smile:
 
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straightline

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
That rifle analogy again. All these steel machines. People am not metal machines; nor are they CNC. Archery is closer.
 

stumpie71

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Lot of interesting information in this thread.
I agree with Gene's premise about properly aligning the eyes for a true sight picture, however I don't agree that it's always the dominant eye.

I'm left eye dominant, I play left handed but I aim with my right eye. If I set up and aim with my left eye then I'm off ~2 degrees. Which may not seem !one much but it's rather large error.

For lower handicap and even higher handicap players learning how to properly sight and align their body is the first step in having proper fundamentals. Most tend to do it naturally in a manner that's close to where it needs to be. Which lowers the learning curve significantly.
 

genomachino

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
If you aim with the right eye you are right eye dominant.

Lot of interesting information in this thread.
I agree with Gene's premise about properly aligning the eyes for a true sight picture, however I don't agree that it's always the dominant eye.

I'm left eye dominant, I play left handed but I aim with my right eye. If I set up and aim with my left eye then I'm off ~2 degrees. Which may not seem !one much but it's rather large error.

For lower handicap and even higher handicap players learning how to properly sight and align their body is the first step in having proper fundamentals. Most tend to do it naturally in a manner that's close to where it needs to be. Which lowers the learning curve significantly.

The tests to find the dominant eye pointing and looking thru circles doesn't work. I thought it did when I first started teaching but too many times the test would go to the right eye and when they got down on the cue they had it more under the left eye.

After wasting about an hour trying to unsuccessfully trying to get that player to play under the right eye I would just go with the left.

So i found a way when working with a player to show them how to find which eye is dominant when down on a pool shot. It's flawless. Perfect and works everytime.

Confused why this test didn't work for everyone, about 60/40 results for me in about 500 lessons, I went to an eye doctor. I asked him if this test was reliable. He said yes. I went to another and another until i got to the 5th one. He told me it doesn't work. With a great big smile I asked him how he knew. He told me that it was an old eye doctor that told him. He said the old guy just knew. He said eye dominance only matters the most when you get close to an object and your eyes start to cross like getting down on a pool shot looking at the cue ball. You can still see the object well but the picture is a little distorted unless the dominant eye is in the best position.

I asked him why all these other eye doctors said the test works? he replied, How many dominant eyes do they have to find to put a pair of glasses on your face? After a couple of moments of silence he told me Zero. None. So he said how are they an expert on finding the dominant eye if they never have to find one. They are just going what everyone else assumes which is that it works.

He said obviously with you having to find the dominant eye to correctly envision the shot pretty much makes you an expert on finding the dominant eye having to find 100's of them.

He played a little pool himself. When I showed him what I teach and how it works his reaction was the same. You got to be kidding. We did it with coaster in his office and called me later that night to tell me how well it worked seeing the shot correctly.

This has been a learning journey for about 20 years. Piece by piece, bit by bit.

Trust me when I say if you shoot with your right eye you are opposite eye dominant.

if you want to see for sure just set up a skype meeting and I will show you how this all works.

In fact it would be good for everyone on here to see the results. Right or wrong, there is only one correct answer.

Looking forward to it if you take me up on the offer. 7155638712....:cool:.
 

lorider

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Not sure if its been said but to me the main reason that lower level players may not improve is entirely mental..

It could be lack of ambition to improve whether it be willingness to take advice or desire to put in the time to practice what you teach them. A big factor also that i see that holds lower level players back is confidence.

What i have run into during coaching during a time out in a league match is the reply...i cant do that . i have to admit that when i started league and was given a time out by a higher level player i said the same thing...i cant do that. He asked why not ? I said i am not as good as you. He then said....thinking like that you never will be.

Perfect example. I joined a team that had an old man who had played apa for several years and was an honest to gawd 2 in 8 ball. One day i gave him a time out and told him to pocket a ball in the side pocket instead of the shot he started to take in order to get better position. He says...i cant do that. I asked why not. He replied he always missed shots in side pockets . i replied if you aim where i tell you and hit the cue ball where i tell you it will fall..i said you just gotta get that negative thought out of your head and believe in your ability to shoot where and how i showed you.

So it falls and he looks up grinning ear to ear and says i made it. He gained confidence in his play and is now a decent 4. He still has the same fundamentals he has always had. His mental game was holding him back.. I know a 3 that is unwilling to take advice and will never improve. Some are willing to improve and others are not. Like the old saying goes...you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink.

I just dont see many people ...especially instructors stressing the importance of the mental aspects of the game. It seems like its all about stroke or aiming with them whi h is important also but not the end all be all that seems to be claimed so often.
 

straightline

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Not sure if its been said but to me the main reason that lower level players may not improve is entirely mental..

It could be lack of ambition to improve whether it be willingness to take advice or desire to put in the time to practice what you teach them. A big factor also that i see that holds lower level players back is confidence.

Reality is mental so you might be correct. :D
 

lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Not sure if its been said but to me the main reason that lower level players may not improve is entirely mental..

It could be lack of ambition to improve whether it be willingness to take advice or desire to put in the time to practice what you teach them. A big factor also that i see that holds lower level players back is confidence.

What i have run into during coaching during a time out in a league match is the reply...i cant do that . i have to admit that when i started league and was given a time out by a higher level player i said the same thing...i cant do that. He asked why not ? I said i am not as good as you. He then said....thinking like that you never will be.

Perfect example. I joined a team that had an old man who had played apa for several years and was an honest to gawd 2 in 8 ball. One day i gave him a time out and told him to pocket a ball in the side pocket instead of the shot he started to take in order to get better position. He says...i cant do that. I asked why not. He replied he always missed shots in side pockets . i replied if you aim where i tell you and hit the cue ball where i tell you it will fall..i said you just gotta get that negative thought out of your head and believe in your ability to shoot where and how i showed you.

So it falls and he looks up grinning ear to ear and says i made it. He gained confidence in his play and is now a decent 4. He still has the same fundamentals he has always had. His mental game was holding him back.. I know a 3 that is unwilling to take advice and will never improve. Some are willing to improve and others are not. Like the old saying goes...you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink.

I just dont see many people ...especially instructors stressing the importance of the mental aspects of the game. It seems like its all about stroke or aiming with them whi h is important also but not the end all be all that seems to be claimed so often.


The reality is that no one ever tells you how hard it is, and how much work it takes, to get really good at pool, or anything else.

Too many think they're going to take some lessons, adopt a pause in their stroke, read a book, or learn an aiming system and magically get way better.

ah, if it were only so easy.

Lou Figueroa
 

BasementDweller

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Lifelong B Player here...

For those of us that have scraped and clawed along the way to modest improvement, one thing that I think is so often overlooked is the FACT that there are shots that require constant attention! I think too many people think that you just master a particular shot and you then own it. Personally, I have to constantly work on long straight in shots, rail shots, jacked up shots, my break shot, and max english shots just to name a few. If I take a few weeks off -- I basically have to start back over -- tuning up all these shots. It's not like I can just continually work on mastering NEW shots. There's just not enough time in the day.

Secondly, I think we oversimplify the passion/apathy dichotomy. As I find it hard to believe that there is a pool player on the planet that could be passionate about the game WHILE constantly firing balls into the rails. Short of being autistic or having some sort of diagnosable OCD like disorder I think the original passion that many new players feel can ONLY remain long-term if the player is capable of improving. So it's my view -- that the psychology of a player is fueled at least as much by their ability as the other way around.
 
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