Advice For Older Players

Players in their teens, twenties and even older who are really hooked on pool have such an intensity of purpose. They are often willing to sacrifice a lot… meals, sleep, school work and even relationships for the chance to play. The emotional investment can be enormous. The word “driven” comes to mind. If you are the parent of one of these kids,...

I can empathize but have little to offer by way of a solution. All I can suggest, if you want them at home more often is to get a table.

They happily spend every spare moment (and moments they can’t afford to spare) playing or practicing. With an instructor or a skilled mentor they can progress very quickly. I just did some rough math: A seriously driven player will easily shoot more than a hundred thousand shots in a year. If you have a job (that you want to keep) or are older and retired, it seems unlikely that you will be able to take this path to success. So, what can be done to become a solid player?

Recommendations For Older Players: If you want something more than just having fun playing on the weekend and have a serious commitment to playing well, make the best use of your practice time. Concentrating on your practice can go a long way to maximizing the benefits. Don’t be haphazard. Stay focused for each and every shot. If you notice your attention lagging, stop and refocus. If you aren’t able to refocus, take a break or call it a day. Don’t fall into the trap of putting your body through movements that will build or maintain muscle memory of faulty techniques. Always pay attention to your fundamentals. If you are getting coaching, allow yourself time to practice what you learned alone at the table immediately after the lesson.

Coming back to pool after decades has similarities to learning for the first time. However, if you do things in an organized way, it shouldn’t take as long as for a beginner. No doubt, your body is not the same as when you were 16. You wouldn't be the first to discover that the place you used to hold the butt of your cue is now buried somewhere inside your waist. You’re not as flexible and your stamina may not be what it used to be. Naturally, these factors will affect your stroke mechanics. You will need to relearn some of the basics. Learning or relearning can be accelerated or sometimes made possible at all by getting coaching.

You need to master the techniques that will allow you to stroke the cue on a straight track. You need to see for yourself what you’re doing that reduces your effectiveness. You need to feel what it’s like to do it right and get comfortable enough with that to integrate it into your shot routine. You need to be so solid in your technique that you can do it over and over again, even under pressure. That’s my formula for success.

Finding The Right Instructor: Being a good player or even a great player doesn’t necessarily translate into being a great teacher. Furthermore, pool instructors often have areas that they focus on and areas that they gloss over. A new player needs the fundamentals stressed. “Stay down, keep a level cue, find a more balanced stance, head still, eyes on the object ball, slow back swing, accelerate through the forward stroke, etc.” are the things a new player needs to hear. The player at least has to have a handle on the basics of a good stroke. Otherwise, being told, “pocket the ball with top inside to come two rails so the cue ball tracks on the shot line of the next ball,” won’t be useful even if it comes out of the mouth of a world champion.

Before signing up for a series of lessons, take an introductory one. Watching someone else’s lesson can be useful but doesn’t help much if the student is at a different stage of the learning curve or has different issues. The questions to ask yourself are: Can they teach me what I need to learn? Can I relate to the person? Are they patient? Do they explain things in a way I will understand? Taking lessons from a champion can be expensive. If they can’t teach you what you need, it can add another layer of meaning to the notion of an “expensive lesson.”

Video Tape Your Play: Most people are surprised or even shocked when they watch themselves play on tape. This was definitely true for me. To illustrate: I was consistently missing longer shots hit with a firm stroke. The exact same shot, struck with a medium stroke was no problem. I suspected that I had the common flaw of slightly twisting my wrist or gripping the cue tighter. I video taped myself from behind and the side, shooting the shot easy and then firm.

As it turned out, the butt of my cue was tracking the same on the shots. Never-the-less, I made the medium hits and missed the firmly struck ones. I watched that tape numerous times until I finally saw it. I was so intent on watching my backhand, I hadn’t noticed that every time I missed, my bridge hand came partly off the table! Just try to make a shot like that! Problem solved: keep a solid bridge.

It is difficult to notice small or even not so small imperfections in your stroke. Is your cue tracking toward or away from your body? Are you dropping your shoulder, turning your wrist, raising your head slightly or being a dork like me and lifting your bridge hand, lol? Any of these can degrade the accuracy of a shot. See them for yourself so you can know (and believe) the areas you need to work on.

There’s a adjunct to physical practice. With focused visualization, you can extend your practice time comfortably at home without the stress on your body. Scientists have known for some time that the same parts of the brain that are activated during a physical task are also activated when visualizing the action. You can take advantage of this fact to ingrain specific movements. Here’s a short excerpt from my little book, Mastering The Inner Game Of Pool:

Visualization: Find an agreeable position, sitting comfortably or lying on your back. Close your eyes. Relax. Don’t visualize your favorite pro player doing their routine, see and feel yourself doing your own routine. Feel the weight of your cue, the texture of the wrap. Feel the smoothness of the shaft as it slides through your rock solid bridge. Feel the cloth against the heal of your bridge hand. Take relaxed warm up strokes. Pause to confirm the aim before your relaxed, relatively slow back swing transitions smoothly to the forward motion. Accelerate through the forward stroke. The cue goes straight along the stroke line. You reach the velocity you want as you contact the cue ball. Hear the “tnnk” and feel the sweetness of the hit as the cue tip contacts the cue ball. Your cue shaft glides to a stop. Hear the click of the cue ball hitting the object ball and that satisfying sound of the ball as it hits the back of the pocket. Stay down as the shot unfolds. Feel pleasure in each part of the shot. You are comfortable, relaxed and confident. Repeat.

Final Thoughts: I won’t say it’s impossible, only that it’s highly unlikely that a player coming back to pool after decades or who is a beginner at 50 or 60 could be a contender at the U.S. Open. However, there is nothing stopping you from developing a solid game that will give you years of enjoyment. The key is to be serious about practice and to have fun with your play.  

This is the July PoolSynergy. If you're not familiar with PoolSynergy, many of the best and most committed owner/operators of pool websites are contributors to PoolSynergy. A theme or topic is chosen by the host which all participants write about. PoolBum is this month's host, so you can find a complete list and links to all of the July posts right here: July PoolSynergy Posts.