[FASTLARRY]

Change to get better.

I tell pool students, you pay me money and I make you worse. When we begin to correct problems, your game goes down, not up. You must be prepared to be like on a roller coaster, go down but you will be back up soon. Every lesson that changes or tears your game apart will have that effect. You learn, you get worse, but always jump ahead of where you at when you took the lesson. Never hang on to any game that you can’t afford to let go of for a while to tinker on it to improve it.

Be willing to change a successful formula to be even better... Even though Tiger Woods won the Masters' by a record margin a few years ago, Woods did something that takes a special kind of bravery and confidence. Tiger took apart his golf swing and was willing to get worse before he got even better.
Changing the basics of your game is hard enough to do when you are losing; doing it when you are winning is almost unprecedented. Woods made the change because he felt his swing was not consistent enough. Making a change took time, and it initially caused a decline in Wood's performance. As most people now know, the change ultimately paid off. Tiger's recent victory in the U.S. Open and the British Open, and a second Masters' title are proof of a special kind of courage.
This type of courage comes from measuring yourself against your own high standards rather than another's standards. Although Woods and Michael Jordan could beat most other players without making changes, their courage allowed them to improve and rank among the greatest athletes of modern times.
Michael Jordan played a very different game at the end of his career than he did at the beginning. As he lost some of his remarkable leaping ability, he added other elements to his game every off-season. Despite regularly leading the league in scoring, Jordan worked to change and improve his game every summer, as if he were a rookie trying to make a team.
Training Tip
If you want to be better than you are, you may have to change the way you do things. You need the best information about your current level, focus on what level you want to reach and decide if you can get there from where you are. If not, have your coach help you understand what you might need to change. A big change may cause you to perform poorly for a while; this may be scary. However, if you are brave enough, you can take your performance to the next level!
Coaching Point
As a coach you can assist your athlete by paying close attention to any small successes achieved by these changes. Athletes may be too upset about poor performances to stick with the change, and if you do not put extra work into reinforcing the little wins, you may lose your last chance to make a meaningful change. Remind your athletes that Tiger Woods was "pretty good" before he took apart his game, and he was also anxious and frustrated during the change process

[madmax]

But taking lessons always get you thinking and always drags your game down for a while until it clicks in and you go back up. I hate getting knocked around during that period. it's damn hard to go back to the shortstops beating up on me once more.

[Black-dot]

Every once in a while, my instructor will tell me I need to go back to the fundamentals. He's always right. For a short while my game is off, but after refocusing on the fundamentals for a time, my game shoots higher, and I see and do things better than ever. Some time ago I read that every 4 weeks or so to ask a friend watch your stroke, and tell you if it's not straight, if it's off, if there's a twitch in it, or something that "ain't good." Very good advice, IMHO. Get back on the stroketrainer or whatever you may use to simulate it, as I do. It'll really help. If you shoot instinctually, as I now often do, bear down a bit and shoot going full bore mental, shooting lots of center ball shots, concentrating on cinching the ball. Forget about position for a moment, and concentrate on cinching the ball. Imagine it's the match winning ball, and you and your opponent are both on the hill. Miss it and you lose the match. Just make sure you don't scratch. Shoot that toughie low percentage shot over and over and over until it becomes just another cool shot to pot. Pot it. Again, and again and again. And when it comes up in the match with all the pressure beating down on you, when the weight of the shot makes your shoulders slump, when the sweat is dripping from your eyebrows, stand up, squint at the ball, go full bore mental. Chalk up, get down, stroke your practice strokes, savor the moment, and let 'er rip... And watch that object ball go down.... Oh, those are the moments when all the pain of practice pays off. When that shot goes down, your opponents will think you are just plain unbeatable. Watch them sulk. Watch them go to a table and slam balls around for 2 hours just to get their stroke back. And be humble about it, "I just got lucky...." Yeah, right.... :-D