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    A Pool Player’s Journey: In Pursuit of Excellence
    A Pool Player’s Journey: In Pursuit of Excellence
    A Pool Player’s Journey: In Pursuit of Excellence
    Ebook159 pages1 hour

    A Pool Player’s Journey: In Pursuit of Excellence

    By Dale F. Brandt

    2.5/5

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    About this ebook

    This book presents the game of pool as a body and mind experience that must be kept in sync. Physical concepts are presented in detail, but the author argues that in order to achieve maximum performance, psychological, intellectual and emotional elements must be incorporated into the player's development. In order to integrate physical, intellectual and emotional growth into a program for advancement, problems with hustling, gambling, alcoholism and drug abuse are addressed. The text suggests that positive lifestyle choices put the player into the endless pursuit of achieving excellence and competitive greatness.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGatekeeper Press
    Release dateMay 31, 2017
    ISBN9781619846999
    A Pool Player’s Journey: In Pursuit of Excellence

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      Book preview

      A Pool Player’s Journey - Dale F. Brandt

      A POOL

      PLAYER’S

      JOURNEY

      Dale (Jake the Rake) Brandt

      A Pool Player’s Journey: In Pursuit of Excellence

      Published by Gatekeeper Press

      3971 Hoover Rd. Suite 77

      Columbus, OH 43123-2839

      www.GatekeeperPress.com

      Copyright © 2017 by Dale (Jake the Rake) Brandt

      All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

      ISBN: 9781619846982

      eISBN: 9781619846999

      Printed in the United States of America

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to that one individual who will gain the most from this book. It is specifically written to you, knowing that you and I are becoming better players together. I hope a million players can believe they are that special as they confront the true challenges of the game.

      Inspiration

      The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

      --Ancient Chinese proverb

      The true champion turns stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

      --Mohammed Ali

      If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain.

      --Mohammed

      When you reach the top of the mountain, keep climbing.

      --Ancient Zen proverb

      Contents

      ONE: The Three Rs

      TWO: Introduction

      THREE: The Fourth R

      FOUR: The Universal R

      FIVE: Repetitive Patterns within the Regimen

      SIX: Repetitive Patterns within the Routine

      SEVEN: Repetitive Patterns within the Rituals

      EIGHT: Repetitive Patterns within the Reprogramming

      NINE: In Sync

      TEN: Self and Self-Journey

      ELEVEN: New Image

      TWELVE: Aggression

      THIRTEEN: Talk the Talk

      FOURTEEN: The Mind’s Eye Revisited

      EPILOGUE

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      The Pool Player

      Silently moving through the spaces

      Between the madmen and the villains,

      I find the hypnotic zone

      With its subtle solutions

      To the maze of purple noises.

      The center is above;

      The center is outside.

      I move to meet it

      And embrace my other self

      In visions that have already happened

      Far in the future.

      Long ago and soon to be

      Is the action of the real.

      Stroke the shot.

      --Dale Brandt

      Chapter One

      The Three Rs

      IN A NORMAL BOOK, this is where the introduction would begin. The main concept of this book is so important, however, that no more time will be wasted in getting to it.

      It’s this simple: to play pool, you need to bring three things to the table. You must have a body. You must have a conscious mind. You must have a subconscious mind. All three must contribute to the effort to play, whether it is at the competitive level or for pure enjoyment or for pure enjoyment at the competitive level.

      Regimen

      A body is necessary to produce the physical stroke. The stroke exists within physical reality, and a physical body produces it.

      The body and its stroke can become developed and conditioned. It can be trained to become more accurate, and it can be developed for endurance. It can be put into balance, and its stroke can be made fluid and precise. Increased accuracy is achieved by improving the precision of the stroke, and this is learned through repetition.

      One goal, therefore, that any serious pool player must have, is to improve the body and its stroke. Any activity or overall plan that aims to accomplish this, we are going to call the player’s REGIMEN. This is the first R in our basic development: REGIMEN for the body.

      Regimen includes, but is not limited to, practice drills and time spent on a regular basis in actual play. An exercise program and the choice of diet also fall under the heading of regimen. This includes the things we choose not to put into our body.

      Balance and endurance are essential in tournament competition. Any discipline that improves a player’s body, and the quality of the stroke it can produce, is part of the game plan we call regimen. Regimen recognizes the essentialness of the body.

      Routine

      A conscious mind is also necessary to play pool. The choice of stroke is determined by conscious thought. Decisions have to be made. Some of these decisions are quite complex and are subject to competing influences that often contradict each other. A conscious mind has to sort these out.

      A strategy is necessary, not only for the individual game, but also for the match, the tournament and beyond. Intelligent thought is required to form these strategies into a realistic approach. The conscious mind must oversee the development of the player, and it must organize complex concepts into action.

      Obviously, another goal that the serious player should have is the improvement of the decision making process. In pool, conscious thought must become structured into an organized system of answerable questions. We are going to call this system the player’s ROUTINE, and routine becomes our second R.

