Gold Crown IV

Gold Crown IV
FastMikie's Fun House, Del Mar, California

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

JAX pool school - what I learned

I have received lots of emails wanting to know what last week's pool school was like, what I learned, etc. So this post will hopefully help to answer some of the questions, and keep other people from asking the same questions. It wouldn't be very efficient to answer all of the emails separately, so I'm going to do it all here. But not all questions will be answered in one post. It's just not possible. This will take some time, lots of it.

For starters, the overall experience was like drinking from a fire hose! The wisdom of four of the top pool geniuses on the planet came at us (20 students) non-stop for about 12 hours a day for 2 days. I brought a video camera and a still camera and a notebook, but found that trying to record, or take notes interfered with the process of trying to learn by doing.

Efren had an interpreter, so the language challenge was always present with his teachings. Both Efren and Bustamante did not have much prepared in advance, so our time with them was spent mostly running racks, and when we got stuck, or wanted advice on how to play a shot, we stopped and they got into it with us.

Thorsten Hohmann was excellent. He showed me a few things I used to improve my stroke considerably, and for that one thing alone, it was worth the price of admission. He also showed us some of the drills he uses to practice, and I'll be putting them into my own practice routine. After all, if he can do it, I can do it, right? I guess I'll find out...

Tony Robles was definitely the most organized in his teaching style because he had prepared handouts with notes, diagrams, etc. He does a lot of teaching, and it shows.

As I had observed before, when I attended the IPT match last month, these professionals look a lot bigger on TV than in person, and it was definitely true here as well. I guess it's that old truism that the camera adds 10+ pounds. But they also look taller on TV, so why is that?

Charlie Williams, the organizer/promoter, was everywhere and handling every detail. And he did a great job. At lunch on the second day, he impressed me with his ability to go around the room and introduce every individual by name, and with a bit of info about each one. This included all of the teachers, of course, and every student, and vendors, the room owner, and more.

It has only been a few days since I got back to San Diego, so most of what happened at school has not really sunk in yet. I haven't yet had the chance to get back into my practice routine. That starts tonight, and this will be the first opportunity to add some of the new drills I learned, and some of the strokes Efren showed me, the break Bustamante showed me, the draw Thorsten showed me, the backhand english Tony Robles showed me...

So stay tuned. I'll get around to it all, but it will take some time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I look forward to the videos of some of the practice drills and techniques Toasti showed you. I'm glad you enjoyed the pool school. I wish I could've joined the fun. Fast Mikie Rules!