Like Riding a Bike...?

Imagine my surprise when I'm warming up the morning of the OB Cues Ladies Tour.  I say hello to a fellow player and she asked where I had been.  I told her I hadn't been playing pool hardly any more.

Her response was, "It's not like riding a bike, is it?"

I was defiant, "Hmmm...well, I think it is."

And she replies, "Really?  Well, my game gets thrown off when I don't play regularly."

Of course, this is from a person who is known to go practice at another pool room between matches if there aren't tables open for her to practice on.

The interesting thing about this exchange was that I did NOT want it to bother me.  I didn't want her words to get to me mentally and to affect me negatively.  To me it was negative words, negative thoughts, negativeness in general... and I wanted to be positive to give myself the best chance possible this weekend.

I tried to so hard to get the thoughts out of my head.  Last thing I wanted to be thinking about or reminded of was that I haven't been playing regularly, lol.

So, as I warmed up, I just focused on what was going on with my game on the table.  Why was I missing?  Oh, I'm not staying down. Why did I not get shape?  Oh, I didn't walk around.  Why did I miss again?  Oh, I need to stroke more.

I wanted to focus on what I could control - resolving and thinking about some things with my game before the matches start.

Like I said before, I missed a lot of shots this past weekend, but I also made some great outs and played some good safes.  Whew.