I played two pool matches last night against a very good player who's a former pro and by some way the best player in the singles league I play in at Sutton. As I hadn't played all week I decided to get there early and put some table time in and I was playing frighteningly well beforehand. My potting was clean and I was being creative in clearing the balls so I started our league game relaxed and full of confidence, but in the match I suddenly couldn't find my start button and I got frustrated that I couldn't take advantage of some decent chances and I ended up getting a deserved booting.
There's no disgrace in this as he's a very good player but it was so frustrating as I was playing so well earlier in the evening and, even if I lost our game, I was confident I could still put in a decent performance and keep it close. Sadly I didn't.
With the league match over we then had a cup match and I had about a 20-minute break before we started playing again. But this time it was a totally different story.
I stopped getting annoyed if I missed chances and stopped trying to force my game and force clearances that simply weren't there. I got my head on, dug in and played some really good match-play pool and narrowly won.
So what was the difference. What happened in that 20 minutes?
For a start I was certainly more determined in the second game because I'd lost so badly in the first. I also tightened up my game and started playing the correct shots instead of attacking at any given opportunity and trying to get creative.
And this is not particularly like me. For so long my pool game relied on potting and creative table brinksmanship to produce results that it's still something of a habit – even though I now no longer have that creativity or vision so readily to hand.
My head was also much stronger in the second game and I gave very little away and more or less played the correct shots at the correct time. To be totally honest I don't enjoy playing like this as I prefer to attack when I can but maybe this is now the sort of player I have to become.
It's a compromise of results versus enjoyment but as I don't enjoy losing it's not really that much of a compromise. So the lesson learnt is maybe I need to toughen up mentally and get back to how I used to be many years ago when winning every game used to matter so much.
When I grade at martial arts my focus is usually what gets me through because I'm so totally in tune with what I'm doing that I have no fear of anything that I may be asked to do. And it was a bit like that at pool last night. I suddenly had no fear because my focus was suddenly there.
At hapkido I'm now trying to not have dodgy classes where I'm there but not really there as my mind is elsewhere. And I now obviously need to introduce this discipline into my pool game and tap into this focus when I need it.
As the head of my martial arts academy says 'Excellence is a habit' and I need to make my hapkido at grading standard at every class and I need to make my pool matchplay excellent again and not just in matches where I suddenly need to win. I obviously just need to reteach myself an old habit.
And last night was a good start to that on the pool front and as well as I've played in 18 months...
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