The Psychology Of Potting…

Learn the three key secrets to potting, and what club players always get wrong about how top pros feel about aiming… Taken from last week’s Beat Your Highest Break Community (https://www.thesnookergym.com/BYHB) Webinar (yes we really keep our Xmas tree up until February!)… The sound quality is not perfect but I thought the ideas would really help players who want certainty in their potting skills – and want to escape ‘Pocket Stress’ once and for all! Here is the link to the blog post where I summarise this: https://www.thesnookergym.com/blog/the-psychology-of-potting-the-3-player-method The fuller description and time stamps in the video are below: 00:06 Woldai Wagner discussion Intro and hello and targets 02:41 The three secrets to potting Separating aiming, cueing, observation What if three people each of whom were assigned one of those previous tasks This is the philosophy and psychology and attitude of potting Even the best players in the world have aiming and cueing uncertainty We should make the assumptions that we are aiming correctly and will cue straight, to give ourselves faith and trust. This is a step higher than hope. 07:41 Woldai’s self judgement that leads to cue throwing! And did it feel good until the shame came flooding in. A second, throwing, cue is not satisfying as there is a delay between the anger and the reaction. Every shot is an experiment. Woldai got angry that he was not following his Standard Operating Procedures, and that he would doubt the line of aim and twist / steer the cue at the last moment. What got in the way of you following your SOP? - Stamina - Concentration - Arrogance that “I don’t need to this as it is an EASY shot!” - Actually this arrogance can be a fear expressing itself bailing out of the risk of applying 100% effort when the risk of failure is there. 13:38 With many sub 40 break players, the ego judges the self for missing with shame and judgement which is their biggest mistake. It comes from a lack of appreciation and understanding of how difficult the game is. Attention on each pot is like giving the same human rights to everyone. 15.02 Nic spent many years with Frank Adamson, and one of his main concepts was that there was no such thing as an easy shot – even for Ronnie. We tend to aim at a pocket rather than a single point which is where we are all aiming. We tend to be DEDUCTIVE where we try to squeeze a ball between two jaws. It may be more powerful to be INDUCTIVE and think of how far from perfect relative to a micro aiming point we are. The pockets are a huge ego trap and torturer! Pockets are an ego practice in letting go. 18:17 Acknowledgement to Woldai for finding defaults he is happy with and that he is very repeatable (when he has discipline, that is!) ---------------------------------------------- For access to our library of digital products https://www.thesnookergym.com/store For information about distance coaching using Skype etc https://www.thesnookergym.com/distance-snooker-coaching For information on the ultimate one to one coaching experience https://www.thesnookergym.com/snooker-lessons TSG Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSnookerGym