January 15, 2010 by admin.

Not only does he have a cool name but he does cool things, namely photography and having fun with cars. You can see some of his work at www.rashba.com I was quietly amazed at his art and variety of skill, he is a very talented person obviously.

We spent about 3 hours together today and plan on having a 2 hour session every week or two, he has a nice 9′ Brunswick Gold Crown in the loft/office above his garage. Well, I just wanted to plug his work and website since I think it’s nicely done and like his photography a lot.

That is all, good night!!

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October 15, 2009 by admin.

Here is a possible flyer that I am thinking about circulating about offering lessons in the Jacksonville area, please comment (positive and negative) about it so that I can make it better. Thank you!!

learn-how-to-beat-your-friends-playing-8.doc

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September 30, 2009 by admin.

Wei table:

Anyone ever hear about the Wei table or use it? Here is the link to what I am blabbering about:

http://cuetable.com/P/

To me this is the ultimate tool to use for online discussion and it’s great that Wei Chao took the time to design it and allow us to use it free of charge. It went through some changes/ improvements over the years and I would have to say it’s perfect, you couldn’t really ask for anything more from a program.

Please check it out if you have the time, they make it very easy to use and there is a tutorial so you can utilize all of the tools. I’m sure anyone that is serious about pool can use this in some way to improve your game or convey information so I hope everyone uses it as some point in time and even donates a little to keep Wei funded on future projects.

Kicking Articles:

Here are the links to two articles that were written by a good friend and fellow Jacksonvillian, Scott Rohleder, they are very well written and a testament to his talent in writing and on the table. They are about one rail kicks and covers a lot of information, there’s even a nice little picture of him on the first page.

Part 1: http://talk.cuetable.com/ext.php?ref=http://www.poolstudent.com/2009/09/16/one-rail-kicking-systems-2/

Part 2:  http://talk.cuetable.com/ext.php?ref=http://www.poolstudent.com/2009/09/16/one-rail-kicking-systems-2/

Scott is a great Billiard player also and that comes across in his teaching, he incorporates systems and analyzes things extremely well as he is exceptionally intelligent. Over the years he drifted away from the game for  a few years but is coming back in full force, just last week he said he was about 99% back to his old form. We talk about pool for hours on end and laugh at ourselves or each other discussing life in general, we have become good friends over the past few months as we try to push our games to new heights.

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September 7, 2009 by admin.

Got up pretty early on Monday after going to sleep pretty late after winning the tournament at Bankshots but had to get to the pool hall again to meet with a new student. Jimmy Stewart requested 4 hours of lessons with video (provided by Danny “Rabbit” Rogers) and it went very well to me.

He is a decent player with great fundamentals and nice stroke, but like us all he rushes through things and doesn’t map things out completely which is all that is really holding him back from playing much better. It was nice to have another new student especially one which requested multiple hours, I might put in a clause that states the first lesson with a new student to be a minimum of two hours because one hour just isn’t enough time to address anything really.

After that we hung around for a bit and shot with John Ring, had a few beers in celebration since we didn’t get to after the tournament since it ended so late. The drinks after winning an event are the sweetest and after the Seminole event I realized just how addicting and hard fought those feelings are to come by. It’s been almost a full year since having that feeling and I am determined to have them more often, need to work on my cueball and discipline with mapping out layouts.

Just received a book from my mentor, started reading “Shooting from Within” by J. Michael Plaxico today and will finish it in the next day or so since it isn’t that long. Hope to learn quite a bit from it as it came highly recommended and was bought/sent to me for the express reason for preparing for the Galveston event.  Time to read and either play the Park Ave. tournament or practice for a couple of hours, will probably compete since I want to try and work up the bankroll for my trip out of town.

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September 2, 2009 by admin.

Just got home from Bankshots and giving a new student a couple hours worth of lessons, he moved here from Virginia recently for the Navy and his wife has a part-time job at the pool hall. The session went very well he is a decent player that only needs a tweak here or there physically and some discipline mentally.

