How to Practice
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| Tiger’s Practice Gets Results, Does Yours? |
Learning pool is like learning any other complex skill, the piano for example; you need to practice. Even the very best, most skillful players got that way with disciplined practice. And not only did the greats use practice to become great, they still use it to stay at the top of their games and to improve any weaknesses that might keep them from being the best. From Vladimir Horowitz to Billy Joel, from Ben Hogan & Johnny Unitas to Tiger Woods & Peyton Manning, the best players all use practice to become great and to maximize their ability to improve.
But not just any practice. It’s important to use your time wisely, both to maximize your progress and keep up your enthusiasm. Practice is different from playing. It isn’t usually as much fun (more on this in later articles), but with the right practice your skills will improve much faster and much further than if you just spent the same amount of time just playing.
Structured Practice is simply breaking down the total skill to be learned (playing pool) into its component parts, prioritizing those parts keeping in mind which ones are dependent on others, and working on drills or routines that focus on the specific sub-skills until they are learned to the required level of proficiency. By focusing first on the skills that are fundamental to all others first, and then on those that are required the most frequently, progress can be made very rapidly.
The best players all use practice to become great and to maximize their ability to improve.
For improving, structured practice is better than just playing in three important ways. First, you get to control the order of what it is you work on. That way, you can ensure that you don’t work on a skill that depends on another that you haven’t mastered yet. Even when dependency isn’t an issue, you’ll benefit greatly from control over what to work on. Work first on those things that will have the greatest impact, because they come up so often.
The second advantage structured practice has over just playing is repetition. Our brains learn things much faster and more completely (we won’t forget) when we repeat an activity over and over. The memory of the last attempt is still fresh and we can make adjustments appropriately. Then we do it again and perfect the action even more, repeating until we have achieved the level of skill we were aiming for. Once satisfied, we then modify the shot in a simple way (a little farther or a little more angle, and practice that new shot. Keep the steps from one shot to the next small, and every time you miss, go back to the previous shot.
Lastly, structured practice can be targeted to focus on just about anything. No matter what your weakness is, there will be one or more targeted ways to improve it. A simple example of this is practicing a shot that you missed in a match that you thought you should have made. Just set up the shot and shoot it over and over until you can do it 10 times in a row. To really make the shot a solid part of your arsenal, make sure that you practice it from both sides of the table. And don’t forget to expand on your new skill by varying the angle slightly once you get the 1st shot down. This will help you to master related shots as opposed to just specific shots.
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One Response to “How to Practice”
Jack Shepherd
- October 21st, 2009
The IPAT DVDs are the best I have seen in there approach to practice – starting with recommending stroking ten thousand cue balls into the corner pocket to develop a stroke!!!!!
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