Anthony Beeler
YOU BETTER THINK OF SOMETHING GOOD ANTHONY BEELER
Is mental rehearsal just as important as physical rehearsal? Here is a question for you to ponder: What do you intend to happen during your next match?
D
o you have positive aspirations, or are you thinking about something you don’t want to happen? The images you put into your mind can have a big influence on the actual outcome of your next match. One technique I recommend is mental rehearsal or “positive visualization”. In this article, I’m going to share how it works, and how you can use it to perform better on the pool table. Nick Varner once said, “A lot of times you get what you think you’re going to get, so you better think something good.” Richard Petty often said he would often mentally rehearse all his car races and see himself victorious before the actual event. So how does this help us as pool players? It means that we can do a lot of work on our games, by mentally rehearsing each shot. If the brain has already practiced what you need it to do, it will be more likely to produce this result during a match. Seeing yourself being successful will make you feel more confident, it’s that simple. I’m not saying that all confidence comes from visualization, but you can certainly improve your outlook by rehearsing positive things. If you focus on what you don’t want to happen before a shot, it’s going to cause unwanted tension and nega-
8 | Billiards Buzz • November 2020
tive thoughts. However, if you focus on something positive you will lower stress and reduce unwanted thoughts. What does this mean for pool? That you can practice your mechanics without actually being near a pool table. Rumor has it that, during practice, Willie Mosconi would sometimes spend several seconds before each shot visualizing his intensions – the idea being he would mentally practice the objectives he needed to perform. Before I explain how this is done, I should mention that there are 2 ways
to see yourself in visualizations: first person or third person. First person is where you visualize what you will actually see playing, and third person is where you see yourself as if you were
