That Miss is a Teacher

One of the readers of my blog, that I've mentioned before (Dave), emailed me recently about a situation he had. He wondered what the lesson could be.

What's really cool about my friend is (who lives over 1,000 miles from me in Texas and has been emailing me updates for at least 5 years), he has said my blog posts have helped him with his mental game and his journey in pool. So, anytime he emails me, it brings me joy to hear of his improvements!

Here's his situation today:

Dave shared that he missed a 10 ball that would have made him go up 7 to 2 in a race to 11.  Eventually, he lost 11 to 9. He said he "didn't make disastrous mistakes," but the loss "gnawed at him."

He confided,

"Now if someone told me that the result would have been 11-9 in his favour, I would have thought I played well. He is at the next tier above me, but not impossibly far ahead. But at the end, the result gnawed at me. Certainly not in a poor sportsmanship way. But from my perspective I knew that the 11-9 loss felt different in the way I squandered the opportunity."

He asked me and the readers of my blog, what are his lessons?

This is going to sound really profound from me, LOL just kidding, but there is really a very good point I want to share.

We have all been in those same situations right? dammit LOL.

We think about the 10 ball, we think about that we should have won, we think about the opportunity lost, etc.  Even though we didn't play horribly, we still lost because of that stupid 10 ball, right?

I believe Dave will learn from this experience a hundred times more than someone that simply played the match with no self-reflection. Not only is Dave self-reflecting, which you all know I've talked about a lot (link here) and am a firm believer it will propel us (another link here), but him writing it down (even just to email me) is going to help him reflect deeper, and help him much further.

What I feel he is going to learn is:

1. if you miss a shot, try not to let it bother you during the match 
2. play your best every single shot (check out this link about this).

I know it sounds simple and I know there's a lot of emotions, thoughts, feelings that go on when you're competing in a match, but what's interesting to me is he talked about the 10 ball only.  He didn't mention any other miss! So, because that is what is sticking in his mind, that's probably what bothered him during that match, as well.

However, he may not even realize it affected him.  But if at any point he thought further about the miss, or thought about what the score 'should be,' then if affected his game.

You know the scenario!  We are winning and then all the sudden our opponents jump ahead of us, and all we can think about is, "What if I would have made that nine ball....?" (or 10 ball or 8 ball) "I would be up such and such, and I wouldn't be down such and such." It's very tough to not think that way, but it's very important to stay in the moment. The only thing that truly matters is the ball in front of you.

I know I sound like a broken record, but if you're thinking about the missed 10 ball, you're not thinking about the shot in front of you. If you're thinking about what the score should be, you're not thinking about the shot in front of you.

How can you possibly play your best with those distractions in your head?

Here's a link to something that proves that you cannot do more than one thing at once. Even though I claim to be a multitasker and can focus well, in reality it's very difficult to do.

But my long-winded response and my babbling on and on is really to say that his learning experience will sit with him because he's reflecting on it, and because he wrote it down.  He will now try to put more effort into staying in the moment and he will also work on playing his best every single shot, because he saw what that one miss can cost him.

You might think that this is a bad thing that he lost, but in reality (as I've also mentioned before), sometimes a dynamic loss is really the catapult you need in your game.

Watch Out for Crossing Old and New Habits - Project Hunger Games

Katniss (of the Project Hunger Game Series section of my blog) mentioned a few months ago that after she practiced with someone who was giving her pointers (I believe a scotch doubles partner or maybe a teammate? This is what I get for not going down my to-do list sooner - I lose some of the details!).

As we all know, our game goes down before it goes up when we get lessons or are in learning mode, but she rebounded much quicker than most.  She said she was struggling at first after the practice sessions, but then she started to play better.

My curiosity was peaked! That's not normal, haha.

Why did she play better so soon?

She explained, "The few times I practiced 8 ball after the first session, I was struggling because I was trying to use my new knowledge while still keeping some of my old habits."

Interesting observation on her part.

She added, "And I was getting nowhere lol."

You all know me, so I asked for more specifics, please.

She explained, "I was looking at the table differently, but yet I was not walking around the table, which is a bad habit of mine."

