The Perfect Pool Instructor?

[SUPERSTAR]

What is it that makes a pool instructor a great one? Is it knowledge? Is it communication skills?

I recall that when I was a college student, I took an economics class and the professor was a Nobel Prize winner. Unfortunately, his great scholarship wasn’t enough to make him a great teacher, because he didn’t seem to have the ability to communicate well with the students in the class. In other economics classes, though, professors having far less scholarship taught me more than the Nobel Laureate because they had superb communication skills.

What, then, is the perfect mix of scholarship and communication skills? In fact, it is really rather simple, it’s all about maximizing P, where:

P = proportion of a subject that can be taught by a teacher
K = knowledge, the percent of a subject that is understood by the teacher
C = communication skills, percentage of the teacher’s knowledge of a subject that they are able to convey to students

The basic idea is that P = K x C

For example, one who understands 80% of a subject and is able to communicate 60% of what they know is capable of teaching only 48% of a subject. A less knowledgeable teacher might only understand 70%, but if they have enough communication skills that they can convey 90% of what they know, they are capable of teaching 63% of a subject, and would qualify as the teacher you’ll learn more from.

The very best pool players tend to have a high K value, but most of them have a C value that is far lower than those who focus on and develop their teaching skills and teaching materials. This explains why, in seemingly every sport, the best players are nearly never the best teachers. The best communicators may have a very high C value, and it's usually more than enough to offset the fact that they may have slightly less knowledge.

Remember, when you choose a pool instructor, try to maximize P, not K. If you’re one of the lucky ones and have already hooked up with a pool instructor with a high K value and a high C value, stay the course, for you’ve got the right instructor working with you.

I think the ideal would be someone who is highly skilled, knowledgeable and also has EXCELLENT COMMUNICATION SKILLS.
I don't think the student factor is as valuable. If the student is capable of absorbing information or not, doesn't have any bearing on the ability of the instructor. It reflects on the student. ALTHOUGH i do feel that if the communication factor is high, that the instructor might be better able to "break through" to a student that is just plain DENSE. (they just don't get it regardless of explanation)
People don't seem to realize about the communication factor. It is very difficult for some people to use words...and have those words convey the message they are sending, and then have that message be INTERPRETED and UNDERSTOOD, exactly how they intended it to be.

I know many pro players. I would dare say that only a very very small percentage of them have EXCELLENT communications skills.
Granted...they have high knowledge, but it is the process of CONVEYING that knowledge where the process sometimes breaks down.
Not everyone is capable of expressing themselves in a manner that can be understood.
It is much better to hear
"you should hit it about one tip to the right of center with a fluid stroke to try and come 2 rails out of the corner"
as opposed to
"hit it on the right, and try to get up here!"

ALSO...there are different types of learning.
Some people learn by watching, some by example, and yet others must learn by trial and error.
Just like some people are going to observe a shot and immediately understand, where others might need to ask questions and have it explained to them.....and others have to hit the balls and discover how to obtain the result for themselves.

Just like if you are a language teacher.
Some students are VISUAL, and therefore are better at learning from material that is read.....and yet others are AUDIAL. They are the ones who learn by listening to audio tapes.

High know how is important, but it is nothing without good communication.
COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY!

SUPERSTAR

 

[ramdadingdong]

I think the ideal would be someone who is highly skilled, knowledgeable and also has EXCELLENT COMMUNICATION SKILLS.
I don't think the student factor is as valuable. If the student is capable of absorbing information or not, doesn't have any bearing on the ability of the instructor. It reflects on the student. ALTHOUGH i do feel that if the communication factor is high, that the instructor might be better able to "break through" to a student that is just plain DENSE. (they just don't get it regardless of explanation)
People don't seem to realize about the communication factor. It is very difficult for some people to use words...and have those words convey the message they are sending, and then have that message be INTERPRETED and UNDERSTOOD, exactly how they intended it to be.

I know many pro players. I would dare say that only a very very small percentage of them have EXCELLENT communications skills.
Granted...they have high knowledge, but it is the process of CONVEYING that knowledge where the process sometimes breaks down.
Not everyone is capable of expressing themselves in a manner that can be understood.
It is much better to hear
"you should hit it about one tip to the right of center with a fluid stroke to try and come 2 rails out of the corner"
as opposed to
"hit it on the right, and try to get up here!"

