phil in sofla
08-22-2002, 11:56 AM
Must have happened to all of us at one time or another. You're playing well, close to your best pool, and then something happens, and for some indeterminate period of time (about as long as it matters), you cannot play pool. Pocketing is questionable, shape is impossible, running out, no way, and even the ball in hand two or three ball out is an adventure, and no sure thing.
Of course confidence fails when your game leaves you, you shoot tentatively, and it shows. You pass up shots you'd normally take, and then fail on the safety try you went for instead, overrolling or underrolling, or giving up ball in hand, and selling out the rack.
The weirdest thing in my mind is that is can happen directly after a run of very good play, and I saw it happen in a league match last night within two innings of one shooter's play. He ran 4 balls effortlessly, had to bank an otherwise pocketless ball (made it, a hard bank that we didn't think could go), got on his next ball with the long cross corner bank off the long rail his only possible shot (made THAT one), got snookered on his final ball before the 8, kicked to it and made a good hit, but then gave up the table. After that, he had multiple decent shots on his last object ball, and the 8, and missed maybe 6 times in a row, and missed badly.
Obviously, as in football within the red zone, it sometimes gets harder the closer you are to scoring, and missing the key ball or the money ball isn't all that uncommon. So, within a single game in which you have shot well, there can be psychological reasons why you muff the out balls. I'm really talking about a longer period of time in which you cannot string more than two balls together.
I shot decently through last Sunday, and then struggled for two or three days. I decided to practice the #1 shot of Kinnister's, a straight in down the rail (just off it) stroke tester, CB just off the #2 diamond on the long rail, the OB just off the #6 diamond, to straighten out my stroke. That seemed to do the trick, and I got back on track.
But why does the stroke go haywire for no obvious reason? Mainly physical reasons, mental reasons, what? It is true that I've been running on too little rest, but that isn't unusual, and it was the same before I had the slump. Maybe an accummulative effect there, I suppose, as I've finally succumbed to a head cold, probably from getting run down. But why would such a factor lead to a mechanical change in the stroke?
Of course confidence fails when your game leaves you, you shoot tentatively, and it shows. You pass up shots you'd normally take, and then fail on the safety try you went for instead, overrolling or underrolling, or giving up ball in hand, and selling out the rack.
The weirdest thing in my mind is that is can happen directly after a run of very good play, and I saw it happen in a league match last night within two innings of one shooter's play. He ran 4 balls effortlessly, had to bank an otherwise pocketless ball (made it, a hard bank that we didn't think could go), got on his next ball with the long cross corner bank off the long rail his only possible shot (made THAT one), got snookered on his final ball before the 8, kicked to it and made a good hit, but then gave up the table. After that, he had multiple decent shots on his last object ball, and the 8, and missed maybe 6 times in a row, and missed badly.
Obviously, as in football within the red zone, it sometimes gets harder the closer you are to scoring, and missing the key ball or the money ball isn't all that uncommon. So, within a single game in which you have shot well, there can be psychological reasons why you muff the out balls. I'm really talking about a longer period of time in which you cannot string more than two balls together.
I shot decently through last Sunday, and then struggled for two or three days. I decided to practice the #1 shot of Kinnister's, a straight in down the rail (just off it) stroke tester, CB just off the #2 diamond on the long rail, the OB just off the #6 diamond, to straighten out my stroke. That seemed to do the trick, and I got back on track.
But why does the stroke go haywire for no obvious reason? Mainly physical reasons, mental reasons, what? It is true that I've been running on too little rest, but that isn't unusual, and it was the same before I had the slump. Maybe an accummulative effect there, I suppose, as I've finally succumbed to a head cold, probably from getting run down. But why would such a factor lead to a mechanical change in the stroke?