The Zen Of Eightball Pool: Part I...

I’ve recently been discussing theories on how to get 'in the Zone' when playing pool with a friend so I decided to apply some martial arts logic to it and here's what I've come up with...

Whenever the head of our academy visits the UK he lectures on ki meditation and he always has a jar of water with some dirt at the bottom.

At the start of the lecture he shakes the jar so the dirt mixes with the water and it becomes cloudy. He then likens the jar to the human mind, which has so many different things whizzing around it that it’s sometimes hard to find mental clarity. Like the jar, if the mind can become still and relaxed and park itself it can settle and like the jar of dirty water it can become clear again.

He always says there are many reasons to meditate – abdominal breathing promotes health, learning to promote ki can increase physical power, calmness can promote love and understanding, and so much more – but one of the key reasons is to clear what he calls ‘impurities’ from the mind and to allow us to see with clarity.

Now I totally buy into this because I know what I was like before I started doing ki meditation. I also know that the Tuesday morning class that I do, where it’s a 45-minute ki class followed by an hour’s hapkido class, is always where I learn the most because I arrive at the hapkido class relaxed and removed from any of the hassles that may have been plaguing me because of the meditation before it.

I can reach this state pretty much whenever I want now as I’ve been doing ki meditation for a while and if I’m ever stressed I just pop into the garden, meditate for a bit, play with my speedball or my nunchucks and I’m sorted again. It is a brilliant little life tool to have at your disposal.

Now… how can this apply to pool?

Well one of the cornerstones of most martial arts is a theory called ‘mushin’ which translates as ‘no mind’. But this doesn’t mean no thought – it means react without thinking, which again comes from having clarity of thought without other stuff to get in the way. Master Chang always says ‘excellence is a habit’ by which he means constant repetition and correct execution of techniques lead to excellence. So eventually students react out of habit because it’s all auto-programmed.

Now I reckon this also applies to pool and it’s something I’ll be testing out this year. A long pot is just a long pot. If you’ve knocked it in ten times out of ten then the circumstances of that pot don’t change it. It’s still just a pot but it needs clarity to see that.

So in class when I feel my attention slipping I always remember to put my hands on my belt in a ‘ready’ position. So I’m trying a similar technique at pool. If I feel I’m rushing or losing focus I’ve given myself a similar little trigger technique just to kick me back in.

Now these ideas may not grant immediate access to the fabled 'Zone' but I reckon they are pointers to it. I’ll see how things go and report back some time soon…