Ralph Eckert - The Sport of Pool Billiards 1

Pool billiards is one of the most exacting sports in the world when it comes to hand-eye combination! It is a game that has been played all over the world for centuries. There is virtually no other activity where you can take such pleasure in your skill, even in your old age, at knocking colored plastic balls into holes with a wooden stick!

I hope that this book will prove to be a reliable guide in helping you to learn to play the sport of pool billiards. The training program uses the PAT method.

PAT (Playing Ability Test) is a testing and evaluation system for short, medium and long-term training. A system that tests the skills required to play a good game of pool in 10 different areas with appropriate exercises. A system that is unique in that it is the only system that has been officially recognized by the World Pool Association (WPA) because of its proven efficiency.

PAT has three different levels plus PAT Start. This book is therefore the first of a series of at least three volumes. PAT Start for leisure players, PAT 1 from beginners to advanced. PAT 2 from advanced to very advanced players and PAT 3 very advanced to world-class! Join us, but remember ...

„Easy promises make for little trust.

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Introduction

Taking things lightly results in great difficulty.

Because the sage always confronts difficulties,

He never experiences them.“

*Lao Tse, circa 400 BC.

From the 63rd Chapter of his book „Tao Te King“.

Ralph Eckert,

Mannheim, February 22, 2006

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before the first shot

Before the First Shot

Posture and Overlearning

In this chapter I will only outline a few basic principles of cor-rect posture! You should also look at the tips given in Chapter 2.2 „Straightness“ on one-handed play and your personal anatomically correct standing position!

The exercises described there are the most important, but each aspect is gone into in more detail in the relevant chapter (for example, shot straightness).

If you are a genuine beginner, then try to put this advice on posture and cue handling into practice. If you have any prob-lems, ask your club trainer to help you. If you have already been playing for some time, then just check your posture. Look at yourself in a mirror or maybe even film yourself. This way you can see what you are doing right and where there is room for improvement. If you‘re doing everything right, that‘s great. But what if you discover some little mistake that you have been making for years that maybe prevents you from making any more progress? Well, there are two possibilities. Either you stick with your mistake and try at least to stabilize your level of performance with the help of the exercises in this program, or you take the time to iron out the mistake that has crept into your game! In sports that require a high level of precision and skill (to which pool billiards belongs), this means some ten to fifteen thousand repetitions before the mistake has been cor-rected, depending on your age and the number of years you have been making the mistake! If you are a real beginner, then you‘ll have to get used to overlearning! Overlearning is the term used in sport to describe the notion of repeating a movement

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Chapter 1

over and over again, beyond the point of initial mastery, until it becomes automatic!

And you know how tough the demands are in pool when it comes to precision and skill. Young beginners can reckon on at least 5000 repeats before a movement becomes automatic.

You should give a lot of thought to this subject and then decide what‘s best for you. And most importantly, when you have de-cided for yourself what you want to do, don‘t take any notice of other people‘s criticisms! That will strengthen your confidence. It‘s only players who haven‘t really come to terms with the fact that they need to practice long and hard to achieve mastery who become sensitive and unsettled when others comment on their cue handling or posture. And this leads to a lack of confidence.

But what should you repeat X-thousand times? We‘ll come to that later. First of all a few words about textbook posture. The photos of different aspects of posture on the next few pages are merely intended as a sort of starting point. Later I will go into more detail. Details that are extremely important to observe and which can also be applied by each person individually to fit his or her own style.

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before the first shot

Stance

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Chapter 1

The most important thing to remember is that to achieve maximum stability your legs should be slightly apart and in a staggered position. If your legs are parallel, you will tend to sway backwards or forwards.

If your legs are one in front of another you will tend to sway to the right or left. So it‘s best to stand with your legs apart as shown in the photo.

Furthermore, the rear leg should be stiff and not bent at the knee. If you do not heed this advice you will tend to move your leg, but except for the playing arm nothing should move, if at all possible. You could also say that bending the knee introduces an additional variable into the equation which increases the susceptibility to mistakes. Such small mistakes make themselves felt almost exclusively in situations of stress. Where the front leg is concerned you can handle the situation according to comfort and depending on your size: it can be bent or stretched.

Andreas Huber, German national coach

One of the most common mistakes made by the sportsmen I train is in the area of stance and distribution of weight. Now that so much snooker is shown on TV and trainers say (quite rightly) that the rear leg should be straight, players now tend to put all the weight onto this leg. But this can (unknowingly) lead to all kinds of mistakes: Snooker players make sure they put some of the weight on their front leg (by turning the front knee slightly inwards).

If the center of gravity is shifted too much to the back, the player literally „falls“ onto his shot when following through and involuntarily applies side spin to the ball. Simply tensing the thigh muscles slightly, or consciously trying to feel the floor with your front foot is enough to eliminate this source of error.

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before the first shot