I made a good choice by getting individual instruction. It suits me better than group instruction. Plus, I talk too much and ask too many questions. I think I would be a distraction to other students.
The Talent Code
- Thread starter chefjeff
- Start date
Lou, I agree and disagree with you. Every sport has standards that have been developed by experts in the sport down over the years. Billiards is no exception. I believe most instructors teach a standard stance and stroke that is deemed best for the sport to develop proefficiency in the sport. Granted, some players may have slight variations to the standard, but the standards are the shortest distance between 2 points.
As for comparisons to the Billiards stance and stroke, I would offer the golf stance and swing, and the batting stance and swing in baseball.
When we first have to conform our bodies to a stance and swing, it may seem awkward until we get used to it, but eventually it becomes second nature to us.
lol. I think whether you talk a lot or not , individual instruction is a wise choice.
Lou Figueroa
I think maybe we agree and disagree. In any case, I don't see how you can say standards have been set, for pool, that really maximize the learning experience for the student. We are in the dark ages when it comes to instruction, as a sport, and we have come to accept it -- if not extoll it.
We have video now you can look at after gang, cookie-cutter sessions by mediocre players cum instructors. Woo wee. Other sports have computer analysis where have little doobers they put on your feet, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, head -- and based on sophisticated models of the best players -- you can figure out what delivers a player's bestest delivery for a player's height, body type, muscle mass, and other factors. What do we have that's comparable to anything remotely similar when it comes to pool instruction?
I'll let you answer that for yourself ;-)
Lou Figueroa
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There was an article in the NTimes recently about research that shows that "grit" can be an accurate predictor of a student's success. (There's even a test to find out where you fall on the "Grit Scale.") Basically the idea is that if a student has the character/grit to stick with a task, despite failures, they are the most likely to eventually succeed.
I think that is certainly true for pool. Maybe we're more inclined to call it "heart," but it's basically the drive and determination to stick with the monumental task of getting good at this game. The guys that are willing to stay the course and work hard (HAMB) are the most likely to succeed. The other guys look for the magic pill, short cut, system, shaft, tip, chalk, etc., etc.
Lou Figueroa
Of course.
Everyone knows that those who are willing to fail repeatedly are the ones who end up being successful. A failure is simply one who quits before succeeding.
But that does not mean that there are not shortcuts along the path. If the goal is to get down the hill the fastest and be alive at the end then one guy can take the sure and steady proven path that winds down and the other guy can spend most of his time developing a rope and pulley system and descend the hill in five minutes rather than the two hours it takes to walk down it. And when he is done guess what? The old method is still there for anyone who wants to use it but the new method is there as well for anyone who wants to use it and maybe improve on it.
Everything you know how to do in pool is based on the fact that you saw other people doing great things in pool and you copied them. That was your shortcut. Had you tried to develop your game locked in your basement with no environment of great players and constant challenge then you would not play as well as you now do. You might have ended up technically proficient.
You might have ended up being a Florian Kohler who is the best in the world at wacky crazy mind blowing shots but who admits that he cannot run a rack.
Now that Florian Kohler and his friends have been challenging each other on YouTube there are more and more people who have developed the ability to perform shots that were not even thought of just three years ago.
It's the people willing to bear down and go down all the paths to eliminate the ones they find are fruitless who end up being successful. Why? Because they simply know their shit. They get to a point where they just see a problem and know immediately how to fix it in the most practical and lasting way.
These are the people who don't reject the rope/pulley system just because it's not making them work hard enough. They are willing to try it and see if it works and even better than that they are willing to try it with and eye towards making it work better.
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Well actually we have video analysis software that is used to compare any player's stroke with any other player's stroke. If anyone wanted to compile a dataset of top player's form and find where the consistencies are then they could easily do so. Probably already been done.
http://www.strokeanalyzer.com/
In a post above you seem to disparage anyone who looks for "shortcuts" and yet you lament that pool doesn't have adequate training aids.
There are hundreds of training aids on the market, dozens of videos and lengthy detailed books, dozens of videos by top "credentialed" players, tons of free videos on YouTube, lots of free "alternative" aiming methods to try, easy access to the world's elite players.
I feel like you are being inconsistent. At other times you have advocated a "just do it" approach to learning pool by saying if you just put in the time you will figure it out. And yet here you are saying that we NEED to have sophisticated computer modeled training to tell any given person what type of stroke they should be using?