ALSO...there are different types of learning.
Some people learn by watching, some by example, and yet others must learn by trial and error.
Just like some people are going to observe a shot and immediately understand, where others might need to ask questions and have it explained to them.....and others have to hit the balls and discover how to obtain the result for themselves.

Just like if you are a language teacher.
Some students are VISUAL, and therefore are better at learning from material that is read.....and yet others are AUDIAL. They are the ones who learn by listening to audio tapes.

High know how is important, but it is nothing without good communication.
COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY!

SUPERSTAR

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

How would you rate vince Lombardi by your standards?????

 

[SUPERSTAR]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

How would you rate vince Lombardi by your standards?????

Considering that he died before i was born, and i have never had the opportunity to see any video of him speaking or giving instruction. I have no basis by which to pass my personal judgement.


SUPERSTAR

 

[ramdadingdong]

Considering that he died before i was born, and i have never had the opportunity to see any video of him speaking or giving instruction. I have no basis by which to pass my personal judgement.


SUPERSTAR

Can you tell me what major league pool teams he coached????

 

[chefjeff]

<snip>

What, then, is the perfect mix of scholarship and communication skills? In fact, it is really rather simple, it’s all about maximizing P, where:

P = proportion of a subject that can be taught by a teacher
K = knowledge, the percent of a subject that is understood by the teacher
C = communication skills, percentage of the teacher’s knowledge of a subject that they are able to convey to students

The basic idea is that P = K x C



<snip>

Nice formula, SJM. This REALLY helps in picking a good instructor. I'm going to "steal" this, if you don't mind.

Another thing about picking the perfect (not possible, imho) instructor, is asking oneself, "What is my motivation for wanting to be taught?" I've discovered that most students don't want to know what I know or what Earl knows or whomever...they want to know something else---something that relates to THEIR motivation, not mine. For example, maybe they just want to impress a girl, or not look stupid when playing in a league format, or to create an excuse for going out drinking. Everybody's reasons differ from the instructors, so a good instructor has to recognize this up front.

So, I'd say the "perfect" insturctor is the student himself, IF...if he has a effective process to use all the resources he has available, be they a pro, a book, practice, gambling, league, tournaments, etc.

Jeff Livingston

 

[sjm]

Nice formula, SJM. This REALLY helps in picking a good instructor. I'm going to "steal" this, if you don't mind.

ChefJeff, as this formula was something related to me many years ago by a member of the teaching profession as pertaining to the teaching of all subjects, you won't be stealing it from me. By all means, spread the word.

 

[sjm]

What, then, is the perfect mix of scholarship and communication skills? In fact, it is really rather simple, it’s all about maximizing P, where:

P = proportion of a subject that can be taught by a teacher
K = knowledge, the percent of a subject that is understood by the teacher
C = communication skills, percentage of the teacher’s knowledge of a subject that they are able to convey to students

The basic idea is that P = K x C

In another thread, Hemicudas suggested that Grady Matthews is the best pool instructor out there. While it's tough to choose between him, Jerry Briesath, Marc Wilson, Ray Martin and other teachng greats, I think Grady clearly qualifies as a teacher having a very high K value and a very high C value ot go with it.

Maybe Hemicudas is right!

 

[CaptainJR]

P=KxCxS

Let's call S the 'Student' factor.

The student factor.
Yes, there is such a thing. You might think it doesn't have much of an impact. After all, they have come and paid good money to have you teach them so there is a good possibility that they are serious and are going to make an effort to get value for their money. In the student factor is a thing called talent. I think it is kind of curious that the less talent a student has the more important it is to get an excellent teacher, but most times it is the talented student that gets a better teacher. The less talented students end up struggling and a teacher with maybe not up to par communication skills gets frustrated with that student. (Fred, just to make sure you know, I'm not talking about us. I'm just dense, your doing GREAT.)

If your a teacher and want a challenge, you should try what I use to do. I haven't mentioned what it was that I taught, but I did leave a clue. In my first post on this thread I mentioned some different things that can be taught and I capitalized DANCE. Ballroom dancing in particular. Although I spent most of my time teaching other teachers, I also had beginning students. What was so challenging about this? As I mentioned above, most times a student that is paying good money will make an effort to learn. You should try teaching a couple to dance when the wife is dragging the husband in by the ear. LOL

 

[sjm]

The student factor.
Yes, there is such a thing. You might think it doesn't have much of an impact. After all, they have come and paid good money to have you teach them so there is a good possibility that they are serious and are going to make an effort to get value for their money. In the student factor is a thing called talent. I think it is kind of curious that the less talent a student has the more important it is to get an excellent teacher, but most times it is the talented student that gets a better teacher. The less talented students end up struggling and a teacher with maybe not up to par communication skills gets frustrated with that student. (Fred, just to make sure you know, I'm not talking about us. I'm just dense, your doing GREAT.)

