How to Practice II – Expanding Your Perspective
In my first article about how to practice, I talked about how structured practice enables you to improve at the fastest rate, thus maximizing your effort. This time I want to explore another part of the benefit; one you don’t hear from many others. Doing drills will not just make you better at the particular shots in the drill; if done well it will give you new perspective when you are playing a game.
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| Learn to look at pool in a whole new way |
A good drill is designed to work certain kinds of shots, and do so in ways that test you, and push your limits. In order to complete the drill cleanly, you’ll need to become proficient at variations on the skill underlying the drill. For example, if the drill was designed to work your inside english stroke, you’ll need to use inside english proficiently to successfully run the drill. And by running through the drill repeatedly you cement that knowledge into your brain.
When you work on a drill, it’s important to do it the way it was intended to be run, so that you get the improvement you’re after. You must be absolutely honest with yourself here, because if not you’re wasting your time. If you get out of line and then have to use your great shot making ability to get out, you did not succeed. You should not even attempt the well out of position shot, since it wastes your drill time and encourages you to think you’re succeeding when you’re not. Drills take discipline; you have to be willing to spend time doing them when you’d rather be playing, and you have to do them correctly, no matter how uncomfortable it is to see how much you don’t know or can’t do.
Attitude is everything. Do your best to enjoy the process of getting better. The more awkward the shots feel, the more trouble you have getting out, the more you should be telling yourself "I’m on to something here, I’ve found a real weakness in my game and I’m going to eliminate it. I’m making this skill a part of my game."
First the shots will feel awkward, you’re fighting to make every one. Slowly, as you work them over and over, you begin to fear them less, then not at all, then you get comfortable, then you master them, and make them a dependable part of your arsenal.
Attitude is everything. Do your best to enjoy the process of getting better.
People (not you, of course, just other people) tend to do what’s comfortable if they can. The more that’s on the line, the more they’re likely to stick with the familiar. Let’s be creative and call this "inside-the-box" thinking. How do you get people to think outside their box? It’s very difficult. An alternative that works far better, and is much less painful to boot is to make their box bigger.
That’s what structured practice does for you, it makes inside-the-box a bigger place, so you don’t have to strive to think outside it, or get down on yourself for not doing so.
Now, with this new skill you have, you begin to play a match. When you’re planning your run out, you’ll see opportunities you would have overlooked before, because subconsciously you knew you couldn’t do them, or that you didn’t like them, etc. You might not run out any differently, but then you might, and that has huge implications.
The flexibility you gain by having more choices will let you run out more often, and more easily and will put a new bounce in your step. And if that feeling isn’t worth a few hours of structured practice, I’ll be quite surprised indeed.
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2 Responses to “How to Practice II – Expanding Your Perspective”
Ed The Book
- November 6th, 2009
When I started doing drills I was frustrated because they just seemed too hard. I have also heard players say drills will make you better doing drills not playing pool. I am now beating those players.
John Biddle
- November 6th, 2009
Ed, I am a big proponent of drills, but I would be among the first to agree that they alone will not maximize the quality of your game. They won’t help your strategic thinking at all, unless you do drills designed to do that, and there aren’t many. Playing against tough competition will show you things that you won’t see in practicing alone. Also, it will help you learn to play under pressure much more than drills can do.
That said, I continue to maintain that good drills done appropriately will help your stroke and your ability to make balls and control the cue ball better and faster than any other method.
You say you were frustrated when you started doing drills. Maybe it was because you selected drills that were too tough for your then current level of play. You want to work on drills that you have some difficulty with but that are do-able, if you play well. Right at the 50% success rate is about best.
Did you continue to work on the drills past the frustration, or did you quit in disgust and switch back to what is comfortable?
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