The biggest news I have is that I attended the finals of the Dr. Cue Classic IV tournament last weekend.  I got to meet Florian aka “Venom” and Dr. Cue as well as a few other trickshot guys.  Those guys are seriously awesome.  They are nice, open, friendly and won’t hesitate a minute to show people how to shoot their shots.  Every single one of those guys would be a great public representation of the sport.

Case and point: After the tournament there’s a raffle.  One guy bought a bunch of tickets, so he won a few things – but most importantly, and impressively, he won the custom cue being raffled.  It’s not important or impressive that he won the cue… it’s important and impressive that he GAVE IT AWAY!  He accepted the prize, looked around and found a youngster in the crowd, a 10 year old boy that was helping out randomly through the tournament and he gave the cue to him.  This was an $1,100 custom made cue, and he just handed to someone else.  How AWESOME is that?!

In league news, I went 2-2 last week.  Made a couple of really dumb mistakes, but also made a few nice outs.  I found that I succumb to the “taking this game for granted” mentality when everyone on the team says to me before my match “there’s no way you should lose to anyone on their team”.  It was the iconic “playing down to the opponent” kind of night.  I wasn’t scared of them, or threatened, so I didn’t really worry about getting back to the table if I missed.  I took awful risks – one of which actually cost me the game when I tried a low-percentage 2-rail kick at the 8ball… I missed the ball and scratched.  Later I asked my captain why in the world didn’t he jump up and stop me? He said I had to learn that lesson.  I replied that if he had just stopped me, that would’ve been enough.  He said that there was no way I’d forget it if I lost a game because of it.  In the end, he’s right… I’ll never not ask for a coach nor would I attempt a 2-rail kick on the 8 against a player rated 2 with 4 balls left on the table.  Sometimes you *do* have to the opponent.

That last statement actually is a major key in the book, Pleasures of Small Motions.  I finally finished it on the train the other day and that point didn’t surface until near the end.  There are so many great points contained within that book I’d have to reprint nearly all of it to share any of it with you.  I can’t do that, obviously.  But I can strongly recommend it to you!

In general news, I met up with a fellow AZBer last night.  It was great getting to meet another local who’s about the same as me in a lot of respects, abilities, goals, practice methods, etc.  We shared drills and stories then shot around for a while.  I didn’t shoot terribly well, but I didn’t get upset about it either.  We’ll be getting together more often, I’m sure.

Last night made me realize that I *really* need to get back to doing my drills.  I kept explaining drills and whatnot then had to follow them with “I haven’t shot this in months.”.  I preach the value of drills, but I haven’t been following my own advice lately at all. *sigh*