Very few pool players understand that their performance will reach a stalemate after they master many of the mental and physical aspects of the game. This “lack of improvement” occurs because they have not developed the ability to balance both their conscious and subconscious mind. The fact remains that you cannot play pool completely subconsciously. This is a common problem that needs to be addressed—if you can’t clearly define where the problem lies in your mind, how can

Recently one of my students asked, “How can I erase the memory of a missed shot and not let it create self-doubt for the rest of my match? Whenever I play a bad match I immediately start to think about how much that’s affected my chances to win that particular tournament. Negative thoughts start to creep in…it’s hard to rebound from a poor performance.” As a coach, I usually tell my students that thoughts are just thoughts and to treat them as such. When your brain produces

The System of Having No System When considering Aiming Systems, let us look to the master Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee may someday be surpassed in certain physical elements of his art, but it’s more his philosophy that will be considered the paradigm for excellence. For without the way he approached Martial Arts from his mental plane, the physical would have never been achieved. The basic concept of “the style of having no style” or in our case, “the system of having no system”, is n

General FAQs – Laws of Pool These apply to just about everyone. It is nearly impossible to avoid these laws and their consequence. They don’t apply every time, but when they do, it is a personal intervention from the hands of any one of the many billiard gods. • The more balls you make in an inning, the easier it is to miss an easy shot. • On a 9 Ball hill-hill game, if you make the 9 ball, the cue ball will scratch. • The better you play, the easier you can be beaten by a

We all know that our beliefs have a huge impact on our lives. From an early age we are in pursuit of the elusive self-belief. Discover it and almost anything can seem achievable, but we are also told that self-belief is something we either have or don’t have. It’s essentially a gift we are born with. The reality is you may not have natural self-belief but you can create it and it’s so much easier than you may think. For a greater understanding allow me to tell you a story. Sa

The last article we looked at how our physiology impacts our state. We will now place our focus on the second component that creates our state which is our internal representation (Our internal thoughts). This will provide a better understanding of what’s happening and how to implement change. Our emotions are created by a small part of the brain that for simplicity we will call the emotional brain. There are of course many causes for the emotional brain to become active, but

AWARENESS IS A SKILL Awareness of a shot is not something to try to achieve. You don’t actively create awareness. It is a skill you possess. When you automatically know that you are in line with the shot you are in the awareness mode. When you know the stroke, once again, it is the awareness mode. Most importantly, you know you are going to make the shot. That knowledge comes from your awareness skills. Practice shooting without thinking but being aware of the dynamics of the

Three-cushion Carom Billiards From the book “ Carom Billiards:  Around the World Patterns Patterns ” Group A: Short Leg into Long Rail, Group 1, Shot A1b Starting layout For this shot, this is how the balls are laid out on the table. With the cue ball at the lower left corner of the table, the other balls are up-table, near opposite side rails. The layout below shows how the shot was played. The Shot To make this shot work, the cue ball kisses off the red ball at a very thin

A Pool Instructor’s Journey – Build the Foundation Fellow pool enthusiast – let me take the time to share my background as we begin this journey to continually improve your skills.  My name is Tanner Pruess and I was born in South Dakota, a haven for bar-table pool. Growing up with a long line of established pool players in my family tree aided to a decent game at a very young age. The biggest catalyst that turned me into a top rated amateur was attending a clinic hosted by R

Bill Smith “Mr3Cushion” has been one of the top players in the country for all of his 40 year career as a professional 3 Cushion player. He can teach as well as he played and brings us a great opportunity to this great game. The SECRET of the Half-Ball The Half-Ball Aiming System THE KEY FACTOR in my game’s acceleration over the years is what I’ve learned regarding the achievement of maximum effect and speed with the help of my late mentor and best friend Ernie Presto. Peo

When you study my concept in teaching you will find that I focus on skill development. I can show you a shot and you will know it before you build the skills for the shot, so I spend most of my workshop and private lessons time on skill development. I want you to return to your home room with increased skills. Here is a safety you will know right away. Can you do it five times in a row? Do you have the speed skills to put the cue ball where you want? https://www.youtube.com/w

The Stroke After we have discussed three out of four basic fundamentals, we come to the most important thing of all, The Stroke! If you have a good stance and know many bridges, that will never overcome your bad grip that leads to a poor stroke. But when you see and hear a sound of a good stroke, you “forgive” many flaws, and you know that you have a good player in front of you. What distinguishes players is the stroke! In order to understand the importance and real place of

Open Rail Bridge When you are in a situation where the cue ball is too close to the rail or on the rail, it is very hard to use a closed rail bridge, so we have to use an open rail bridge. Please notice that the word “rail” is part of the name of this type of bridge. So whenever you can, try to keep your shaft in contact with a rail while also in contact with the cue ball, and keep it in contact with the cue ball after contact in your follow-through. If you do this, you will

Closed rail bridge Very often, the cue ball comes close to the rail, so we can not make any bridge from the playing surface; we have to make rail bridges. Rail bridges can be divided into open and closed, but all of them use the term "rail" in their name and in their structure. In this article, we shall explain the closed rail bridge. It is the best rail bridge and one of the most powerful bridges in pool. 1st step:  Put your palm on the rail and spread your fingers with yo