"Further," she continued, "I was not taking the time to truly figure out the table - I was leaning on my old bad habits of just shooting. "

Her great self refelctions and observations are important to share. Don't hang on to your old habits while you are working on new ones - they only get intertwined and become counterproductive, which are of no use that way.

Reflections - Project Hunger Games

I wrote recently about expectations that Katniss had going into some matches of a recent tournament for her.  If you haven't read it yet, I'll wait here while you catch up.




You back?

Okay...

What I liked best about our discussion on this topic was I did not point out to Katniss that she might have lost those two matches due to her expectations. That's what she told me.

What I love about this is she is self reflecting after her matches.

This actually brings up a really good point that I don't know if I've reiterated enough yet (lol), but if you reflect after every single match why you won or lost (heck, maybe even write down why - I know blasphemy!) it will take you to the next level so much faster than if you never evaluate yourself.

Some people just go to a tournament, wish they would have won a match or two, or maybe lost and just don't even think about it again.

But I promise you if you do some self reflection after every match and you seriously be honest with yourself why you lost or won, that right there is a huge learning experience that you will put inside your toolbox that will help you and your future matches.

I PROMISE.

Let's compare it to something fun.

It's football season so let's compare it to that.

Last weekend the Dallas Cowboys hosted the Detroit Lions.  If you didn't see the game, then you didn't see one of the Defensive coach's pissed and throwing his arms in the air mad at his guys because they missed a block and gave up a touch down for the Lions.

But was also shown was he had his clipboard and tablet and he was showing them missed plays, plays they could do when they go back in, and positions on the field that would work better for them to succeed.

There is actually A LOT of times the coaches go over plays and instructions with the players during the game.  See this video clip and check out at times 1:20, 1:40, 2:30 and 2:50:




Further, we all can picture the entire team in the locker room days after the game going over scenarios from last weeks' game, and also the upcoming game.  They do this for EVERY SINGLE game.

This is a great example of why it's important for us little ole pool players to act like a professional football player - learning from every match we play!

Why did we win?  Why did we lose?  Why did my opponent end up coming back on me and I lost the lead and the match?  How did I overcome being down 0-5 and won 7-5?  Why did I get distracted?  What could I have done different?  How did I make that tough shot under pressure?

I could list 1,000 more questions for you, but I'll stop there :)

The point is, how do we ever learn and improve if we don't self reflect?

Ironically, I wrote a blog post about reflecting for the "Danielson Series," too.

Peeps - one of the best teachers is the experience - but not if we don't think about the whys of the wins and losses!

Let me state again that we all know we learn the MOST from our losses.  However, don't forget your wins!  Those are learning lessons as well.  And each lesson we put in our toolbox for the next tournament.

I eluded to writing them down and I'm not joking.  My paper notes transitioned to paper diary to this blog because I wanted to capture what happened.  What I didn't know was, I my learning was entrenched more because I wrote down what happened in all my matches.  Reflecting turned out to be an amazing part of my learning process, but writing them down propelled the learning process.

REFLECT!

Reflecting - The Danielson Series

While Danielson and I owe you a “report” about his August tournament, I wanted to step back and share something that completely surprised me the other day and caught me off guard.

I think one of the coolest things about doing this Danielson project is something that I think a lot of players who compete in tournaments should really take into consideration and learn from.

You see, because Danielson (the pool player who we are following in this series) kind of needs to report after every tournament what happened in his matches, it's providing a sense of honest self reflection that not a lot of people often do after their tournaments.

I can think of probably 1,000 tournaments that after I left the venue and on the way home or the days after I may have reflected about how I wish I would have done better or maybe I thought about what I wanted to work on. But I didn't really and truly and deeply reflect about what happened and why I won or lost, and what I could/should do about it. Instead it was just a general reflection mostly about my disappointment of how badly I finished (lol), and unfortunately not the details of what I can do to improve things for the next time I play.

I think what even hit me, that I didn't expect, was actually a sense of excitement for Danielson! This project is in a way forcing him the unique opportunity to reflect on every match or reflect deeply about his tournament play of the weekend.

