Pool lesson from a different instructor – a different perspective

I found that there was a professional in my area that gives lessons. She owns a billiard store and looking at her wall there was a ton of trophies. It was quite impressive, and I was really interested in getting a different perspective on the game. She had taught billiards classes for sixteen years at the local university, so she also had a lot of experience teaching. So, of course, me being me and being all-in, I signed up for eight weeks of an hour lesson a week.

I showed up and she was excited to show off her new table. She had just bought a new table for her instruction room. She had been it shipped to the United States and mentioned that it was the first seven-foot Rasson table in the US. The pockets were very similar to the Diamonds I’ve played on and maybe even a little tighter. I had to admit, that it was a pretty cool table.

We started the lesson with me shooting a bunch of balls in at random. She just wanted me to make every shot an “easy shot” and see how I shot. I’ve been playing pretty well and my PSR and stroke was pretty good, and after I shot a few balls in I heard her say, “good”. I eventually missed a ball and she immediately stopped me and asked why. We talked a little about the mental game, as it was an easy shot, and she said that I was trying too hard to make the ball. My focus should have been the point where I needed the cueball to go. At that point, the object ball will go in or it won’t, but to not worry about making the object ball. I just needed to focus on the cueball as that was the only thing that I could control. She set up a new shot, and it was the same shot but she put a few balls on either side. They were very close to the path I needed to shoot, and the shot looked very difficult. She asked if this was now a “hard shot” and I said yes. Then she asked why, because it was the same shot as before, there just happened to be a little traffic on the table. I just needed to make the same shot. The other balls shouldn’t affect my shot at all. As long as I didn’t focus on making the ball, and just focused on just putting the cueball on the spot on the table where I needed to, the other balls that were very close to the path of the cue ball didn’t matter. I got down, and it was weird how easily I made that shot.

We worked on draw, follow, and centerball hits next so she could see how I played. When shooting, we lined up at the side pocket and she lined directly across from me and then cued the ball mirroring me. This way I could see exactly where she was aiming on the ball. The only adjustment she made to my stroke was my back hand. My cue wasn’t level when I was stroking, and I shot with my back hand slightly raised. We worked on lowering the back arm. There was a drill she called “stroke builder” that she wanted me to do. Basically, it was to put as much top on the ball as I possibly could and still make a shot. If I wasn’t shooting straight at all, the shot would miscue. She wanted me to continue practicing “stroke builder” every day.

Next we worked on some positioning, and she did not like how much English I was putting on the ball. In fact, one time I intentionally left a leave for a Bert Kinister shot that requires a ton of left English to bring the ball back up table. She thought I was over doing it. She talked about “natural roll” and stun shots and how predictable they were. She then mentioned that every shot someone deviates away from natural roll or a stun, that a ton of other factors play in. The amount of chalk on the stick, the chalk on the cue ball, the chalk on the table, how clean the object balls were, how new the felt was, the fact that someone that just ate a cheeseburger touched the cueball with greasy hands, and even the fact that it rained earlier in the day and there was moisture in the air will affect these shots. Sometimes, it was unavoidable, but that I should avoid everything besides natural roll and stun unless I absolutely had to. I needed pick patterns that took advantage as as much natural roll as possible. She told me that unless I was doing the stroke builder drill, that I should wipe all of the chalk off my stick and practice that way. If I was trying to do shots off center I would miscue and know it.

We then worked on position drills that took stun and natural roll into play. She mentioned that I was looking at the pocket as a single pocket, when in fact, even on these tight tables, there was so much that one could do with the pocket. We cheated the pocket in several different ways to get different position on the table using natural roll and stun. She then showed me how to perform “squirt shots” with stun and how effective they could be at positioning.

She mentioned that later we would add English back in, but for now I wasn’t allowed to use it. Even when I brought it back in, she wanted me to avoid it whenever possible and when it was absolutely required to just use enough to get the job done, but no more.

The English perspective was different than Demetrius, but I’m not sure how different the rest was. I wondered how much of the perspective difference was that fact that I only had three days with Demetrius, but two months with her. She was clearly playing the long game in training because she had time to work with me. It was a great lesson and I took a lot of things home. I had a few new drills (I love my drills), and some new knowledge. It wasn’t long until I could put it into play. I had a league game that night.