      Routine is the process that takes scattered and seemingly unassociated bits of information and focuses them into a decision. Routine is the series of questions that need to be answered before the choices of shot and stroke can be selected.

      To improve the routine, it must become more comprehensive and more aware. The more extensive and inclusive the series of questions are, the more likely the correct decision will be made.

      Basic intelligence is a desirable quality to put into our routine. Therefore, our regimen will include mental activities that stimulate our potential ability to efficiently access our intelligence. In this sense, the mind is also a part of the body, and its growth can be influenced by regular stimulation and discipline. The physical aspect of the mind is aided by regimen, but the decision making process requires an organized routine. Our second R, ROUTINE, is for the conscious mind.

      Rituals

      The body and the conscious mind cannot play pool, however, unless there also is a subconscious mind at work. It is actually the subconscious, through a process known as muscle memory, which is going to send the orders to the muscles that will stroke. If the stroke were a movie, the conscious mind would be the producer, but the subconscious mind would be the director. The precision and accuracy of the stroke are determined by the subconscious.

      The human experienced has evolved to recognize delicate touch and control of measured force as beauty. This beauty registers as immeasurable enjoyment. This beauty is both controlled by and sought after by the subconscious.

      The more finely tuned the subconscious can become to the experience of this joy, the more accurately it can direct the body to produce the necessary stroke. When the director understands the emotional impact and beauty of the film, he or she can tell the cast members what actions are required. When the experiences of the game are enhanced for the subconscious mind, it can order muscle memories through increasingly precise strokes.

      When the subconscious mind can be activated to full participation in the game, this focus becomes a doorway for the will to enter into the reality of the physical world. This is the ultimate achievement of human experience, and it is celebrated and enhanced by RITUALS.

      For the purpose of this book, and for our purpose as developing players, we are going to define rituals as anything that enhances the experience of the game for the subconscious, anything that celebrates or increases the joy and intellectualism of playing and anything that provides meaning and focus for otherwise undirected emotional energy.

      The subconscious is made up of stored memories that include every previous pool shot. Emotions are released as these memories are reviewed. The level of emotional impact defines the relative importance of these memories, and, subsequently, their accessibilities. These are not conscious or outward emotions, but emotions that exist within the unknown inner self. Rituals connect the inner self to the outside world and the outside world to the inner self.

      Rituals are the sacramental-like rites that announce to the inner self the fact that the game is now being played and just how important that is. Rituals also include stimulations through the senses that the inner self can lock upon whether we consciously direct this reception or not. While we are playing pool, we will not be stopping to smell the roses, but we will hear the crack of the break shot, listen to the click of the cue ball against the object ball, hear and feel the abrasion of the chalk on the cue tip and feel the grip of the cue. We will develop highly personalized signals to our inner selves that request the participation of the subconscious and the emergence of the will. RITUALS become the third R. Rituals are for the subconscious mind.

      We now have our three Rs. We have the basis to develop and improve our pool game. We have a REGIMEN to improve the body, a ROUTINE to define (and limit) the participation of the conscious mind and RITUALS to enhance the experience of the inner self and call upon the involvement of the subconscious mind. With body, conscious mind and subconscious mind all present, we are ready and able to play pool. We are ready to walk to the table and show our game.

      With these three Rs, we have a basic program to improve all the components that comprise the pool game. It would seem that we are in the first chapter of a book whose purpose is exactly that: to help each of us become a better player, but that’s not exactly true. This is not a normal pool book.

      When we decided to walk to the table, that first step became the first step in an incredible journey. To walk the walk of a pool player is to journey through a landscape of self-discovery and changing self-identity. While this book looks like it is going to focus our lives into improving our pool performance, in truth, this book is going to let us use our pool game to improve our lives and enhance the quality and value of the human experience.

      So before we even get to the introduction, it is time to say goodbye to some readers. Defined this way, not everyone wants to walk the walk, not everyone is qualified to walk the walk and not everyone can walk the walk. Hustlers looking to improve their skills at preying upon weaker players need not read this book. Theirs is a dying and disappearing breed. Goodbye to their ilk.

      The complete sophistication of the pool player is similar to the process of the disciplined monastic initiate. The first step began the journey. The path is narrow, and few are chosen, but to those players who are willing to confront their inner selves, the potential rewards along the journey will come from understanding that the pursuit of perfection on the table converts the table into a window to the universe and the self.

      It is time that players understand that an accurate book on pool encompasses not only the science of physics and the mathematical relationships between objects but also includes the science of human psychology and Zen-like mysteries of the self. This is that book. It is not a normal book. Please proceed to the introduction.

      Chapter Two

      Introduction

      IN CHAPTER ONE, we recognized that REGIMEN, ROUTINE and RITUALS increase the participation levels of a pool player’s body, conscious mind and subconscious mind. These are the three components every player must bring to the game.

      Because these concepts

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