I play my best when I am not trying. Just make the ball and play shape until the game is over. No thinking about anything. One time I was playing a friend and wasnt paying attention. While he is racking he says you havent missed a ball in 30 minutes. Of course I missed the next shot. That is my best zone experience until I realized I was in the zone.
When do you play at your best?
- Thread starter Flakeandrun
- Start date
Flakeandrun
Well-known member
'Auto-pilot' or 'the zone' is where we want to be. Interesting to see the different ways people find of putting themselves there.
You get it!
And you do too!
Absolutely. I discovered the key to doing this for me was to establish a “trigger” in my PSR to separate the 2. Chalking while allowing the conscious to evaluate the table, weigh options and percentages to come to a decision on how to proceed. Once the decision is made,the chalk is put on the rail. That is my “trigger” for the conscious to shutdown and allow my subconscious to visualize what I want to do. Once I’ve seen the picture clearly in my minds eye, I drop on the ball and execute.
George the Greek
Well-known member
The conscious mind makes the analysis and the subconscious makes the hit. I would guess whatever works for the individual . I had my own way of getting in the zone and it would be mind boggling if I tried explaining it to someone.
Yes, which is why top players don't take advantage of the newer chalks where you don't have to chalk before every shot. That would cause their PSR to change frequently --- when they do and don't chalk.
I think there are two types of triggers: One that moves you along in your PSR from one stage to the next, and another that helps steer you back when your mind starts to go astray.
Unfortunately, we can not summon the zone on demand. What we do know from sports science is that it is associated with a presence of alpha waves in the brain, which are associated with meditative or sleep-like states, vs. beta waves which are present with higher anxiety. So the best we can do is to create the environment that would facilitate alpha waves and hope the zone kicks-in.
Back in the 80s, the Soviet Olympic weightlifting team used biofeedback before their competitions. They would hook up their athletes to brain wave monitors before their matches, and through meditation techniques and a quiet environment, induce alpha waves.
Flakeandrun
Well-known member
Absolutely fascinating.
This thread has given me a lot of reading and general research jump-offs. In general, not just pool. Thanks all!
Biloxi Boy
Man With A Golden Arm
Not to derail the thread, but, for me at least, there are two "zones" in pool. I think they are related or possibly just different levels of the same state. Total absorption seems be the common denominator.
One occurs when competing and I "catch a gear" and can't seem to miss. The other is when I am running balls by myself and time seems to slow or stop and the whole world goes away.
One occurs when competing and I "catch a gear" and can't seem to miss. The other is when I am running balls by myself and time seems to slow or stop and the whole world goes away.
Flakeandrun
Well-known member
Not a derail at all. That 'gear' is definitely when we play best, or feel good/have more memorable time at the table. How to catch that 'gear'?
Like you, a few others said when they're lost to the world and tired, becoming almost robotic. This interests me, as actually fatigue makes me hate life and all things. I definitely do not play my best in this state.
Motivation brings my best. I can think of three. With showing off for the girls being 1.)
2.)Blood or the prospect of leaking the same. In Oakdale it was go into the back lot and first one to hit the ground buys the beer.
3.) Doing time. I worked 12 hours to make $25 driving cab. My $5 bartable 8 ball was the best 5 racks I have ever put together. That didn't take an hour shrug
. Killed my action in that bar.
2.)Blood or the prospect of leaking the same. In Oakdale it was go into the back lot and first one to hit the ground buys the beer.
3.) Doing time. I worked 12 hours to make $25 driving cab. My $5 bartable 8 ball was the best 5 racks I have ever put together. That didn't take an hour shrug
. Killed my action in that bar.
Yep to both. For me, that second trigger is focusing on my breathing.
A former mentor described this as “learning how to stop thinking without falling asleep”.
Something I need to work on right now, the quiet mind. I try to make an entire inning feel like a continuous action and the only way to do that is to plan the inning in it's entirety and then have the highest level of the mind shut up! Many benefits starting with flow. A quiet mind and flow may well lead to the highest known level of the zone. There it is possible to function very very close to 100% of our maximum ability.
Talking to everyone: There are a lot of misunderstandings about the zone and different people use the word to refer to different things. "Flow" isn't normally the zone although some use the words interchangeably. The zone I am interested in is a higher state of consciousness. Our senses and even senses we didn't know we have start working at a much higher level. As an example, although hard of hearing I might hear every word of a conversation across a crowded room.