He gets a chance to be honest with himself. Further, he has told me, "talking it out can really help me more."

How cool is that?!

So my suggestion/offer is this: Think about your match/tournament play so you can learn from it. Think about why you didn’t play your best. Or what you could have done different. Instead of just going to a tournament and then leaving a tournament with no after-thought or sincere reflection, do yourself a huge favor and reflect on what could have been improved in each match! Why you didn't win and what you could have done different.

Even if you don't learn one thing from Danielson's particular progression in his pool journey, I think that honestly reflecting on your matches and tournament play is one the biggest lessons you can gather from this project. 

More Desire For Change

While I won all five of my matches last Tuesday AND last Thursday, I did not fair so well last night.

(editors note:  I wrote this blog entry last Friday)

I put pressure on myself, which didn't help.

I was sneaking up literally decimal points away from the top shooter in the league with my 5-0 last week, so each game this week was crucial, and yet I only won 2 games.  :(

I was in a pool room I hadn't been in in MONTHS - maybe over 8 months actually.  They had a tourney and so I saw people I hadn't seen in a long time.  While I gave hugs and said my hello's as time went on in the night, I realized so passionately that I did NOT want to be there anymore.  I don't want to hang out there, I don't want to spend my time there, I don't want to waste my time there.

Then I ran into people I didn't want to see, that affected my pool game.  I realize *I* let them bother me, but I am just at this point in my life that I just don't want to be around certain pool players.   And when this girl wouldn't move out of my way for me to shoot, or when she came over to read our score sheet - she shouldn't have even been around us.  We weren't even playing against her - she just came to visit certain people (I guess).

I am pretending so hard to want to be at league, but it's not working.  And, I think that's unfair to my teammates.  They aren't getting my full potential, and I'm also very quiet and well.... melancholy-acting.  Who wants to be around that?? 

I was upset after the league last night because I'm tired of coming home late, tired of smelling like smoke, tired of drama, tired of not being happy after I leave league, etc.  I lost sleep because I know I need to do something about this unhappiness.

I have a lot of things I'm trying to work on and playing in this league is not top priority for me.  I feel bad about it because I feel like I'm letting my team down, but I'm just not happy going to this league.  And life is too short to do things you don't really want to do, right?

One of the guys there asked where I had been, and I said I was slowing down playing.  His reply was, "Yes I understand, I was in a rut too."

I countered with, "No, I'm playing really good, I just really don't want to play that much anymore."  I wrote about this before back in April.

He then went on to say he had been playing in all these weekly tourneys at local bars and placing well lately.  All I could think of is that is NOT what I want to do anymore with my evenings.

I guess it didn't help that I had looked at the ACS Texas State rules and decided I really didn't want to play in singles this year.  So, why go down just for teams? (I haven't just played in teams in a state tourney in over 15 years).  Therefore, I don't need 6 weeks on this league any more, and even mentioned to my captain last night I may not go to ACS State.  I just can't see myself spending all that money on a hotel with no reward.  Thinking of my finances for once.  

Maybe part of my angst is that I want to try and get out of debt, travel more for outdoor things, be more healthy, work on my soul (not my pool game).  I also think that because I'm not drinking, pool isn't that social for me anymore.  And, it's not fun for me.

Sure, I know lot's of people that don't drink and love league and love to play pool, so I don't think that's the main catalyst of me wanting to step away from pool.

I honestly think the main reason is (1) there are now unpleasant people in my pool circle and I just simply don't want to be around them, and (2) I just want to do other things with my life now that I have been lucky enough to have been successful the last few years in the pool arena.

Even when I won all five games last Thursday, I still couldn't wait to get out of there and get home and rest up for work.

I've said before - if I hadn't of been so successful the last few years, I'd prolly still want to play.  But I really do NOT want to be in bars playing pool into my 50s.  MAYBE every once in a while, but not every week for the next five or even ten years.

Last night was tough on my heart.  Being around people that annoyed me, not winning all my matches, wanting desperately to leave and go home, not smiling or having fun, only wishing I could quit.  And, I'm afraid that is where I am heading with this league.