Any discussion of stroke technique always comes back to fundamentals --stance, grip, stroke mechanics etc-- and how important those fundamentals are. I've begun to doubt some of this fundamentalism (heh heh, sorry for the bad pun). It's not that I don't believe that fundamentals are important, all other things being equal. It's just that I'm not sure if all other things are ever equal.
Before you turn your head in disgust, let me make this clear: I'm not suggesting to discard fundamentals. I'm suggesting that perhaps we need a different perspective. Another disclaimer is that this isn't something I've thought through for a long time. It's a bit of a thought-experiment.
First, let me start by acknowledging that there are attributes of the execution of a pool shot that we know for quite sure help the development of pool skills. Things like alignment, stance, proper follow-through and so on. If someone should develop a style where he abruptly stops the cue right after contacting the cue ball, it's pretty much guaranteed that he wouldn't develop a consistent shot, at least up to a point.
But while there are certain such fundamentals, they have quite a tolerance as to how they can be followed. What can be recognized as a good stroke is a pretty wide-ranging concept. Now, the argument can be made that some of the professionals that have non-textbook fundamentals could improve their skill level by fixing those flaws of their stroke, but my argument is not that because there are really good players with questionable fundamentals that fundamentals don't matter.
My argument is that it's quite possible that too much focus on fixing the flaws of your technique might slow down your development. My argument is that there is quite a wide range of techniques that work just fine. In other words, take a player who has a recognizable flaw, though not a big one, in his technique. It might be that "fixing" that particular flaw is not a net win for the player. Of course, the traditional argument goes that you have to focus on fixing the problem only for a while and then it becomes automatic.
However, I think that any type of conscious control over the execution is largely harmful for the learning process. This is pretty much the argument that Timothy Gallwey puts forward in his book The Inner Game of Tennis. The conscious mind only gives goals and targets for the unconscious (or "body" if you will) and lets the unconscious execute it. The unconscious (or the motor cortex to be more exact) figures out how to do it after practice, given a little bit of help to the right direction. This help is basically just a general image/visualization of the shot.
Gallwey's ideas aren't of course against fundamentals, per se, but I feel that the end result of the way Gallwey suggest we should learn might not be that close to what we could consider proper fundamentals. There are some things that you probably can't completely ignore, but the range of good enough techniques is, in my opinion, much wider than most people think. By "good enough" I mean techniques that are obviously somewhat flawed, but that fixing them wouldn't help the player.
Let's take a reasonably good player who has some flaw in his technique. Let's say his hand isn't completely straight on the shooting line. Now, you can logically argue that if his hand was completely straight, he would shoot better. First, it is near impossible to verify this objectively. You could possibly manufacture tests that measure this, but it would take so much time and effort to test this particular feature and you wouldn't still be sure if it's in fact the straightness that makes the difference if there was any.
Second, we don't quite know how exactly our brains do in fact learn to execute shots. We don't know what are all the things in our motor system that promote the best possible consistency. It might be that for a given individual, the optimal technique isn't exactly what we think is the best set of fundamentals.
Now, as I said before, there are things that we know for quite sure are important for the best technique. The optimal stroke probably isn't too "jerky" or otherwise not smooth. You probably can't stand up before you even execute the shot. And so on. Fixing really obvious flaws probably gives high yield for most players. But my claim is that this yield will stop at some point and I think the point isn't at "pretty much perfect fundamentals" but quite far away from that.
As is hopefully clear from the above, I'm not suggesting to throw away fundamentals. My thinking is that through non-judgemental observation and visualization/emulation of known good techniques, you can let your body learn on its own and if with it comes something that could be considered a flaw, don't necessarily regard it as something that you should fix. I believe that through the process that Gallwey suggests as the most efficient learning method, you might come up with a technique that suits you best but has flaws compared to perfect fundamentals. And I think that correcting those flaws might not be in your best interest.
Thoughts, disagreements?
Before you turn your head in disgust, let me make this clear: I'm not suggesting to discard fundamentals. I'm suggesting that perhaps we need a different perspective. Another disclaimer is that this isn't something I've thought through for a long time. It's a bit of a thought-experiment.
First, let me start by acknowledging that there are attributes of the execution of a pool shot that we know for quite sure help the development of pool skills. Things like alignment, stance, proper follow-through and so on. If someone should develop a style where he abruptly stops the cue right after contacting the cue ball, it's pretty much guaranteed that he wouldn't develop a consistent shot, at least up to a point.
But while there are certain such fundamentals, they have quite a tolerance as to how they can be followed. What can be recognized as a good stroke is a pretty wide-ranging concept. Now, the argument can be made that some of the professionals that have non-textbook fundamentals could improve their skill level by fixing those flaws of their stroke, but my argument is not that because there are really good players with questionable fundamentals that fundamentals don't matter.
My argument is that it's quite possible that too much focus on fixing the flaws of your technique might slow down your development. My argument is that there is quite a wide range of techniques that work just fine. In other words, take a player who has a recognizable flaw, though not a big one, in his technique. It might be that "fixing" that particular flaw is not a net win for the player. Of course, the traditional argument goes that you have to focus on fixing the problem only for a while and then it becomes automatic.
However, I think that any type of conscious control over the execution is largely harmful for the learning process. This is pretty much the argument that Timothy Gallwey puts forward in his book The Inner Game of Tennis. The conscious mind only gives goals and targets for the unconscious (or "body" if you will) and lets the unconscious execute it. The unconscious (or the motor cortex to be more exact) figures out how to do it after practice, given a little bit of help to the right direction. This help is basically just a general image/visualization of the shot.
Gallwey's ideas aren't of course against fundamentals, per se, but I feel that the end result of the way Gallwey suggest we should learn might not be that close to what we could consider proper fundamentals. There are some things that you probably can't completely ignore, but the range of good enough techniques is, in my opinion, much wider than most people think. By "good enough" I mean techniques that are obviously somewhat flawed, but that fixing them wouldn't help the player.
Let's take a reasonably good player who has some flaw in his technique. Let's say his hand isn't completely straight on the shooting line. Now, you can logically argue that if his hand was completely straight, he would shoot better. First, it is near impossible to verify this objectively. You could possibly manufacture tests that measure this, but it would take so much time and effort to test this particular feature and you wouldn't still be sure if it's in fact the straightness that makes the difference if there was any.
Second, we don't quite know how exactly our brains do in fact learn to execute shots. We don't know what are all the things in our motor system that promote the best possible consistency. It might be that for a given individual, the optimal technique isn't exactly what we think is the best set of fundamentals.
Now, as I said before, there are things that we know for quite sure are important for the best technique. The optimal stroke probably isn't too "jerky" or otherwise not smooth. You probably can't stand up before you even execute the shot. And so on. Fixing really obvious flaws probably gives high yield for most players. But my claim is that this yield will stop at some point and I think the point isn't at "pretty much perfect fundamentals" but quite far away from that.
As is hopefully clear from the above, I'm not suggesting to throw away fundamentals. My thinking is that through non-judgemental observation and visualization/emulation of known good techniques, you can let your body learn on its own and if with it comes something that could be considered a flaw, don't necessarily regard it as something that you should fix. I believe that through the process that Gallwey suggests as the most efficient learning method, you might come up with a technique that suits you best but has flaws compared to perfect fundamentals. And I think that correcting those flaws might not be in your best interest.
Thoughts, disagreements?
