[Nemesis]

Can you tell me what you think of:

'The Illustrated Principles of Pool and Billiards' by Dr David Alciatore. His examples are illustrated on http://www.engr.colo....edu/~dga/pool/

[FASTLARRY]

Nemesis, on Jul 23 2009, 11:24 AM, said:

Can you tell me what you think of:

'The Illustrated Principles of Pool and Billiards' by Dr David Alciatore. His examples are illustrated on http://www.engr.colo....edu/~dga/pool/

I am the one, who talked him into shaving off his beard. Trying to understand the physics of pool is not necessary, it is frankly harmful as it will lead to paralysis by analysis. I know about as much as this as anyone, and taught it to physics professors at Ga Tech University. I am on a different path, where I am teaching a Zen path instead, where you do not have to understand how it works or happens, but you will know how to make it happen. I teach it to you if you want it, but you then must forget it, and play by feel and touch. I will not read anything written by Jewett and Dr Dave, all they will end up doing, is confusing you, that is what they sell, confusion.

They asked Babe Ruth, what about that new book out on the physics of batting. He said, whats physics got to do wit hittin?
They asked Joltin Joe what was his secret method of hitting. He said, I dunno, they toss it, I wack it over the 2nd baseman's head and run like hell.

But they have their following by a techie group. If the things these physics nuts sell and teach worked, then they would be the champions, and none of them can play worth a flip. That is your bottom line, what they sell, does not work.

[Nemesis]

FASTLARRY, on Jul 23 2009, 07:13 PM, said:

I am the one, who talked him into shaving off his beard. Trying to understand the physics of pool is not necessary, it is frankly harmful as it will lead to paralysis by analysis. I know about as much as this as anyone, and taught it to physics professors at Ga Tech University. I am on a different path, where I am teaching a Zen path instead, where you do not have to understand how it works or happens, but you will know how to make it happen. I teach it to you if you want it, but you then must forget it, and play by feel and touch. I will not read anything written by Jewett and Dr Dave, all they will end up doing, is confusing you, that is what they sell, confusion.

They asked Babe Ruth, what about that new book out on the physics of batting. He said, whats physics got to do wit hittin?
They asked Joltin Joe what was his secret method of hitting. He said, I dunno, they toss it, I wack it over the 2nd baseman's head and run like hell.

But they have their following by a techie group. If the things these physics nuts sell and teach worked, then they would be the champions, and none of them can play worth a flip. That is your bottom line, what they sell, does not work.

That's cool but surely a minimum knowledge of 'why' would make the learning curve less steep and make the player more knowledgeable. Things click at different levels for different people. This Zen approach is fine, a play by feel and experience, but it might stunt the growth of certain people because they need a more rational basis for understanding rather than a metaphysical feel and believe approach. In addition, most coaches or instructors are not the top elite players in most sports, so the 'because you're not a top pro player, you can't dispense good advice' approach simply does not fly. Just my 2 cents.

[FASTLARRY]

Nemesis, on Jul 23 2009, 04:02 PM, said:

That's cool but surely a minimum knowledge of 'why' would make the learning curve less steep and make the player more knowledgeable. Things click at different levels for different people. This Zen approach is fine, a play by feel and experience, but it might stunt the growth of certain people because they need a more rational basis for understanding rather than a metaphysical feel and believe approach. In addition, most coaches or instructors are not the top elite players in most sports, so the 'because you're not a top pro player, you can't dispense good advice' approach simply does not fly. Just my 2 cents.

I have taken lessons from all the top coaches in golf, spent years with Ballard, Toski, Ledbetter, and all of them could play in the high 70's. They could play good enough to understand all the shots and how to make them happen. You cant find a teacher in golf, that can't break 100. But in pool, 95% of the BCA teachers, cant break 100, or cant run a rack, cant run 3 fookin balls. That's a fact, what we have teaching you guys, is a joke. There is about 10 who teach well, and the other 90 are morons. It's the greatest disgrace in any sport, I told the president of the BCA, its the greatest failure in our sport. Nobody there want's to hear that now, because they are going down like the titanic. None of the top golf teachers go into the physics of the game. None, not one.

