The Monk

To me, the Monk's (not Dr. Tom) stuff was medicore at best. Perhaps helpful on some levels, but really not always technically accurate. The problem was once they got my contact info, I was non-stop solicited with his offers. In fact, 4 years later, he still sends it to me. He is way to promotional of himself and his products, which leads me to believe that they lack value.

Celtic;

I disagree. There are world champions giving lessons in Asia every day(Wu for one, Yang for another) . There are schools in China that teach only pool. You seem to forget there is a world of players out there. The Pinoys play each other every day and share information, hence they have their own unique styles. What you are recognizing is that in our country, more so in the past, there are few learning vehicles for new players. Better now, but not like other countries. Encouraging learning though teaching is a good thing, at least I think so.
 
prewarhero said:
I also think you will be hard pressed to find a pro player to even agree with you
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Actually it is more like YOU would have a hard time finding a pro pool player who got where they got through formal pool instruction.

I do believe what I say because I have played this game for almost 2 decades and in that time I have seen a ton of people have formal instruction. They are the people that cannot make the money in tournaments and that I beat consistently. They spend a heap of cash on formal pool instruction, they get told they are getting the fundamentals down, and then they go into the tournaments and miss the money getting beat just as easy as the year before. I have seen other players who are exactly the same level initially instead start to compete, start to simply play more pool and put themselves out there, and THOSE are the people that improve to a point they become tough to beat.

And guess what, that is the path that virtually ALL the pro pool players take. You can read any biography of any pool professional and you will read that they got good by simply living in the pool hall playing better players until they could beat them and then going and finding a better player still to compete against. Mosconi got his lessons on the road playing challenge matches with Greenleaf, he admits in his book that was the biggest learning experience he ever had getting to simply play Greenleaf that much and watch how he did what he did.

Sorry you wasted all that money on lessons and videos though man.
 
Deadon said:
The Pinoys play each other every day and share information, hence they have their own unique styles.
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The Pinoys are a prime example of how I said the true professionals get where they get, they compete constantly and learn from their peers, not from formal instruction but from matching up, tournaments, and playing better players. Trust me, Roberto Gomez did not get as good as he got watching Monk videos or taking a lesson from Scott Lee, he got good watching people like Busta and Efren play, playing matches against all the good players he could find and picking up knowledge from the matches he both played and watched.
 
that is the path that virtually ALL the pro pool players take
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This is nonsense. More and more pros (especially the younger ones) get regular coaching, just like in other pro sports. Won't be long before it's necessary to be competitive.

pj
chgo
 
We will have to agree to disagree and I will simply let reality continue to be what it is. By all means people, take pool lessons.

All the professional pool players are where they are today because of formal instruction and pool coaching (fact).
 
I will simply let reality continue to be what it is.

[...]

All the professional pool players are where they are today because of formal instruction and pool coaching (fact).
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It isn't all and it isn't none. Black or white isn't reality.

pj
chgo
 
Celtic...Ever hear of Niels Fiejen or Ralf Souquet? Both are world champions, who learned A LOT from teachers and coaches...and readily admit it. I have to disagree with you, but agree that many top players have done it the way you suggest.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Celtic said:
Actually it is more like YOU would have a hard time finding a pro pool player who got where they got through formal pool instruction.

Sorry you wasted all that money on lessons and videos though man.
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Celtic...While I do not take offense at the 'potshot', you are essentially correct. While many folks, of ALL ability levels (including pros), have benefitted from spending some time with me, it would take many, many lessons for a beginning player to rise to a top level (no matter what, you can only learn just so much, even in a full day lesson). Just so you know, I have coached players all the way from being a beginner, to being national champions (that was accomplished over a few years...not in a day or week)! I think that can said for most of the better instructors...certainly the ones I am familiar with, anyway.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Celtic said:
Trust me, Roberto Gomez did not get as good as he got watching Monk videos or taking a lesson from Scott Lee, he got good watching people like Busta and Efren play, playing matches against all the good players he could find and picking up knowledge from the matches he both played and watched.
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I don't know a lot about the "Monk" but his 2-7-2 position method clicked for me as well as the concept of shooting shots (piling rocks) until they feel like they shoot themselves.

He seems approachable enough so you can ask a question and he will reply I know/I don't know he doesn't bluster his way through it.
 
The terrorists get the crap kicked out of them because they're:

A. Unlucky (bad rolls).
B. Mom doesn't love them (things don't go their way).
C. The US armed forces have better training.
D. Need to match up more (wait a minute they're dead they don't get do overs).
 
