Pool Instruction: CueTips #6 - Improving Your Mental Game

By NYC Grind Contributor, Mark Finkelstein

I’ve been playing and watching a lot of pool in the last few months, and one thing that strikes me as interesting is watching someone play and realizing they are going to miss a shot before they shoot it.  They will rush, jump up, move too quickly, or do something that causes a miss.  Now this part of their game is not in their stroke or knowlege, but it is in their head.  When a player looks at a shot and “decides” it is too hard, they have already decided to miss it. 

My guess is that a good 30 to 40% of people could improve their game if they had a solid mental approach to playing pool.  Many people practice pool everyday, but never seem to be able to win the big one.   

What causes this?  Why is it that we practice better than we play.  Or better yet, what can we do about the racing thoughts in our head, the voices, the anxiety, the rapid heart rate, and the tight grip that jumps at us in a close match?  The simple answer is, we can do a lot.  To set your expectations however, you need to realize that this mental training program will take a year or two of dedicated practice to get right.  Sound familiar? 

What I plan to do in this article is outline a program for you to think about and adapt to your needs.  First you need some goals.  What are you trying to do?  Play in a professional tournament?  Beat your brother in law in Florida?  Beat your boyfriend?  Beat your nemesis on league night?  This is important as knowing where you want to go sets the path you will be on.  Pick some specific measurable goals.  For example, I plan to play in 5 Predator Tour events this year.  Notice the goal is something I control.  Winning events is not something I control! 

Next is to figure some steps along the way.  Save money on coffee and dinner for entry fees for 5 monthly tournaments, practice mental skills daily, take one pool lesson a month, go to more tournaments to watch good players, etc.  Map out your plan to getting to your goal.  For the purposes of this article, I want to focus on your mental training plan, which I think is one of the most neglected parts of pool, but one of the most important if you are to become a consistent winner. 

Ok, so now you have decided to work on a mental training plan.  What are some of the things you should be doing every day to practice your mental skills? 

First, relaxation.  You just have to get your anxiety under control.  We will go at this from two directions.  First from the physical direction, we have deep breathing and progressive relaxation exercises.  I won’t spell all these details out, but you can do the progressive relaxation exercises when you wake up and go to sleep, and do deep breathing exercises all day to calm yourself.  I would recommend searching the web, as there are many sites that speak to relaxation exercises. 

The other approach to quieting the voices is self talk.  This is a big one.  If you are saying bad things about yourself or your game, such as, “I’ll never be any good, I suck, I always miss the 6 ball, I can’t beat him, I’m a choker, etc… then no wonder why you are so anxious when you play.  Stop that “stinking thinking” right now.  Never ever say anything bad about your pool game or yourself, ever again.  Ever!!  This is really important.  All that really matters when you are playing pool is the shot you are shooting right now.  Please don’t forget that.  See that shot, see the stick, and take a good stroke at it.  Let the sweaters worry about all the other stuff. 

Now you can add daily affirmations to your plan to build a picture in your mind of you as a strong, focused, successful pool player.

Affirmations give you a chance to build up your pool self-image to be what you want it to be.  Remember, you control your mind, so tell it what you want.  When you get down on a shot, you want to believe with all your heart that you can make it.  Otherwise, you will have doubt, and that leads to tension and misses. 

The final tool for you to develop and work on is visualization–the ability to see a shot before you shoot it.  The professionals visualize every shot, the amateurs never visualize.  Think there might be a connection?  I do.  Watch professionals play a shot.  They stand there looking over the path the cue ball will take, the object ball going in the pocket, and the feel or image of the stroke to accomplish this result.  Only when they have a clear picture in their head do they get down for the shot.  Watch amateurs play.  They rush right in to the next shot, never even looking at it.   

So to summarize, use relaxation techniques, control your self-talk, affirm your abilities, and visualize your results.  Keep at this and I promise you that the results will come. 

If you think this is all hocus-pocus and fluff, take a look at Olympic athletes, professional golfers, and other professional athletes–they all have a mental training program.  If you are looking for a free, proven method to improve your pool game that you can do at home, this is it.  What are you waiting for? 

See you on the road.

 

Mark Finkelstein is the House Pro at Slate Billiards on 21st Street in Manhattan.  

You can send your billiards questions to mark@nycgrind.com