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Comment by carbonx | Hacker News Reader

I used to play pool a fair amount and it reminds me of a quote an older player shared with me one time: "Every shot is a practice shot". His point was that every time you shot you were building up either good or bad habits, so every time you shoot you were to shoot the same way. Don't ever just "fuck around" because that contributes to bad habits or at least not building good habits.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." — Aristotle

This is one of my favorite quote and last year I learned it wasn’t actually Aristotle’s: https://medium.com/the-mission/my-favourite-quote-of-all-tim...

Pool should be mandatory part of Y Combinator. Really teaches you that ideas are worth jack all, and solid reliable execution wins the game every time

Pre-shot routines come into play to help with that I think. To take every shot with the same level of seriousness and preparation, whatever the position is.

For the last few years, I want to play pool more and more, but going to a club is such a drag for me. Especially when alone. A home with a pool table would be great.

A few frames of six-ball every few hours as a break from work...

> His point was that every time you shot you were building up either good or bad habits

This is a really key point about practice. "Practice" doesn't automatically mean improvement -- it can just as easily lock in the opposite.

You have to actively practice. That is, you have to analyze your performance and consciously practice changes that lead to improvement.

I saw this worded as "you play like you practice", many years ago: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3504-you-play-like-you-practi...

It mentions how people that took self-defense classes would hand a gun back to their assailant after disarming them, and that stuck with me.

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