Pleasures of Small Motions: Mastering the Mental Game of Pocket Billiards
Everyone who plays pool knows that it is "mostly mental," but the conventional wisdom about the mental game is about as accurate as the idea that the earth is flat. Until now, no one with any expertise on how the human mind works has bothered to write about pool. In Pleasures of Small Motions, Bob Fancher, a psychotherapist and pool columnist, breaks new ground by applying good science to the mental game of billiards.This book does for pool what Timothy Gallwey's bestselling "The Inner Game"...
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A psychotherapist and pool columnist breaks new ground by applying good science to the mental game of billiards and gives invaluable insight on competitive play.
Foreword to the New EditionixIntroductionxi1.Motivation: The Pleasures of Small Motions1The Instinct for Play3The Value of Proper Motivation5Pleasure and Other Motivations72.Body in Mind: What the Mental Game is About11The Bodily Mind12The Conceptual Mind14Can Mental Skills Really Be Learned?16Acquiring a Sound Mental Game173.A Sense of the Game: Conscious and Unconscious Controls19Division of Labor, Part One20Developing Unconscious Controls22Division of Labor, Part Two26Relaxing Conscious Controls294.Concentration: The Well-Ordered Mind31Concentration in a Nutshell32Filling in the Picture34Focus38Distraction40Concentration as Choreography445.Rhythm: Put Some Music in Your Moves47Why Rhythm Matters47Understanding Rhythm50Becoming Rhythmic52Tempo57Play as Dance58InterludeDead Stroke: All Together Now616.Emotions: The Source of Playing at All65Emotions and Performance66The "Right Amount" of Emotion68Modulating Your Emotions68Shaping Your Emotional Climate69Controlling Your "Current Weather Conditions"71The Moral of the Story767.Confidence: The Security of Accurate Expectations77Confidence and Self-Image78Effective Confidence80The Pool Journal83Confidence, Probability, and Your Current Skills85The Banality of Confidence878.Motivation Revisited: Moved by Desire89Essential Traits and Idiosyncratic Meanings91Motivation and the Place of Pool in Your Life95The Disaster of Single-Mindedness97Optimizing Motivation989.Competition: Finding Out Who's Who101What Makes Competition Different?102The Fundamental Challenge of Competition104The Basic Solution107Confidence and Respect10910.The Opponent: Why Competing Is Competing113The Inevitability of Noticing114How the Opponent Matters 101115The Opponent and Your Game Plan117Competitive Styles: Dominants and Egalitarians118The Point of Competing, Again12111.Almost Neurotic: Competitive Problems of Peculiar Sorts123Fear of Harsh Judgment124Fear of Winning126Solace from Neurotic Experience12912.Competition and Pleasure131Panic and Pleasure133The Best Indicator137The Romance of the Game139For Further Reading141Acknowledgments143About the Author145
