Thought patterns ...
- Thread starter dquarasr
- Start date
There is nothing to nothing but nothing itself.
Zen loses definition in the translation. There is no meaning except meaning itself.
Not for the faint of heart.
Earbuds saved my sanity on league nights when they're blowing the roof off the joint.
Well said Frosty!!!
dquarasr
Registered
Great responses and thanks to all!
Followup #2: Tried the Mighty X again just now (didn't record it). Got to 35 in a row. Wife started talking to me while I was down on shot #36. I stayed on the shot, see if I could tune out the distraction. Yeah, no. Should have stood up and waited until she was done with her topic. (No, not blaming her. Blaming me for not handling the distraction properly.)
That's a different kind of distraction than what we usually encounter in competition. At the hall, there might be other kinds of distractions like movement, loud music, players shooting on the adjacent table, but unless you're among a bunch of a-holes or someone trying to shark you, no one is talking directly to you.
Anyway, 35 in a row is a new PB. I'll try again soon. I hope to get to 100.
It's also weird: after I was done with the streak, I shot a few more just to reacclimate myself. Then I tried to get draw on the shot. The only thing different from a stop shot, to shoot a draw shot *should* be the tip position, just a bit lower and maybe a slightly longer stroke to increase the shot speed. Yeah, no. I had all kinds of things in my head, even when I shortened my stroke length back to what I was using with the stop shot, just lower on the CB. Still either made the ball and got no draw (or even a little follow), or I miscued, or most often, I missed the shot. That in itself is an interesting lesson learned. The discipline needed to execute a draw shot, ostensibly not that different from a a stop shot, is probably even more critical. Or maybe I was making it tougher in my head, and I didn't need any different discipline. Same can be said for any shot that is not the straight-in Mighty X stop shot. Now that I think of it, no, the discipline for a more difficult shot really shouldn't be any different from a really easy shot. Perhaps that's the lesson.
Learning, learning, learning. Learning about the game, learning about myself.
Followup #2: Tried the Mighty X again just now (didn't record it). Got to 35 in a row. Wife started talking to me while I was down on shot #36. I stayed on the shot, see if I could tune out the distraction. Yeah, no. Should have stood up and waited until she was done with her topic. (No, not blaming her. Blaming me for not handling the distraction properly.)
That's a different kind of distraction than what we usually encounter in competition. At the hall, there might be other kinds of distractions like movement, loud music, players shooting on the adjacent table, but unless you're among a bunch of a-holes or someone trying to shark you, no one is talking directly to you.
Anyway, 35 in a row is a new PB. I'll try again soon. I hope to get to 100.
It's also weird: after I was done with the streak, I shot a few more just to reacclimate myself. Then I tried to get draw on the shot. The only thing different from a stop shot, to shoot a draw shot *should* be the tip position, just a bit lower and maybe a slightly longer stroke to increase the shot speed. Yeah, no. I had all kinds of things in my head, even when I shortened my stroke length back to what I was using with the stop shot, just lower on the CB. Still either made the ball and got no draw (or even a little follow), or I miscued, or most often, I missed the shot. That in itself is an interesting lesson learned. The discipline needed to execute a draw shot, ostensibly not that different from a a stop shot, is probably even more critical. Or maybe I was making it tougher in my head, and I didn't need any different discipline. Same can be said for any shot that is not the straight-in Mighty X stop shot. Now that I think of it, no, the discipline for a more difficult shot really shouldn't be any different from a really easy shot. Perhaps that's the lesson.
Learning, learning, learning. Learning about the game, learning about myself.
There are no such things as easy shots, and no such things as hard shots, it's just the next shot, you don't think, turning on the bathroom light will be hard this time do you? No, you've done it thousands of times, the difference is you don't allow your conscious brain to interfere with thoughts like make sure you use enough pressure, don't let your finger slip, ect., in fact you don't think about it all, your conscious brain allows your subconscious brain to do what it knows how to do, that's why I say do all your thinking standing up, once you get down to shoot only concentrate on stroking the cueball in a straight line.