If your a teacher and want a challenge, you should try what I use to do. I haven't mentioned what it was that I taught, but I did leave a clue. In my first post on this thread I mentioned some different things that can be taught and I capitalized DANCE. Ballroom dancing in particular. Although I spent most of my time teaching other teachers, I also had beginning students. What was so challenging about this? As I mentioned above, most times a student that is paying good money will make an effort to learn. You should try teaching a couple to dance when the wife is dragging the husband in by the ear. LOL

Nice post. What I'm curious about, Captain, is the extent to which the right instructor can help to increase the student factor by motivating them or by teaching them good learning habits. What has your expereince been?

 

[Williebetmore]

As I mentioned above, most times a student that is paying good money will make an effort to learn. You should try teaching a couple to dance when the wife is dragging the husband in by the ear. LOL

Captain,
Alright, there's no need to resort to personal attacks on this forum. I resent your implication that just because my wife dragged me in by the ear (actually I think the nose and one other appendage may have been involved as well), that I might not have been the best student in the world. I'm positive that there must have been other students worse than me.

P.S. - in our case it turned out that my wife (who is very poorly coordinated) had a lot of trouble learning, and the pool bum did alright.

 

[CaptainJR]

Nice post. What I'm curious about, Captain, is the extent to which the right instructor can help to increase the student factor by motivating them or by teaching them good learning habits. What has your expereince been?

Teaching good learning habits. You have to be SPECIFIC. In this type of thing (a skill rather than book learning) there is only one learning habit. Practice, in practice there are two parts. Amount and What. Give assignments, with amounts of time you expect to be spent on it. Important! - Don't forget to check out how they did on the next lesson. Not only to see how they did, but most importantly to impress on them that it was important and you expected them to do it. Other wise the next assignment may not be taken seriously.

New and exciting things! If your having problems motivating a student, there is nothing like something new to get them going. A great teacher should have a lot of these little things laying around in their head. In dancing it was very easy to come up with something new. New steps. I must have known a couple thousand and variations on most of them. I'm not coming up with the answer for a pool instructor though. Maybe there aren't enough new things in pool to use this way or motivating. Then again maybe there are and I just don't know them. Another important thing about motivating is pointing out improvement or something done well. You must be saying 'Well done' or 'you are making progress there' more than you say 'we need to work on that'. You can always find something to say something good about even if you have to take in consideration the students ability or the amount of time spent. Find the positive.

 

[drivermaker]

If your a teacher and want a challenge, you should try what I use to do. I haven't mentioned what it was that I taught, but I did leave a clue. In my first post on this thread I mentioned some different things that can be taught and I capitalized DANCE. Ballroom dancing in particular.

If you're playing someone in particular that you don't like, and you just stomped them into the ground for a few hundred...would it be in bad taste to cha-cha a couple of laps around the table afterwards? If not, I might want some lessons.

 

[CaptainJR]

Captain,
Alright, there's no need to resort to personal attacks on this forum. I resent your implication that just because my wife dragged me in by the ear (actually I think the nose and one other appendage may have been involved as well), that I might not have been the best student in the world. I'm positive that there must have been other students worse than me.

P.S. - in our case it turned out that my wife (who is very poorly coordinated) had a lot of trouble learning, and the pool bum did alright.

Yup, I have had the situation where the draggie ended up doing better than the dragger. Once it was so obvious. The dragger couldn't handle how much better he was doing than she was and she quit. The draggie stayed on as a student. I didn't teach single men so we had to get him a new teacher. Not to long after that the draggie divorced his wife and married his new teacher. I'll bet his ex-wife didn't drag her next husband anywhere by the ear.

My wife has me figured out and she doesn't need my ear or that other appendage to pull. As a matter of fact it is the threat that she doesn't necessarily need that other appendage at all that keeps me inline.