He brought up an interesting thing though, which was that I am his first instructor for his pool game. That got me thinking that most of the people I teach are first-timers in that respect, it is a very flattering point and I will do my best to not disappoint them. Like most males he has an ego and was very happy about his level of play considering that he has never had lessons but knew that once he hit his current plateau that he needed help to get over it.

Anyways, we had a great session together and he is stoked about playing pool and the progress that we made today. He is your typical student where he knows quite a bit whose fundamentals are fine, it’s just some discipline and fine tuning that  is needed to help him get to the next level. We had a good time talking and getting to know each other, he is a very nice guy with a good sense of humor and we are close to the same age so we have a lot of things in common.

After the lesson we hit balls around for a couple of hours, his game changed quite a bit even in the short time that we had working on his game. He slowed down and is planning the rack out much better now and his stroke looks a lot more focused. He is also hitting the center of the cue ball on his break and therefore hitting the one-ball dead on, that is the 1st thing we worked on today and he is really happy with his results. The smile that he had on his face gives me a nice sense of pride in helping him, he also thanked me more times than I could count almost to the point of making me blush. It’s great to be able to help someone and help them see the results that they desire, there is no doubt in my mind that he will work on his game faithfully and bring his level up a notch while being more consistent.

Summary: Successful lesson with a new student followed by a good practice session , awesome!!

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August 31, 2009 by admin.

Won the tournament yesterday at Top Hats, started out rocky but locked it down to win. Today I started out like crazy but faded a little toward the end but won the finals 9-7 after being down a couple of games. It feels good to win this tournament since there were 54 players and they are having a $1k added event next weekend for Labor Day.

People were remarking on how my focus was better and therefore my play was better also, I am making progress and honestly I feel like such a fool for not trying harder sooner than this. We all say we are working on our game but do we all try as hard as we think we can? I think not.

At home watching the amazing Elizabeth Hurley in “Bedazzled” which is a pretty funny movie, she is so hot and the accent makes her exponentially hotter. Back to pool, not only did I do well this weekend in the tournaments but I also scheduled more hours of lessons with some new people. This week I will get word on whether or not the Wisconsin trip will happen, it would be great to visit another state for the express reason of giving a group lesson.

Knees are killing me right now, don’t know if it’s the shoes or if it’s because the tournament took 11 hours today. It feels good to be sitting on my big green bouncy ball here at the computer desk, pretty soon I will be off to bed and reading more of “Precision Pool” or some other book on trying to improve either my pool game or life.

Tomorrow I might go Golfing with Jeff Scott the owner of Bankshots, we are pretty good friends and he absolutely loves going Golfing with me since I am so bad at it but have a blast while stinking up the course. On a sad note his sister-in-law was diagnosed recently with Alzheimer’s, she is only 52 and it hit me like a brick wall learning about her condition. She is always in a good mood and laughing or smiling, it will be painful to see her otherwise and hope to see Chuck (her husband) soon so I can offer my help in any way he sees fit.

Anyways, off to bed shortly I need to get up early to either to go Golfing or work out and go for a bike ride. Need to get some sun I am embarassed to say that I am from Hawaii being as pale as I am now.

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August 26, 2009 by admin.

Today I had a lesson with a newer student Mr. Strout at Q-Ball then headed to Bankshots for some practice with Jesse, another student with whom I have been teaching for a bit. We played for a while before he dropped kind of a bomb question on me:

“How much would you charge to go out of state and teach?”

This came out of nowhere and I was speechless for a bit before I asked a few situational questions, it appears that he talked a few of his friends into putting some money together to fly me out there for a couple of day’s worth of instruction. After doing some research it looks to be about $1200 total, about $750 in expenses and $450 for a few hours worth of lessons over two days.

That doesn’t count for food and car rental because I figured they would provide transportation, but will list different package costs to cover those expenditures also. Lately I have found teaching very rewarding and have been branching out further and further, this is an amazingly flattering request and hope it happens!!

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