How a person ultimately plays is predicated on what their experiences and influences are. If you have an average player who doesn't have daily access to a lot of better players and no one constantly beating up on him to show him what to do then that person goes to an instructor. The instructor helps him the best way he can and if that way happens to be rebuilding the player's stroke then so what? At that moment it is what it is and nothing more. At that moment neither the student nor the teacher knows where the student will go. The instructor gives his knowledge and the student absorbs it and works it out.
Pool instruction is not in the dark ages. That is completely untrue when one looks at the amount of instruction from very basic to advanced that is available and the ease of accessing it. Try walking up to Tiger Woods and asking him for a lesson. Try getting to Roger Federer.
But I guarantee you that you can easily get a lesson from Efren Reyes and get it cheaply. Just show up at the pool room and offer to play him one pocket and he will gladly give up big weight and play cheap.
How can a sport be in the dark ages when access to the best is so universal?
Lou...Let's see...Randyg has finished 2nd in a national tournament. I have finished 3rd in a national tournament. Is that good enough to "pass your test" of being able to play...or do you consider that just mediocre? Maybe you and I should schedule a TAR match. Of course you'd have to give me huge weight, since you allegedly play so much better than I do.
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
don't mean to jump in here and i'm definitely not taking sides, i think it's a great thread and good points made by both sides, but i would also like to know which event randyg has finished 2nd in and which event you have finished 3rd in as it seems relevant to the discussion on hand.
i think it would also add credibility to what you have been saying - that you are not only someone who teaches but someone who also does/once did.
I think we have finally arrived at our major philosophical difference after all these years: you describe the journey as getting down the hill fastest. I have always described it as the struggle up the mountain.
Lou Figueroa
Ever heard of a ski-lift? The pulley works both ways. If you have been to China and hiked any of it's mountains then you would know that often people have carved steps into the mountainsides to make their journeys up and down them easier. They created their own shortcuts by shaping the world around them so that those who came after would not have to struggle as much.
Our fundamental difference is that I believe that all the answers to everything are not known. I firmly believe that people continue to grow their insight and the more that people share the more insights can happen. As you have said there are many styles to playing pool. And there are many styles to teaching it.
The thing that does not change and that which is the same for everyone is mastery. In order to MASTER something people have to put in the time. The journey can be one of taking alternate paths or it can be a straightforward head down progression but either way to end up as a master all the skills will have to be learned. If I want to beat you easily playing one pocket then I have put in more time than you so that I can learn more. If you already have five thousand hours in struggling up the mountain then I have to do what it takes which might include just going to the top and paying a top player to beat on me for a year solid for ten hours a day. At the end of that I will have compressed the time it would normally take to master something into less time than if I did not bear down with that much dedication.
The whole premise of the book is simply that given opportunity and dedication and time to devote to a single purpose most people CAN NOT FAIL to get to world class in any endeavor. That's the journey. A good coach is the ski-lift.
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Well actually we have video analysis software that is used to compare any player's stroke with any other player's stroke. If anyone wanted to compile a dataset of top player's form and find where the consistencies are then they could easily do so. Probably already been done.
http://www.strokeanalyzer.com/
In a post above you seem to disparage anyone who looks for "shortcuts" and yet you lament that pool doesn't have adequate training aids.
There are hundreds of training aids on the market, dozens of videos and lengthy detailed books, dozens of videos by top "credentialed" players, tons of free videos on YouTube, lots of free "alternative" aiming methods to try, easy access to the world's elite players.
I feel like you are being inconsistent. At other times you have advocated a "just do it" approach to learning pool by saying if you just put in the time you will figure it out. And yet here you are saying that we NEED to have sophisticated computer modeled training to tell any given person what type of stroke they should be using?
How a person ultimately plays is predicated on what their experiences and influences are. If you have an average player who doesn't have daily access to a lot of better players and no one constantly beating up on him to show him what to do then that person goes to an instructor. The instructor helps him the best way he can and if that way happens to be rebuilding the player's stroke then so what? At that moment it is what it is and nothing more. At that moment neither the student nor the teacher knows where the student will go. The instructor gives his knowledge and the student absorbs it and works it out.
Pool instruction is not in the dark ages. That is completely untrue when one looks at the amount of instruction from very basic to advanced that is available and the ease of accessing it. Try walking up to Tiger Woods and asking him for a lesson. Try getting to Roger Federer.