 

[sjm]

Teaching good learning habits. You have to be SPECIFIC. In this type of thing (a skill rather than book learning) there is only one learning habit. Practice, in practice there are two parts. Amount and What. Give assignments, with amounts of time you expect to be spent on it. Important! - Don't forget to check out how they did on the next lesson. Not only to see how they did, but most importantly to impress on them that it was important and you expected them to do it. Other wise the next assignment may not be taken seriously.

Got it Captain. I can tell you're a good teacher!

 

[CaptainJR]

Got it Captain. I can tell you're a good teacher!

I just wish I was good enough at pool to teach it. LOL

 

[gwvavases]

I just wish I was good enough at pool to teach it. LOL

That brings up a good point: How good of a player should an instructor be?

I've never thought that an instructor needed to play all that well himself; just had to know how to teach others. (Kind of like Olympics gymnastics coaches don't need to be able to perform on the pommel horse or the parallel bars.)

I understand that to get certified through BCA as an instructor, one must successfully complete a 3-day course (or something like that). I don't know if that means that the student-instructor must complete some type of playing proficiency himself or whether it just means that he must understand how to identify a player's skills and train him accordingly.

What do others think? Would you take lessons from an instructor if your own game is already better than the instructor's?

 

[Purdman]

BCA Instructors

The way it was. First, I had to fly from VA to Texas. I went to Randy's Cue Tech College of Cueing Arts for five days. This allowed me to become a Recognized BCA Instructor. I had to be a Recognized Instructor for two years, and send back twelve or more feedback forms from my students each year. After two years and meeting the requirements I returned for another three days in which I had to help teach a class in front of a master instructor. After that, I became a BCA Certified Instructor. The clases cost me $900 total. Add air fare, hotel, and food and we got around $3000 invested in the Certification process. It may have change by now. This was in 1999 and 2001. That's the way it was. Now throw in the video camera and pool table and we are into some serious cash. I do resent those who spent a few days somewhere and call themselves Certified Billiard Instructors! There is just to much material to cover in that short period of time. IMHO
Purdman

 

[woody_968]

Good post Don, I have been wanting to get into teaching and have worked very hard on my game to bring it to a level that people would feel that I had the ability to give them some information that would help them. But when crunching the numbers it is a big step to make the investment into becomming certified, not knowing if there will be a big enough demand to make it pay off.

 

[drivermaker]

The way it was. First, I had to fly from VA to Texas. I went to Randy's Cue Tech College of Cueing Arts for five days. This allowed me to become a Recognized BCA Instructor. I had to be a Recognized Instructor for two years, and send back twelve or more feedback forms from my students each year. After two years and meeting the requirements I returned for another three days in which I had to help teach a class in front of a master instructor. After that, I became a BCA Certified Instructor. The clases cost me $900 total. Add air fare, hotel, and food and we got around $3000 invested in the Certification process. It may have change by now. This was in 1999 and 2001. That's the way it was. Now throw in the video camera and pool table and we are into some serious cash. I do resent those who spent a few days somewhere and call themselves Certified Billiard Instructors! There is just to much material to cover in that short period of time. IMHO
Purdman

Don...teaching is big business in golf and excercise. In no time flat you can have a student base that's keeping you quite busy and bringing in the bucks. Why? Because they're not cheap and want immediate results. Even if you're living in a pool room with certification, how many people really seek out a teacher and are willing to go for multiple lessons, which they really need? It just seems to me that pool players are cheap and think they can learn it on their own either through playing or someone better than them that they know.

 

[Purdman]

Instruction

Drivemaker, there is a lot of truth to the end of your post. Ronnie Allen never took a lesson and learned by playing better players. I also think he has a great deal of God given talent. He could snap you off one handed and switch hands and do it again.
Yes, there are a lot of cheep pool players, and golfers. I know guys who have millions of dollars and are as cheep as they come. Even had one tell me he had more fun making his money than spending it. Sick dam puppy if you ask me.
There are those out there that want to learn the right way. Good mechanics, good strokes, reading the table layout, chooseing a cue, buying a table, and just wanting to improve their game. That's where I come in. I do a video analysys. Several during six 2 hr. lessons. I cover proper mechanics and stroke. The mental game, eye patern, pre shot ritual, the switch, the analytical and creative aspects. You name it, I can cover it. If not, I know somebody who can and I won't hesitate to ask. Everyone has improved!!!! Purdman