How much Practice?

[Terry Davidson]

spike:

It's just a number I chose. It seems that every really good snooker player (the top pros at least) start playing around the age of 8 or 10 and then turn pro around 18 or so and then keep improving to their mid-20's or so and then after that the long potting starts to go a little bit and I figure this is the hand-eye coordination going.

The real reason I picked 25yrs is in the table tennis world they say you are past it at 25yrs because of the loss of coordination. I watched a world-class table tennis match with a couple of Chinese players and I can understand why seeing them smashing that little ball from 20ft away from the table.

I think in snooker it really starts to show around 35yrs or so. The other thing is kids learn so fast (maybe because their brains are relatively empty compared to an adult or something) but young kids learn everything fast, especially languages and sports skills. Didn't Tiger Woods start when he was 3yrs or something?

Terry

[Particle Physics]

Terry,

Whilst i agree that everything starts to go to pot as you get older, out of interest why do you choose 25 as the age?


Spike

I'm guessing that this is the age of peak physical prowess for all sports. Is it a combination of skill, ability to learn, flexibility, recovery, mental sharpness, concentration levels, strength and hand to eye coordination?

[snookered122]

i played alot of snooker over the years..then few years back i done my back in kept me out of the game for awhile. only just started playing again 2 month ago..dont know if anyone knows what its like to try and get back into it after awhile way from the game not easy..when everything u could do before u couldnt do now..stance ur cueing. couldnt get my chin on the cue like before and my cueing wasnt the same..but i said just because my cueing wasnt like before im going to practise and practise everyday till i get it right again..got there in the end practised over 5hours a day, long potting, the line up, colours of the spots.potting black off the spot, ..knocked in a 85 at local club. hope to get my century's again..so playing a game against ur mate isnt going to do it u have to practise on the basics aswell. they say practise makes perfect.

[Particle Physics]

i played alot of snooker over the years..then few years back i done my back in kept me out of the game for awhile. only just started playing again 2 month ago..dont know if anyone knows what its like to try and get back into it after awhile way from the game not easy..when everything u could do before u couldnt do now..stance ur cueing. couldnt get my chin on the cue like before and my cueing wasnt the same..but i said just because my cueing wasnt like before im going to practise and practise everyday till i get it right again..got there in the end practised over 5hours a day, long potting, the line up, colours of the spots.potting black off the spot, ..knocked in a 85 at local club. hope to get my century's again..so playing a game against ur mate isnt going to do it u have to practise on the basics aswell. they say practise makes perfect.

I agree mate. I'm trying to spend as much time on the practice table by myself but I have a family, so time is big constraint. I'd love to build that extension and drop a snooker table in but the mrs won't have it. If I did, I'd be clocking up the hours you have done recently. Glad to hear that it's helped your game, it gives us all hope. Great example to one and all.

[pottr]

Didn't Tiger Woods start when he was 3yrs or something?

Didn't know he played snooker

[Particle Physics]

Didn't know he played snooker

He's always breaking his cues in half. If Nike did cues....................