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Great thread, others can use as a template for how to benefit from these DVDs. By not viewing ahead, it allows you to focus on the now. Maximum benefit. I appreciate the time and effort you are devoting to this. Please continue, I plan on following your example, step by step.
 
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Current DVD experience:
This weekend I finally got to a point on the 2nd DVD where Tor actually shows some drills! Other than the 2000ball stroke drill this is really the first one. I'm really stoked for this weeks challenges as it's the starting of balll pocketing/position drills. This is what I've been waiting for!!!! I watched the next 5mins of the disk and got to work,

The setup:
I marked the rack spot and 3 more cueball positions in a straight line at bottom of table and one objectball sticker 1/2 diamond up & 1/2 diamond in into the bottom corner (almost a duck)

The goal:
Using center cue ball, pocket the ball with enough speed to almost make it to 2nd rail, Mark the location with a ball, repeat and mark with ball, until you see where true center takes you. Now use those 2 balls as a target for position, make 5 consecutive hits. This gets repeated again with follow and then draw, moving to the other cueball locations as you complete them.

What really happened:
I m currently on the first (lowest) cueball sticker position and have made my 5 consecutive hits on all three center axis cueball hits. But I wasn't happy with my results. The first time I did center hit I nailed the 2 target balls non stop, but when I took a sandwich break and came back I was constantly off by 1 ball just rolling past the target! This is the most basic drill that requires nothing more than controlled speed and center cueball right????? Making my preshot routine as robotic as possible from my 2000 ball drill I realized I was cheating the pocket when earlier I wasn't. So I reduced the pocket size with a tv remote allowing me to only a center pocket shot. There's really a lot going on in this drill to be consistent. 1) cueball ball must be hit in same spot every time, 2) your cueball speed must be near the same speed as harder or softer changes the direction off the rail, 3) objectball aiming or pocketing must be the same (I wasn't consistent here)

Where I'm going from here:
Although Tor states 5 consecutive hits on the target balls, I'm sticking with this for as long as takes to be super consistent! After all if you cant repeat center cueball how good are you gonna be with English?? I hope to at least get through these positions by next week!
 
I admire your ability to remain disciplined. I think I personally would struggle and lose interest with the basics because of all the years I've been shooting. But with that being said, that's more that likely where all of the problems reside. Years of acquired bad habits! Anyway, great read, please keep the updates coming. I've subscribed to this thread and eagerly await more documentation of your experiment!
 
Ok, it's been almost 2 weeks and I'm a little concerned because I'm stuck on this drill! please advise me if possible!!!!

The goal again,, was to set up a shot, hit center ball, see the cueball path and mark with some balls. Now hit those balls over and over 5times and repeat with low and high English etc.

The issue I'm having is: I hit the balls the same consistently and repeatedly but the next day I miss my target balls by 1-2balls so I readjust the target and I'm fine for that day! I can take breaks and hit the balls fine but 1-2days apart I'm off again but still very consistent?????? I'm guessing it's aim (cheating the pocket) rather than my cueball hit.

Whatcha think???
 
If it was cheating the pocket, then you would have to consistently be cheating the pocket the same each day to be consistent. My guess is you are not hitting center ball, but then again you would need to be hitting consistently off center each time to see the day to day difference.


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"The goal again,, was to set up a shot, hit center ball, see the cueball path and mark with some balls. Now hit those balls over and over 5times and repeat with low and high English etc."

This is a stroke differential. Each time you come to a table your stroke will be a little different, most notably the speed will be inconsistent one day to another, that is why Tor has you set them up and shoot it a few times to determine your line, if you change your speed your destination route will change. But if you are gauging your speed properly, when one of these shots comes up in a game situation, you should know pretty close to exactly where you will end up if you hit the exact shot you practiced at the speed you practiced it at.

Hope this helps. When you work on the ball pocketing download that Tor sends out with the package, you get hours and hours of this for days, to me, speed seemed to be the only varying factor, if you hit all the shots the same way at the same speed you should be ok.
 
My DVD experiment update:
My actual pool game, playing friends and local tourneys has dropped slightly. I've never been so discouraged! I found myself blaming my mental game, focus, desire,etc.etc. just excuse after excuse! So at my local tournament I started talking to some friends, one of which happens to be a multi time national champion and the other a very strong master level player. They both assured me, I was on a correct path! And struggling while learning new habits and thought process's is completely normal. Of course they had the usual pool advise such as "quit being a *****" "gamble" "have a drink" lol. But in seriousness they claim to see drastic improvement in my ball selection and my pattern play has a more natural flow. But again the missed balls are natural from taking in new info.

Going forward:
as frustrating as the last week was, I'm staying with the program and I'm going to continue a sample of the past drills as warm-up before going into the new ones. Probably gonna watch the next chapter in the morning as my work schedule is off from the long weekend. So I'm unsure if I will get to the table as much this week.