The subconscious is not the same as the unconscious and the unconscious is what we are interested in. It controls things like our heart beat and normally walking, running, and breathing. All of these things including heart beat can be brought under voluntary control with practice.
I have been in the zone many times. Repetitive motions that aren't quite the same seem to help induce it, think bouncing a rubber ball or using your hand to roll a cue ball around the table or across it over and over.
Short track racing a car was perfect to enter the zone. Each lap was very similar except when flowing through traffic. Pool is one of the more difficult things to enter and stay in the zone due to the constant interruption of racking. However, the longest I was ever in the zone was shooting pool on an old challenge table. Other people served as my rack boys and I played all night going into the place in daylight and leaving in daylight the next morning. I knew I had played ten or twelve hours but subjectively I felt like I had played two or three hours and I felt fresh enough to play another twelve hours.
I had a chance to set a pistol record one dark and stormy night shooting outdoors. Just past the halfway point I realized I had just shot the toughest stage for me and I was still clean, perfect score on all targets.
We used an electronic timer with a starting buzzer to start each stage. I decided I would use the sound of the buzzer as my cue to drop into the zone. The buzzer would sound, my hands would sweep from the surrender position to the draw. By the time I drew my pistol, less than a second, I was in the zone each stage.
That particular record had stood uncaptured for fifteen years. I took it in my second season shooting although I had been competing at something literally all of my life and I was in my thirties when I set this record. A perfect score so like a perfect in snooker it could never be surpassed, only matched.
The more often I entered the zone the easier it became to find it. It isn't a narrow focus but some find that a narrow focus can lead to the zone and consider narrow focus to be the second level of the zone with no focus being the third and highest level of the zone. I found it possible to jump directly into third level.
My sister had her first baby and it had just started rolling over. She lay the baby on the couch as usual and went to grab a diaper. The baby rolled over and fell off the couch towards a concrete floor covered with the old tarpaper linoleum. I was about ten or twelve feet away from the baby leaning in a doorway and my sister had just entered the other end of the living room so she was about twenty feet away but saw everything. With a rolling dive I landed under the baby on my back and caught it. I even kept from banging my own head on the floor. This was the type of stunt action heroes in movies pulled off, not half drunk adolescents. My sister asked how in the world I did it. "No choice."
Under the weight of pure necessity I had snapped into the zone in a split second, the baby was already starting to fall when I saw the danger.
Shooting an old half inch steel plate rack it was possible to watch them all fall in the zone. Five plates and the first would be at about a forty-five degree angle when I shot the last and I could watch them all fall in an effect that reminded me of a waterfall.
The zone is a magic place where we can have a 100% performance, even above what we thought was 100%!
I suspect that the zone will be fully understood by sports medicine professionals in fifty or a hundred years. Until it is understood it can seem like magic.
Hu
It IS magic Hu..... what the mind can do.
No doubt, no fear..... just see, and do...... let the magic begin.
td
I read that technology at a high enough level appears to be magic. The same is true of our own minds and bodies. Huge strides still to be made studying both.
You are absolutely right, no time for doubt or fear, or hesitation either. We see a need and fill it. Sometime in the future I think we will all be taught how to enter the zone when needed. A lot of lives could be saved on the highway and other places if we snapped into the zone when needed.
My truck but my brother driving it: The road forked from the other direction. Somebody taking the left fork decided they had right of way and crossed in front of us. with another vehicle keeping my brother from being able to dodge. A head on collision seemed unavoidable with a closing speed of over 100MPH with all three vehicles at highway speed.
No daylight to be seen either side but my brother shot the gap between the two vehicles coming at us head on. Magic indeed!
Hu
I can give you the 5 out from the rail !
No way! You’d lose your shirt.
Honestly when I am pontificating about every single thing someone did wrong, I’m too busy thinking how smart I am to consider gambling!
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
Really? When I was young I mostly played a loop bridge and if open I tucked my middle two fingers under because with a spread hand, my ring finger would dance around involuntarily. Was more of a distraction than a trigger for focus. But I never tried to do it, it just happened.Have you noticed how many of the top snooker players tap a finger on the bridge hand? Usually the middle finger. After Barry Stark naming the ring finger as the trigger I tap my ring finger on the bridge hand as my reminder. It helps me