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Do you remember how it felt on a day when everything went right?
That day’s form, that day’s touch, that day’s rhythm. Wanting that feeling once more, you go back to the table the next day.
But it doesn’t go the same way. The ball you aimed at misses.
The cue ball rolls off somewhere you never meant.
There are nights when you stand alone, staring at the table: “Why is it no good today?”
That, too, is part of pool’s hopeless fascination.
Putting the waves of form into words
In.
In again.
The cue ball going just where you want it. Days like that, something is different.
No tension.
The aim settles.
The rhythm of the stroke comes on its own. I’d like to suggest putting that feeling into words the same day.
“My grip was light today.” “My right shoulder was relaxed when I got down.” “I started my stroke later than usual.” Any detail, however small, will do.
Putting a feeling into words lets you draw the waves of form a little closer.
The brain’s motor programs grow more precise through repetition and conscious recording.
Relying on feeling alone, it is hard to reproduce good form.
By putting it into words, you can slowly draw a map in your own brain that says, “This is the right way.”
There is no such thing as perfect reproduction.
But just having a map makes you less likely to get lost.
Shu-ha-ri, a long road
There is a phrase: shu-ha-ri.
First, keep to the form, thoroughly.
Next, understanding that form, apply it.
And then, establish a style of your own. The phrase describes the stages of training handed down in the martial arts and the traditional arts.
To be honest, how many people ever reach “ha”?
Even “shu,” mastering the basics, is so very hard.
The form breaks down.
Tension creeps in.
You think you are doing the same thing, but it is a little different every time.
Frustrated, you go back to the table the next day.
It misses again.
Frustrated again.
But in that repetition, something real is piling up.
The process of trying to master “shu” is itself the depth of pool.
Aiming for a perfect “shu,” knowing it lies far, far away, and still going back to the table, again and again: there, before the table, I find that figure beautiful.
👉 What you love, you grow good at. — The heart of improvement, as science has shown.
Yesterday’s right answer becomes today’s wrong one
In the world of pool, there was once a widely held, feel-based belief: “By pushing through long and extending contact time, you get stronger spin and steadier control.” Great players felt that “pushing deep through the ball adds bite,” and passed it on to those who came after.
Modern research, however, has made clear that this is an illusion peculiar to human beings.
Contact time is a mere millisecond, a thousandth of a second, and constant.
However deep you push the cue through, the tip touches the cue ball for about 0.001 seconds.
That is not a span of time human physical control can enter.
Only the speed of the shot and the hardness of the tip affect contact time; the length of the follow-through has nothing at all to do with it. High-speed camera footage proved this.
Then why did the great players of the past feel the tip “staying on the ball longer”?
To reach peak efficiency in the 0.001-second instant of impact, you need a stroke that keeps accelerating for a while after impact, and so ends with a longer follow-through.
And human beings cannot see an instant of 0.001 seconds.
The brain took the whole motion, a smooth acceleration and a clean follow-through, and read it as “the tip stayed on longer.”
In other words, the very intention to “lengthen contact time” was an illusion.
But “a smooth, accelerating stroke that results in a long follow-through” was right.
The right answers of the past were not entirely denied.
The right answer found by feel had its reason rewritten by science — perhaps that is what the evolution of technique looks like.
Advances in technology light up truths that human senses could never reach.
Isn’t that, too, the joy of the pursuit?
👉 Watch, think, and want to watch again. — Pool as a spectator’s art of thought.
Until the brain learns the movement
When you first started practicing, you used your head so much. Have you ever felt that?
When beginners practice a skill, they put the cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, to full use, so their movements are stiff and wear them out.
But with repetition, control of the movement is gradually handed over to the cerebellum.
Once a motor program is built in the cerebellum, you can move correctly without thinking.
Even in a tense moment in a match, the body moves without thought. That feeling comes from here.
And one more thing.
Why do more skilled players look as if it’s easy?
They use the least force, only at the moment it is needed, and deliver the energy to the point of contact. A pro’s tension-free stroke “looks easy but is actually exact” because they have mastered the hardest skill of all: letting go of unneeded force.
The moment you watch a pro’s shot and think “amazing,” behind it lies a vast accumulation of pursuit.
The beauty of pursuit
It is because we can’t that it’s beautiful.
Because one shot doesn’t go right, you think about the next.
Because yesterday’s feeling can’t be reproduced today, you try again to put it into words.
Because what you believed was right gets overturned, you learn again.
Frustrated, troubled, and back at the table with a smile again. I believe the essence of pool lies in that repetition.
Technique doesn’t give us answers.
But it gives us questions.
“Why did it go right?” “Why didn’t it?” To keep holding those questions is pursuit, is improvement, and perhaps is the depth of this game.
Believing in my own values, yet always ready to update them: that is the kind of player I want to be.
And you?
👉 The balls don’t lie. — On being a professional.
References
- Alciatore, D. Cue Tip Contact Time. Dr. Dave Pool Info. drdavepoolinfo.com
- Alciatore, D. Pool Stroke Follow Through. Dr. Dave Pool Info. drdavepoolinfo.com
- Doyon, J. & Benali, H. (2005). Reorganization and plasticity in the adult brain during learning of motor skills. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 15(2), 161-167. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2005.03.004
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