Thoughts so far:
The newness and novelty of this has wore off and seems like work at times, added with not being able to see instant results vs hours spent practicing is very daunting. At this point I think if I watched the whole series by now, the dvds would be buried in the cabinet and I probably wouldn't be continuing my lesson lol. But as frustrating this is, I'm still loving the game more than ever!
 
Trust me.

It is fairly natural when first learning new fundamentals in pool for your game to drop off in quality of play (pocketing balls and shape) The newly learned information must become earned by rote.

Generally speaking it takes approximately 28 days of continuous practice before it becomes rote and you are not "thinking" about it. Thinking about the new information is currently necessary but over time, you will do these things automatically and that is when the quality of your game will accelerate.

:yeah:

JoeyA

mvp said:
My DVD experiment update:
My actual pool game, playing friends and local tourneys has dropped slightly. I've never been so discouraged! I found myself blaming my mental game, focus, desire,etc.etc. just excuse after excuse! So at my local tournament I started talking to some friends, one of which happens to be a multi time national champion and the other a very strong master level player. They both assured me, I was on a correct path! And struggling while learning new habits and thought process's is completely normal. Of course they had the usual pool advise such as "quit being a *****" "gamble" "have a drink" lol. But in seriousness they claim to see drastic improvement in my ball selection and my pattern play has a more natural flow. But again the missed balls are natural from taking in new info.

Going forward:
as frustrating as the last week was, I'm staying with the program and I'm going to continue a sample of the past drills as warm-up before going into the new ones. Probably gonna watch the next chapter in the morning as my work schedule is off from the long weekend. So I'm unsure if I will get to the table as much this week.

Thoughts so far:
The newness and novelty of this has wore off and seems like work at times, added with not being able to see instant results vs hours spent practicing is very daunting. At this point I think if I watched the whole series by now, the dvds would be buried in the cabinet and I probably wouldn't be continuing my lesson lol. But as frustrating this is, I'm still loving the game more than ever!
Click to expand...
 
JoeyA said:
It is fairly natural when first learning new fundamentals in pool for your game to drop off in quality of play (pocketing balls and shape) The newly learned information must become earned by rote.

Generally speaking it takes approximately 28 days of continuous practice before it becomes rote and you are not "thinking" about it. Thinking about the new information is currently necessary but over time, you will do these things automatically and that is when the quality of your game will accelerate.

:yeah:

JoeyA
Click to expand...

Great post.
 
Keep your chin up. At some point your brain will decide to put it all together on the same day and you will be permanently at a higher level, funny how months of hard work can all off a sudden make you better...but often it does happen that way
 
next DVD chapter: sliding cueball/tangent lines
although I understand tangent lines already I really liked the way Tor dumbed them down here! In fact I don't recall him even using the words tangent lines ever. Tor sights his objectball to pocket line with a sheet of paper and the 90degree corner is the sliding cueball line (pretty damn simple, right?) He talks a little on drawing/following cueball to stretch or shorten the angle some also.

Upcoming drills for the next week:
Start close, with objectball 8"-12" from corner with a cut shot, pocket ball with sliding cueball, mark rail contact point, line four balls up here removing middle two making a two ball gap. Now try and contact rail without hitting two rails, increasing cueball distance for difficulty. When this is mastered, try holding cue ball on rail inside the ball gap (play shape) you also vary the target zone up and down the rail and repeat using top and bottom cue ball.

part 2 of this tangent line shot is very predictable safeties hiding the cueball, Tor gives a few examples of what to setup and practice

Part 3 is nothing more than rail targets for one or two rail position or breakouts. With a few examples of each

My take on things:
there's nothing here that I haven't seen before, but I like the fact Tor tells you what to practice!
I own the Jerry Briesath's and Mark Wilsons 3 disk DVD set from years past and Jerry does a real good job teaching tangent lines but I think Tor Just made it more fun! And less classroom like.

This will carry me into next week, so unless I have anything noteworthy to add I'll catch you then!
 
After one week of tangent lines,

What I did:
I set up a cut shot into the side, placed target ball on end rail based off of 90degree line from pocket line, and proceeded to hit this shot until 20 consecutive (or I would start over) then I set up another ball 5balls away from target ball on both sides and shot the shot 20times with follow and draw getting position on the original target ball (both sides)

Then using my same marked side pocket shot I moved my target ball off the rail about 5inches and tried to play safe behind it. I wasn't consistent enough with my speed and could only muster up 10 in a row. So I decided to add another ball (bigger target to get behind) until I was 20 straight. This shot was much easier on shorter distances. I ended up setting this up 1/2dozen different ways around the table.

