What do you do to Improve?

A friend of mine, Tina, has been working on her game so much so, that her persistence has paid off.  She recently won her end of season league tournament - a first for her!

Everyone has noticed her game has gone up and her stats and finishes have also soared. So, of course that led me to wonder what she was doing to improve.  But I didn't need to ask her.  If you follow her on social media, it's evident.  She WORKS on her game, works on improving, and works on learning.

Here's my question to some of you: Are you just playing pool?

First, if you are - that's fine!

But if you want to improve, what are you doing about it?

Don't be upset with me with the harshness of this statement, but:  just showing up at league or tournaments is not enough.

Tina doesn't just show up to her 'main' league and play pool.  She also plays in two other really tough leagues. Additionally, she plays in big tournaments around the DFW area, and sometimes in big tournaments in OK and other cities across Texas. She also plays on two tours (a ladies tour and a men's tour), and further, at times plays in weekly tournaments.

It's almost like she read my blog from the past where I shared many things one can do to improve your game.  I was ADAMANT many times that in order to improve, you MUST play in many different type of tournaments (yes, some tough); you aren't going to improve by just playing in league.

But, wait there's more!

If there is a stream on over the weekend, Tina has it on and she's watching. Watching great pool and patterns helps our game immensely (I've written about this before here).

side note: as I was writing the draft of this blog post last week, I noticed Tina posted this on her FB:

Proof she watches streams!

Oh, and guess what?

Yep, there's more!

She also practices.  She will either practice at home, meet up with league-mate at the pool room and hit balls before tournaments, or sometimes even go to the pool room and hit balls by herself.

Additionally, she reads.  I know, so rare! She will get out her reminders and go over them. Or she will grab a Phil Capelle's books and read some sections.

Further, she will sit herself in the front row of tournaments and watch matches while she waits for her own match to be called! I have written before about how crucial this is. And, she is taking advantage of the "free" learning lessons by watching the great matches right in front of her. She could be sitting in the corner reading a book, or drinking with her friends at the bar, or playing video games to pass time. Instead, she's using her time wisely.

See what she's doing?  She is working on her game!  She hasn't been playing pool for a long time, but for some reason, she knew in order to improve, she needed to put in work for her pool game to improve.

I can easily admit for the first 10 years of me playing pool, that that's all I did - just play pool.  I only played on some tour stops and played on a league, and then wondered why my game never went up.

It took me years to figure out I needed to put in work and not just show up to a tournament and hope for the best.  I finally set practice goals, read, watched DVDs, wrote in my pool diary after each match, practiced diligently, and played in a ton of different events. And guess what happened? Yep, my game improved. I became more successful in my tournaments, in my standings, and started to win tournaments.

What I love about Tina's journey is she knew pretty soon out of the gate that she if she wanted her game to improve, she needed to work on it. And, so she did!

Again, if you want to improve, are you just playing pool?