Find a mantra that works for you. A word, or phrase that you can put on a loop in your mind, starting at your pre-shot routine, through your execution. I will often use the name of a player that inspires me and put it on a loop. Works for me, and I don't know why. I just kind of started doing this on my own and it helps with nerves. Other than that, don't think of anything. Focus on your pre-shot routine. Focus on the visualization of the shot before even getting down. Focus on your stance and getting into your shot. Focus on tip placement. Focus on the execution. Be there, in the moment.
The unconscious mind is what we want running the show when we are shooting. All of the almost miraculous reflex actions we have performed in our lives were guided by the unconscious which I have read various numbers for but that includes a thousand times more powerful than the conscious mind that is verbally talking to you. I don't think there is a real number known but it is worth remembering the unconscious is far more powerful than the conscious. No reason to have the conscious in the way. I have learned it is idling in a corner somewhere and will step in if it needs to like when you miss shape a little.
Precision comes from the same place that the "impossibly fast" reactions come from. The verbal conscious mind can get between the unconscious and the body and make a mess of things. My brother was driving my truck when we came to a fork in the road from the other direction. A driver didn't realize they didn't have the right of way forking left. Closing speed of well over a hundred miles an hour, my brother split the gap with no visible daylight between any of the three vehicles, not a scratch on my truck!
Of course you have to have the space to do this but it is also the unconscious at work. Not the conscious, or the subconscious, they are three different things. Once I could define them clearly but it has been a long time since I studied such things and I settle for general concepts these days.
Those who have already said we can train the conscious to shut up are absolutely right, required work for me and I suspect most of us. One thing that helps is a key. In pool the obvious key is bending over. The old adage, think standing, act only once bending over, is true.
Something that took me even longer was to think standing before my first shot of an inning then only stop and think again if something went wrong. Otherwise the entire inning should be one continuous motion, mentally if not physically. Got to be careful though, I had two people quit me midset within a week or two of each other when I started what I had named stalking the table many years before. I wasn't graceful enough to call it gliding around the table!(grin)
Hu
Precision comes from the same place that the "impossibly fast" reactions come from. The verbal conscious mind can get between the unconscious and the body and make a mess of things. My brother was driving my truck when we came to a fork in the road from the other direction. A driver didn't realize they didn't have the right of way forking left. Closing speed of well over a hundred miles an hour, my brother split the gap with no visible daylight between any of the three vehicles, not a scratch on my truck!
Of course you have to have the space to do this but it is also the unconscious at work. Not the conscious, or the subconscious, they are three different things. Once I could define them clearly but it has been a long time since I studied such things and I settle for general concepts these days.
Those who have already said we can train the conscious to shut up are absolutely right, required work for me and I suspect most of us. One thing that helps is a key. In pool the obvious key is bending over. The old adage, think standing, act only once bending over, is true.
Something that took me even longer was to think standing before my first shot of an inning then only stop and think again if something went wrong. Otherwise the entire inning should be one continuous motion, mentally if not physically. Got to be careful though, I had two people quit me midset within a week or two of each other when I started what I had named stalking the table many years before. I wasn't graceful enough to call it gliding around the table!(grin)
Hu
dquarasr
Registered
Good stuff! I have been really trying to quiet my brain. It's starting to happen but there is a point at which no thinking is actually relenting too much control. Or is it?
Perhaps it's because I haven't yet done enough reps. For instance, I just got done with a short session. I was all over the place, missing shots. WTF? I realized that in trying to "not think about it", I was skipping a very major step in my shot execution: visualizing the ghost ball. Maybe I need to do more reps where this becomes automatic. But as soon as I got down on the shot focused on the ghost ball, all the shots (literally, all the shots) went. It's a fine line between thinking while planning, carrying that thinking into getting down on the shot, then turning off the thoughts. I think I will experiment with identifying a trigger, like, be hyper-focused on planning and visualizing the shot while standing, but the instant I place my front foot is the trigger for abandoning thought and trusting the process. I dunno. I'll see how that goes.
Last night I lost two 9-ball racks, one dogging the 9 and leaving it in the jaws of the pocket because I didn't deliver the cue ball to the ghost ball, the other dogging a really simple 7-ball (having run from the 2) that I should make in my sleep, a 15-degree shot just off the rail with shape on the 9 guaranteed - just make the 7. Same problem: didn't really commit to the ghost ball.