I also varied this drill playing for position off the rail with fairly hard stroke hitting my target rail spot and coming down table, and modified it some to hit 2rails hitting target balls

What I learned:
I went into this THINKING I knew tangent lines, what I learned was: I wasn't hitting/stroking the cueball correctly in the past! On day one, shot one, I realized I was coming under my target balls. I was unintentionally hitting draw on the cueball, not because of poor stroke but just my shooting instinct or feel. It took a little conscious thought but it was really easy to fix.

Final thoughts before moving on:
With the addition of top and follow this drill could be varied and practiced for a year, the set ups and target scenarios are endless! Tangent drills are not quite as rewarding as ball pocketing, but definitely more fun than hitting 2000 balls into a pocket! I also added this to my personal practice book to reference back to when this experiment is over.

Going forward:
Probably gonna finish the week playing rotation, just to avoid drill burnout. And I recently bought a copy of Pleasures in small motions for some restroom reading! I'll advance to the next chapter this Saturday. Any questions feel free to ask!
 
Hang in there, Your doing great.

Probably one of the best investments I've made to help improve my game is titled:
The Little Book of Talent. 52 tips on how to improve what ever sport you play.

The book is available from Amazon. I have the 2 disk version and listen to it while driving. It's helped me to break down every aspect of my fundamentals into manageable chunks. I focus on one chunk a day.

Here is the hard part of your training that you must try to control.
You train at home. When out in the field what ever you do, do not think about anything when playing except to pocket the ball and put the cue ball where you want it. This, by the way, is all done in the standing position, when you bend down to shoot your mind must be silent, just pull back the cue and shoot with no thought.
Watch Cisero Murphy's cue delivery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxobcdPCYwE

Have fun with the training and always keep your main goal in mind.

John :)
 
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It's been a while since I followed up here,
my family has had some major health issues this last week, my mother n law suffered a severe stroke and is in critical condition on life support and my grandmother just got moved to a hospice home. Not much time for pool with taking care of family needs, I may post short things on the main page but until I have ample time in the weeks to come I may be aliitle slow getting to my zeroX training! Family first!
 
I like this idea, in lieu of writing, maybe do a DVD (short clips), where your successes & failures are shown, to see & learn from.

Learning is a 2 step process, 1st is learning the information, 2nd is learning the application of that information.

Overall a good idea. Actually you will learn more & quicker by the repetitive learning of the info & the repetitive application of that info in making the video. You might have even something to market at the end of the trail...
 
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Charley,
That is a great idea.

As a struggling pool player, always trying to learn the truth or the best way to accomplish something, I often discover, re-discover and even contradict what I originally believed for years.

JoeyA

ceebee said:
I like this idea, in lieu of writing , maybe do a DVD, where your successes & failures are shown, to see & learn from.

Learning is a 2 step process, 1st first is learning the information, 2nd is learning the application of that information.

Overall a good idea. Actually you will learn more & quicker by the repetitive learning of the info & the repetitive application of that info in making the video. You might have even something to market at the end of the trail...
Click to expand...
 
JoeyA said:
Charley,
That is a great idea.

As a struggling pool player, always trying to learn the truth or the best way to accomplish something, I often discover, re-discover and even contradict what I originally believed for years.

JoeyA
Click to expand...

JoeyA, you ain't no STRUGGLING Pool Player, but I do agree with what your analysis of how to learn & re-learn.
 
First off thank you for your thoughts on my family members, it's much appreciated!

DVD experiment,
I actually had some time to finish off my sliding tangent line target drills and closed out the first pattern play DVD, I watched a little into the the second pattern play DVD and the focus is back on 1/2 table 4ball only using vertical axis cueball (high,low,center) keeping cueball below side pockets but you can still use all six pockets. Tor gives a 1/2dozen examples of his patterns/position so you can duplicate. Really looking forward to these a lot!!!' It's finally starting to feel like pool and not work! Then again it could be I'm just happy to blow off some steam and get some alone time from the family stress.

What I noticed so far:
Playing 9ball I've noticed how much better my shots are, I think ive drastically improved the ease of my position play already. I don't seem to leave my self that one shot that makes you sweat. But on the other hand I don't think my overall ball pocketing skills have increased. I still miss the tougher ones. Lol

What I honestly believe is happening is I'm putting a lot more thought into the patterns. I've been playing along time and most of the DVD material isn't new information, but Tor's explanations opened my eyes on how much of the finer details of position play I was just skipping!

My goals for the next week or so depending on family issues:
I'm gonna set up his exact patterns until I do each one 5consectuive times mistake free before moving on. I've done a few already and it was really fun!

side note: this DVD experiment is really gonna be real world for average guys, as I've juggled a few vacations, long work hours, now family health concerns. Even on my low weeks I've mangaged to stay above 15hrs a week practice. Mostly coming from late night Saturdays. so for those people who don't have time to play must really not want to! Hopefully all goes well this week and I can give another update! Till then....
 
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