But I guarantee you that you can easily get a lesson from Efren Reyes and get it cheaply. Just show up at the pool room and offer to play him one pocket and he will gladly give up big weight and play cheap.
How can a sport be in the dark ages when access to the best is so universal?
I don't know. The only doober I see in that screen capture is Joey
Actually though, as I understand it, the software you mention is still very primitive and limited in utility. I also don't recall any instructors coming onboard to announce that they had integrated this into their training programs -- this being more of a DIY at home kinda thing, but I could be wrong.
As to "dark ages" I was speaking to a general lack of sophistication. Yes, there are all kinds of training aids and a lot of them look like what Kevin Costner had on during a scene in "Tin Cup." By comparison to other individual sports, like tennis, golf, bicycling, even track and field, pool is light years behind when it comes to performance analysis and improvement.
Lou Figueroa
No but try to do it all by yourself without help. The shortcuts there are Sherpa guides who know the mountain intimately.
Also in preparation for climbing Everest there is a huge body of reference materials to use to get yourself into the right conditioning, what the best route is, how to work with the culture, what sorts of government issues there are etc.....
Modern gear is high tech and safer.
All this comes from those who went before you and layered their experience on top of it. So that each climb is "easier" than the one before it by the simple virtue of knowledge sharing.
And did you know that there are mountain climbing coaches as well and not all of them have climbed Everest? Some are just great at getting people started with the basics that every climber needs regards of the mountain they are going to tackle and kindling a love of mountain climbing. How about that?
Also Lou, not everyone starts at the bottom on Everest. Some people take a helicopter up to a certain level and start there preferring to jump right to the hard part rather than to spend a day hiking up the lower part.
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See you are speaking for some else. Unless you read or know for a fact that Jerry Rice thought there was no fun in hard practice.
When did hard work not include fun? There are alot of banks I'm trying now that fail, but I'm still have fun trying them and then when I get the hang of one type, the fun really starts. Pleasure of Small Motions.
I'm not saying you will not have good and bad times in long, hard practice, but that doesn't mean there is no fun.
Maybe it's because a long time ago I decided that I could be up to my neck in shit and still have fun.
I really think I'm on a whole different level. The level that most on here want to be at, but just don't want to put in the work hard to get there, but sure try to talk the talk.
I don't know. The only doober I see in that screen capture is Joey
Actually though, as I understand it, the software you mention is still very primitive and limited in utility. I also don't recall any instructors coming onboard to announce that they had integrated this into their training programs -- this being more of a DIY at home kinda thing, but I could be wrong.
As to "dark ages" I was speaking to a general lack of sophistication. Yes, there are all kinds of training aids and a lot of them look like what Kevin Costner had on during a scene in "Tin Cup." By comparison to other individual sports, like tennis, golf, bicycling, even track and field, pool is light years behind when it comes to performance analysis and improvement.
Lou Figueroa
Do you honestly think that other sports are that sophisticated at the lower levels? Do you think that the high school track and field department is running a lab to track every athlete's vitals and run their performances through computer models?
Come on man. You know better than this. You are tossing up nonsense arguments for what purpose? You know as well as I do that pool does not NEED high-tech analysis in order for pool players to become world class.
I can almost guarantee you that IF someone came on here and said that they had developed a multi-million dollar training facility with full 3d scanning and modeling capability and the cost to come and find out what stroke suits you best was say $1000 per day you would be the first person on this forum denouncing it as unnecessary and a waste of money. And that would be EVEN IF ten world champions endorsed it.
Good points, but the Sherpas do not train you for the climb. You are expected to have done that beforehand. As to the helicopters, sure, you can chopper up, but you must still be prepared for the ascent. Just because I send in my entry to the US Open does not mean I am competitive at that level and should even be there in the first place. Lots of folks die on Everest every year...
Lou Figueroa
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From "Talent is Overareted" by Geoff Colvin re Jerry Rice's workouts:
"It wasn't fun. There's nothing enjoyable about running to the point of exhaustion or lifting weights to the point of muscle failure. But these were centrally important activities."
There's more. You should read it if you have not.
Lou Figueroa
I think at the lower levels, yes high school track programs are more sophisticated than what we have at pool. And certainly you can become world class without high tech analysis -- but just think if it was -- who knows what the level of play might ascend to then. And you are wrong -- personally, if high level sports clinics and sophisticated analysis were available and affordable, I'd sure sign up. But we don't have, and may never have, anything at that level.
Lou Figueroa