Playing Well Badly

Pool is a lot like life.

It's a game that requires a fair amount of skill and a certain amount of luck.

When things go well, nothing seems so easy. When things go badly, nothing seems so hard.

Everyone says that practice makes perfect, but I don't always know if that's the case. It seems that, for me, whenever I'm playing pool or another sport I haven't played in a long time, I seem to play really well. It's not exactly “beginner's luck”—it's “starting-over-again and forgetting-all-your-bad-habits luck.”

That's right. It's not only thinking about what you're doing well that makes you improve, a lot of getting good is also forgetting about what you've been doing badly.

Sometimes a lot of doing well involves not thinking you can make the shot in the first place, and therefore having no emotional attachment to the outcome. There have been so many times—when no one was looking, of course—that I walked up to the longest, hardest looking shot, and just tapped the ball into the far corner pocket like a professional pool player. Then, there are those super easy shots, where the ball is just two inches away from the pocket—and everyone's looking—and I miss the shot. I always laugh and say “It was too easy for me.”
But it wasn't that it was too easy. It was just that there were too many expectations.

The bottom line is that you have to stop trying so hard to do well. That is to say, you have to stop expecting to do well.

Once you stop expecting to do well, you can relax, and then actually do quite well. But the catch with that, is that when you give up the expectation of doing well, expecting in the back of your mind, that once you give up the expectation of doing well, that you will do well, then you haven't really given up the expectation at all, have you?
But maybe that's all a little complicated. We can't all make great shots every single time, no matter how much or how little we expect them. So, maybe the next best thing to do is to just try and set yourself up for the best shots as best you can. So, if you can't hit that seemingly impossible ball in the hole right away, maybe the best thing is to little by little, try to get the ball closer to the hole each time, so eventually you'll make it. It may not look as spectacular as making that one impossible long shot in one shot, but a ball in, is a ball in.

Sometimes, though, when there are absolutely no shots in sight and nothing is working and I have already used up my “haven't-played-in-a-long time” luck, and I'm starting to pick up some of my old bad habits again, I will sink further into my bad habits and play “dirty” pool. That is to say, if I know I can't get a shot in or set up a shot for later, I'll try to hit the ball so it will be harder for my opponent to make his shot.

Then, I'll look up at my opponent, apologetically and say, “Well if you can't play well, then you should at least try to play badly well.”

And, that is something I'm usually pretty good at.

(Readers can e-mail Lisa at lisal@thegrid.net.)