close to quiting

[bongo]

Hi Bongo

Any idea where I could get a copy of this book, seems a good read and raises some
interesting idea's.
cheers

Hi,

It is quite difficult to find. It may occasionally come up on eBay. I have seen it for sale on the Cue Sports India website, which is the website where you can read it online. Here is the link to the shop page: http://cuesportsindia.com/shop/csishoppe.htm

[hotpot]

Thanks for a link to the book , i,ve put it into mf favs and gonna have a read for sure .

Some excellent advise here muckas fair play to you all , this site is brill and even the experienced player picks things up to digest , take to the table and learn .

Especially like reading Nrage , posts , so well thought out , helpful , and full of ideas / thoughts we can all relate to .

For me whether playing poor or good , its all part of the journey and its just as important to learn by thing when playing poor as when playing well . whether it be from a technical or mental point , its all about attention to detail and remembering the good finer detail and trying to change the things that dont feel comfortable or right .

When practicing alone , the more attention you pay to the finer aspects , the more they will become ingrained in the brain and eventually become natural , whether than be feathering to paying attention where the cue lies in the fingers .

One thing i have sussed is that right before a match you have to be in a positive frame of mind and really fancy the job in front of you . No matter who you,re playing or whats at stake . Only full commitment and 100 %
effort will do , anything less and you start doubting your mental strength , then your ability .

You find when youre playing well , you have no fear , so why have fear in the first place , for me its all in the mind set and usually moments before the match .

[tommygunner1309]

thanks for the replys folks. the thing is, 3/4 years ago i was getting regular 40/50 breaks and just got on the table and played. my brain gets fried when i play these days with thinking too much and i just come away from a session feeling mentally drained and down...

Hi Snooks. Why not try and get a lesson or two from a coach. You may find that it is the smallest change to your action will change your whole game. If you love the game, its important to enjoy it and you only do that if you are playing at the standard that you know you can. I know the feeling well. Frustration. But maybe just on coaching session will change all that

[cazmac1]

I been in the same boat for some time. I kept changing my cue and finally found one that suited me and although my potting improved I was still struggling to make any breaks and decided to go back to my old style of play and most importantly my old grip. I went down to the club and believe me I had already made up my mind to quit. I suddenly found that I could play again, I had three 80 plus breaks in two weeks and all of them should have been tons. I don't practise any more and have found that my game has improved for it although I think a large part of this is down to me changing my grip. When I went to see dell hill he also said that My game was OK and did not need a lot of changing. Although there can be no one thing that you can do to improve your game it has to be a whole package of things, I personally believe the grip is the difference between an average player and a good player. Having said that there is no one magic grip for all and it is something that you'll have to experiment with until you find the correct grip for you.
PS good luck

[inevermissblue]

The only thing i can say is that with my game, when i first started playing i got to quite a high standard early on(made my first ton within a year). I was playing quite alot too, say 3/4 times a week. I was generally very happy with my game, until it came down too matches! As we all know, theres no greater test of abillity/technique than in a match. This would always cast a shadow over the confidence i had in my game. So what do we do??? We practise,practise and we do even more practise until our game improves. However, we get to that critical match shot and it lets us down again and again.
The thing is while we are playing for hours and hours and ARE improving. Unfortunately we are, for the most part oblivious as to why. I think that this is because our brain takes over proceedings and improvises until results are achieved! However, none of this information is retained by ourselves. So when we find ourselves back on the spot, needing to fall back onto that practise form we found, it has once again gone!
So what i decided to do was to completely dismantle my game back down to the very beginning(i know it sounds radical but it wasn't really). Then i would document everything that i worked on, whether it was effective or ineffective. Until i had a basis from which to perform.
Now when i play, whether its once a week, once a month, once every six months, my form is exactly the same! i'm sometimes a better player as i'm very keen to play. much to the dismay of my team mates as they now expect to beat me! lol. Just because im not playing anywhere near as much as them!

[thelongbomber]

I asked the ref (who was my Dad) if he could refrain from going to the gents at the end of the first frame so as not to distract my focus

LOL, that's a good one. "Dad, please don't pee right now! I need to remain focused and win this match!!!"

[ch147]

I was reading about Lee Westwood the golfer who went to see putting guru Bob Rotella who advised Lee (who is yet to win a Major of course), that the best thing for him him when putting is "to putt like you are 14 again". It got me thinking because when I read the Ronnie O'Sullivan biography, he swears that he has never played snooker any better than when he was a kid of 16-17. I am sure that applies to a lot of us amateur sportsman, golfers or snooker players, who grow up and play over many years.

Also, and this is interesting so bear with me, I heard about an experiment where a mum and her son were put under a brain scanning (CT) machine which monitored active parts of their brains to show which bits were working when doing certain tasks. When doing the same tasks (eg a mathematical challenge or looking at a picture or doing an activity), the adult brain was far more analytical and thoughtful so good for certain tasks, but less able to just get on with an activity. the child's brain, interestingly, was less able to be analytical but was better at just getting stuck into an activity whatever it was, with no thought about outcomes. Conclusion in simple words : as we grow older we maybe get less able to actually "just relax and do" like we used to, and this could detract from our actual performance....and it's not really our fault either.

So my advice. take a real long break. Drain what thoughts you can from your mind. Come back and play for fun to start with and as much as possible with zero pressure. You might not be able to play like you did 5 years ago but it may not be something you can change.