I have been proving to myself that the subconscious (or is it the unconscious?) controls things better than the conscious. Here's something you can try: I bet you take a shower daily, and have done so for years the same way. Next time, don't let it just happen. Think about how you get wet, then how you pick up the soap, then which body part you wash first, then which body part you wash next. I bet at some point you will hesitate trying to figure out what to do next. It's really revealing.
Another example: I taught myself how to shift a manual transmission, and heel-toe downshift decades ago. Next time you are driving a manual transmission, force yourself to think about the steps: determine the RPM at which to shift; push in the clutch while releasing the throttle; change gears; reengage the clutch and return to the throttle. I bet you're not nearly as smooth as when you aren't thinking about it. It's even more pronounced when executing a heel-toe downshift. The more you think about it the less smooth it becomes.
Learning to turn off the brain for pool is f-ing hard!!
Regarding the bolded sentences, yeah, if only I can be so good to have someone quit on me because I was stalking the table so efficiently that I was shooting too well!!! LOL
I gotta interrupt about this ghost ball principle - especially when it comes to cinching the money.
Take the time to see the overlap and actual alignment of the two balls. This is vital in developing "pocket radar". With just ghost ball and the money ball "pressure" - well you know how that can average out.
Take the time to see the overlap and actual alignment of the two balls. This is vital in developing "pocket radar". With just ghost ball and the money ball "pressure" - well you know how that can average out.
The table was one of those things. Two different youngsters wanted to finish with a decisive victory in a set. As others found out over the years, when it isn't important I might bang around. When it gets important to them, it gets important to me. Where I had been ambling around the table I start walking with power and impulse. I come down on the shot with purpose. It is like going from driving down the street to driving a race car.
Speaking of driving, I have drove manuals most of my life until recent years. A cousin asked how I always found cars with manuals. I told him I didn't look at ones without them! Later I drove race cars with standard transmissions and no clutches. Sometimes shifting without even lifting the throttle on six hundred horse plus engines, stronger than an engine that outdynoed Bobby Allison's engine forty horses on Bobby's dyno. Shifting like that with that drive train was gonna cost a lot of money if you missed, anything from engine to quick change rear!
I owned and drove a few eighteen wheelers too. At times it was the same deal, you got one chance. A lot of situations when you had to get it right fast including people pulling right on the rear bumper on a hill at an intersection to try to get an insurance claim.
Driving a car is a fine example of nonverbal thinking. You dodge potholes and rough spots without even noticing.
The wildest autopilot story was my grandmother. She would drive sixty miles home sound asleep, mostly over bad road! The start of it is the stretch of river road that the biker's got killed on in the old Peter Fonda Easy Rider movie. Us kids thought it was funny and we would watch her with her eyes closed and snoring softly all the way home! She had to be very tight with the man upstairs!
Back when I went to school we had five senses. Now I read we have over 140. I think some of those other senses and maybe some still to be found come in handy sometimes. I paused for a second or two to carefully verify my sight picture before placing my last two shots to set a record of the first perfect score after fifteen years of a competition that world class shooters had shot in. My riding partner was dying when I paused in the middle of a high speed run. On the way home I told him he was directly behind me urging me on with his hands half up when I paused.
He thought about that. "You are right. How could you know?"
"The zone."
Sometimes there is magic in the air and there is still a lot we don't know.
Hu
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Mr Machine
Well-known member
Name the steps in your preshot routine. That becomes your mantra.
Right foot
Left foot
Plant
Stroke
Stroke
Pause
Slooooow back
Pause
Follow thru
Right foot
Left foot
Plant
Stroke
Stroke
Pause
Slooooow back
Pause
Follow thru
You are
You are on your way, if placing your front foot works for you then make that your trigger, I like to be fully lined up on the shot before I let go but you need to do what works for you, I have learned how to see the cueball the object ball and the pocket all at the same time, the cueball isn't the most in focus but it's good enough for striking the cueball more accurately, I don't think about it, a pure stroke and let it go