A long time ago......well when I started playing the weekly 9 ball tournaments against the best players in the Northwest I was green as hell and feeling the nerves. After weeks of under performance compared to my play in practice at home, I recall thinking, "when my hands stop shaking I will be fine." Then the epiphany hit. "My hands are not going to stop shaking Until I Make a Ball!" So then my quest became, Learn to play that way. Emphasis on the basic foundation, form and Routine. At 5 dollars a week I considered the lessons a bargain. After a year and a half I won a beer for a 7-8th place finish. A year later I won the tournament.
Under the Strategy heading: Confidence is Huge. Small success when nervous is a beginning for me. So looking for simple safety options over shooting difficult offensive shots early became a viable option.
In practice it's difficult for me to recreat the tension felt in competition. So my self to self coaching led me to the question, "Why?" The self asks. After various failures slash losses slash missed balls. The psychological reality was ......I have borked it every way possible and yet life goes on. So what's to be afraid of? The Coaching in the movie Tin Cup comes to mind. A Beer does take the edge off but it's a slope that requires the discipline to stop at 1. I witnessed and spoke with Cole Dixon regarding just that. Alcoholism makes stopping at least difficult and often unobtainable for an alcoholic. My best big tournament performance had me starting match one with a glass of water a beer and a cup of coffee on my table. A sip of coffee had me Way too jangle so a swallow of beer to calm helped. Then the glass of water to take the place of the habitual beer in hand while seated. It worked for me and I was able to perform to the best of my ability. The beer or alcohol does require discipline and I would consider it a band-aid rather than a cure.