Scott Lee said:
Just so you know, I have coached players all the way from being a beginner, to being national champions (that was accomplished over a few years...not in a day or week)! I think that can said for most of the better instructors...certainly the ones I am familiar with, anyway.
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How about the Monk, because in all reality the only reason I posted on this thread to begin with is I found it a little "off" that one pool instructor had a tounge in cheek potshot at another pool instructor given my opinion on the whole thing in general. You got singled out for no other reason then you were the one that took the potshot, I know diddly squat about your teaching style, although you defend Breisath's teaching methods and I must say that $100 was the biggest waste of money I spent in pool. Hopefully your teachings are not 90% "lets get rid of that elbow drop and you will be a pro in no time" like his because a person with no elbow drop a zero feel is still gonna get the 6-out from me and not like it.
 
Celtic said:
Actually it is more like YOU would have a hard time finding a pro pool player who got where they got through formal pool instruction.
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What about Jasmin Ouschan she travels with a coach - Xioting Pan ditto - Alison Fisher has/had a coach for yrs back in England - Late Snooker great Joe Davis had pro coaching when he was young - the Euros run pool camps for youths and it is starting to pay off - same for the Taiwanese - and the Pinoys are making it their business to instruct young players.

Of course the ability must be there.
 
Of course you can learn without coaching. You can even rise to the very highest levels of our sport without it. Many have done so. But at what cost? How many thousands of extra hours did they have to work to make their unorthodox mechanics work well enough to be the best?

That said, no instruction will make you better until you put in the time to make the new knowledge part of your game to the point that you no longer have to think about it. All the best instructors will agree with this. Those who don't are just after your money.

Life is complicated, there is no one best way, and there certainly isn't only one way to succeed. You have to make trade-offs. For example, the very best instructors may not be available in your area, and travel costs are very high, so you can choose between taking a $300 four hour course from one top instructor, or even a weekend boot camp, versus maybe taking 10 or 25 one hour lessons from a club pro. The quality of instruction may be better (or may not but the odds favor it), but the regular sessions give you much more feedback as well as a framework more conducive to giving you the discipline to practice what you've been shown.

There are other trade-offs too. Mental toughness doesn't come from a lesson or a book but is built from facing pressure situations in league matches, tournaments and money games. Books and instruction can give you tips and techniques to help you greatly cut the time required to know what to do, and how to do it, but without the real world experience you don't fully learn it. Like the other knowledge, you have to practice it long and hard to make it part of your game.

Each person only has so many hours and so much money to spend on pool. And each person is different in the way they learn. I wouldn't presume to dictate the only way, but I do believe that if instruction of some kind isn't a part of your learning process (I include books and videos here, but they have deficiencies) you're not going about improving in a very efficient manner.

Now, on the Monk, I don't like his stuff because I think his ideas about all these different strokes are just wrong. His reputation for the mental game is better, but I have no opinion because I haven't read any of it.
 
Celtic said:
Actually it is more like YOU would have a hard time finding a pro pool player who got where they got through formal pool instruction.

I do believe what I say because I have played this game for almost 2 decades and in that time I have seen a ton of people have formal instruction. They are the people that cannot make the money in tournaments and that I beat consistently. They spend a heap of cash on formal pool instruction, they get told they are getting the fundamentals down, and then they go into the tournaments and miss the money getting beat just as easy as the year before. I have seen other players who are exactly the same level initially instead start to compete, start to simply play more pool and put themselves out there, and THOSE are the people that improve to a point they become tough to beat.

And guess what, that is the path that virtually ALL the pro pool players take. You can read any biography of any pool professional and you will read that they got good by simply living in the pool hall playing better players until they could beat them and then going and finding a better player still to compete against. Mosconi got his lessons on the road playing challenge matches with Greenleaf, he admits in his book that was the biggest learning experience he ever had getting to simply play Greenleaf that much and watch how he did what he did.

Sorry you wasted all that money on lessons and videos though man.
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It's what people do with the information gained by instructors that is important. I know of similar people that you speak of, and most of them tend to ignore the mechanics and toss that information aside and focus on aiming systems and other things that are useless if you can't hit what your aiming at.

I'm largely self taught as well, but I would have loved to benefit from regular formal instruction. It would have saved me many hours of trial and error. Nowadays I get regular pointers from some fine players, and I have definitely seen an increased rate of improvement.

FWIW Ronnie O'Sullivan has had regular coaching since he was young, as did Steve Davis. Most top snooker players coming into the professional ranks these days have recieved coaching.
 
thanks

Thanks to all that have given input to this thread. I myself am self taught, but i look to books, dvds because there are no teachers locally that i know of. I watch better players, watch pool on ESPN, what ever i can to learn. I passed on getting the Monks books and bought 99 critical shots by ray martin. I am really pleased with this book. I am 41 years old am look for any way to improve my game i can. Thanks again
 
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