Roger Long has been a BCA Instructor since 1993. He is the former owner of CuePort Billiards in Lakeland Florida and a regular contributer to Table Talk Newspaper here in Phoenix. His column appears here courtesy of Billiards Table Talk. Previous months columns are available here.
	Reaching Dead Stroke Through The Inner Game By Roger Long, BCA Certified Instructor Recently, I was reminded by my good friend Jimmy Mendoza that one of the best books a pool player could possibly read doesn't even mention pool at all. The book, titled The Inner Game Of Tennis, was first published in 1974 and was written by Timothy Gallwey. Jimmy is currently working his way through the book and is astounded at how much it has helped his pool game already. Jimmy has discovered, as I did back in 1981 when I first read Mr. Gallwey's work, that the teachings in this book can be applied to almost any game or sport. As a matter of fact, there are no real tennis instructions included in the book, only tips on how to control the mental side of the game. And we all know how mental the game of pool can be. What The Inner Game Of Tennis attempts to teach the reader is that there are two "selves" in every player. There is what the author calls a "Self 1" and a "Self 2," and these two selves stem from the activities of the conscious and the subconscious mind. Mr. Gallwey contends that the conscious mind (Self 1) is constantly reminding and instructing the subconscious mind (Self 2) how to do things that it has already learned how to do. Without getting into all of the scientific and technical aspects of brain functions, what the author tells the reader is that Self 1's constant barrage of judgmental verbalizations is not only unnecessary, it even prevents Self 2 from providing peak performance as it wants to do through natural recall. After explaining the relationship between Self 1 and Self 2, the rest of The Inner Game Of Tennis is devoted to teaching the reader how to quiet Self 1 so that Self 2 can go ahead and get the job done. In other words, it teaches a player how to achieve total concentration. And concentration is not when we consciously remind ourselves of what we need to do, but rather is when we subconsciously allow ourselves to actually do what we already know how to do. It is a quiet mind that allows us to concentrate. Some people even refer to players as being "unconscious" when they reach a level of total concentration. Getting into this euphoric state of mind is what pool players like to call being in "dead stroke." So if you would like to learn how to achieve dead stroke (and what pool player wouldn't?), read The Inner Game Of Tennis. You'll be glad you did.   All copyrights are owned by Roger Long. No duplication is allowed without his permission.