Whoo hoo! I finally broke out of a three week slump today! I’ve been working very hard over the last three weeks focusing on fundamentals and trying to get my stroke back in gear. It’s not been fun or easy, but today the pool gods smiled on me and the seemingly endless drills and intense focus finally paid off. I’m not sure what’s changed, but my stroke today was incredibly straight and true. At one point during my one and a half hour practice session, I ran five straight racks of eight ball, missed a shot, then ran three more racks. At that point I unscrewed my cue stick and called it a day. Better to quit on a great note and do some post practice analysis: What happened? What changed? How can I maintain the gains? How do I press the pause button on this stroke, then hit resume when I enter the big tournament this weekend? All questions for which I do not yet have answers. I can only hope it was not a fluke, but I guess I’ll find that out tomorrow.
And now for the coup de grace of the day, I’m cooking chicken makhani for dinner tonight – better known to you gringos as “Butter Chicken”. This is trial recipe number two – with some modifications suggested by a coworker of Indian descent – as I try to create the perfect chicken dish. Yumm yumm!!!
Angle of Reflection 
Isn’t that wierd how all of a sudden you’re on? I’m reading “the inner game of tennis” to find out why
Yes, it’s funny how one day you struggle greatly, then suddenly out of no where, you get a brief glimpse of brilliance. I’ve been doing a lot of reading/studying about talent development over the last 6 months, and this is a widely recognized phenomena. From everything I’ve read and experienced, it’s very important when you are struggling to slow down and focus intensely on fundamentals. Break your actions down into the individual components that constitute your activity. In my case: review the table, decide on the exact shot I want, the approach the table, get into my stance, establish a rock solid bridge, monitor eye movement from cueball to object Ball, start the stroke, etc. I focus on each component with 100% intensity, trying to remove/reduce any variation. It’s very tiring, but it tends to get me out of slumps eventually, and usually my game gets better on the next upswing.
i would like to know the recipe you end up with!
Hi Martin, I ended up not cooking the chicken makhani last night. My Mom sent an overnight care package from Georgia with home grown corn and peas, so my wife and I ate very well. I got up early this morning, prepped a couple pounds of chicken before coming in to work, and put it in the refrigerator to marinade all day. I’ll finish up tonight when I get off work. I’ll let you know how it turns out. If it passes the taste test, I’ll post the recipe. Thanks for reading!!