A massive amount of what I now teach, came from golf, and these guys, and Jug McSpadden and Byron Nelson, others I worked with for years. They had ways of getting things across that worked. Toski was the best, I loved that little fooker.

To teach pool, IMHO, you don't have to play at tour speed, or be on the tour like me. To teach in my school, or get my license to teach, you have to be able to break and run a rack of 8 ball in an hour, take a break, then break and run a rack of 9 ball in the next hour. The last guy who got my teaching license put in 100 hours with me. You get a BCA license with about 12. If you do not think I can't do that, run racks, then come into town with all the money you can carry and bet it up. If you can't do that, run a simple rack, you should be paying for lessons, not giving them. There will be too many things you can't do, that you then, could not explain or teach. If I say, show me how to shoot down table 6', and draw back up table 6'. If you can't do it, how can you teach it.

I did not say I did not offer it, if you want it, you get it, it just takes twice as long and you spend double to get there. Your call. There is no question, I wont, or can't answer. You are paying me, by the hour. It's your money you are burning up. I don't care, you can have the lesson any way you want it, your way, which some do, or shut up and listen and we do it my way. I offer everyone that option at the very beginning.

I explain it as follows, if you are left handed I charge you double, because you make me think backwards, and it slows me down and messes me up.

If you are an engineer with a pen protector and 5 or more pens in his pocket, or have a slide rule, I charge you double, because you make me work double, twice as long and hard. I have to explain everything twice, the physics, geometry, the math, and then I have to take it away from you and make you play by feel with no conscious thought.

If you are a left handed engineer, I have to charge your quadruple. If you are a left handed lady engineer, under 30, very good looking with big hooters who puts out, then the lesson is free.

Now that's a joke, but close to the truth of it all.

In an all day, or two all day lessons, I go into total explanations of how many things work, including deflection, why the ghost ball system does not work, but there are many things the player does not need to know about, they only open up cans of worms. I see things in simple ways, so many want to take a simple game, and make it complicated.

In 6 years, there has never been a question posted here on pool chat I have not fully answered or dodged. I know, all there is to know. And, I know, what you need to know, and what you don't need to know. I know, what you will retain and what you will forget in 48 hours. 3,000 all day lessons gave me this, long hard experience teaching over 15 years. My entire method, my concepts, is mine, it came from nobody else. All the other ones, copied the guy before him. They all teach out of a book and a prepared script. I have no book, every lesson I teach, is different, no 2 are ever the same.

Just do this, acquire the book from Koehler, the science of pocket billiards. Set down, read the entire book in one evening. Go out and try and play pool for the next three days, then you will see. You wont be able to make a fookin ball he will have your head so screwed up. Once this clears your brain, your game will continue. This is not how you learn a game. You learn it by emulation, by copying moves. You can't learn it out of a book. Now I like Jack, have worked with him, and yes his book needs to be studied, fully understood, then forgotten. Clouding up the mind with too much, is bad.

People who only want to study physics and concentrate on that, I tell them, go to Dr Dave and Jewie or Byrne, they will fix you up. I will be pissed at you real fast and throw you out. I had two physic professors in my courses at Tech, I answered every question they put to me correctly. I can go there, if I am pushed. I just choose not to any more.

These bozos get into the Coefficients of Restitution, the God Damn atomic molecular interactions of colliding spheres and all kinds of crazy shit nobody out side of Los Alamos needs to fookin know about.
Fook, all I need to do is shove a fookin ball into a pocket. I do not need to know, how and why it goes in there.
Most of these guys are lab rats working for IBM or some government agency working on stuff you could not understand. And I have never found one of them, and I know most of them, who could run a rack to save his soul if you gave a guy a week to do it. None of them can blop their baloney. Therefore, what good does knowing all of this, then do?
If knowing all of this, then all of them would have exceeded my high run record of 274 balls. And none of their high runs, are over 6. So there it is, there is your answer to this. That one, they can't answer, they just hide, when I hit them with that one. Fels will tell you he can run hundreds, he can't run a rack, can't run 5 fookin balls. Neither can Byrne. The game is full of phonies.