Success vs. Joy
- XXI -
With Winning Comes Confidence
As a kid, I had no great burning desire or ambition. Every time I would go to the table, I’d tell myself that I had to keep on improving the benchmarks I set for myself. So, even when I won my first world title, I didn’t really think I’d achieved anything significant. That moment is still a big blur for me.
Having achieved a certain standard, I acquired confidence in my ability to replicate what I had done over and over again in practice. I achieved consistency, which in turn reaffirmed my confidence in myself.
It was only after 1987, the year I captured my second world billiards title, that I seriously started considering billiards as a profession, as a means of making money, as a means of enhancing my own lifestyle and that of my family. But in 1988-89, just as I decided to make the game my profession, my form collapsed.
This was a period when my mind became enmeshed with confusion over my technique. I realized I had to return to practicing very, very hard. I began spending between 12 and 14 hours a day in practice. I started to reconstruct my technique almost from scratch, attempting to get my cue action right. I slowly rebuilt my game after much confusion, frustration, and despair. Those fourteen hours of daily practice were critical.
By 1991 I had again achieved the alignment and control in my cue action and in 1992, I won the world professional title. For me, what was most important wasn’t the title itself but the fact that I had been able to reconstruct my technique and
rediscover my game. That gave me immense joy.
These years that led to my world professional title were a spell of rediscovery; a time when I went back to basics, when I once again reminded myself of the joys of the sweet spot.