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Sweden Carl-Johan Ryner's blog« See all C-J's blogs

Obstacles
03 Feb 2009 at 10:15 | Posted in: General | Views: 2621 | Comments: 10
Obstacles
What do you see??

"Obstacles are what you see when you’re not focusing on the target." Stop for a moment and think about it… Good. Hopefully some of you see my point with my statement. It’s possible to relate this to some other sports and even driving a car. I read in a motor magazine that if a driver stares at the white lines in the middle of a road, then he will automatically slowly inch the car closer to them. To compare it to other, more fun, aspects of life we can take Ice Hockey, Floorball or Football. When I played Football back in the 18th century, I was told to never look at the goalkeeper. Being both young and small, I never questioned my coach and just did as he said. I scored quite a lot of goals, but after a couple of years we actually had to do some cross-country running, which never have been my cup of tea. Some years later I employed the same technique in Floorball, again with pretty good success. During the latter parts of the 98/99 season, I had scored in every game, but against one of the worst teams in the division it all ended. Their goalie hade made one of the best mental manipulations I’ve ever seen. He had printed a gigantic Bulls Eye on the front of his shirt! It’s very hard to ignore a big flashy Bulls Eye. Needless to say, my shots weren’t even close to going in so I turn to passing instead. Thankfully we had players who just shot without aiming, so we manage to win despite of the clever keeper.

The point with all this is of course to learn to not see the physical obstacles, only the openings. The method goes almost hand in hand with the thinking that you should visualize the path of the ball in your head before making the shot. I have used both these versions during my career, but I like the no-obstacle version better. It cuts back on concentration time at the tee and for me it’s easier to control with my mind. With the visualization I have, when I’m not 100% focused, actually seen the shot miss, which is not really what you’d like your mind to portray.

More on obstacles, this time in a little more physical way. On felt I prefer to have small openings, preferably the smallest allowed, on most lanes. Örkelljunga, Gentleman and Möllbergsvagga would be exceptions to this for me as I see them as tempo lanes, and therefore you shouldn’t be heavily penalized if you miss the direction. But on straight lanes you should definitely have to pay if you don’t play the shot straight. I know that a lot of players would like the openings to be bigger so that you can play on the side of the hole with spin. I can think of two lanes, bridge and gate on a hill, where I can agree to this, but otherwise I don’t care much for the technical spin game. Not surprisingly since the spin shot is not what I’m really good at on felt. Straight and hard with an almost dead ball is my game! I must confess, however, that I’ve been forced to learn to play the other technical felt. I’m not very good at it when comparing to the two best in the game (Anders Olsson & Hans Olofsson), but if I were to have a rematch with both of the in Borås and Tuve I can guarantee I wouldn’t be those miles behind I were.
I must stress that on eternite I do in no way whatsoever encourage small openings. Eternite is a system built to be aced. Therefore, in my opinion, you should very seldom have a 10cm opening on any type of lane. There is a cannon (tube or whatever), passage, labyrinth and most of the times a gate and/or a window. All these lanes are difficult to pass through, especially the gate and window, even if they are not the minimum size.

This will be all on obstacles for the time being. Next time I’ll address some of the practice methods on felt that I have used during the years.

“If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something”.

Comments (10)

Sweden conguero (Jan Hulboj) | Delete

05 Feb 2009 at 13:11
As up to now, the most swedish players start to play on feltcourses. That´s why I would like not the smallest openings, rather middle of the road, to get new players the ambition to learn how to spin, which they the use on eb.
As always; interesting to read your articles and see that there are some players really interested in analysis.

United States of America Blondie (Astra Miglane Stanwyck) | Delete

05 Feb 2009 at 04:12
You are making a great point about obstcales. Certainly if you will worry about not hitting side of obstcale, you will be guranteed hitting it as instead of focusing on playing line you turn your thinking drastically wrong way.

Finland JJM (John Mittler) | Delete

03 Feb 2009 at 20:48
I agree with you Bub, and I have actually suggested (on discussion forums) that we could have 3 sets of obstacles, the easiest for class 3, medium obstacles for class 2, and most difficult for class 1. In my latest MOS designs I have three different tee-off lines, so beginners can start 50% closer to the obstacle that pro players, and class 2 can start 25% closer to obstacle.

Austria bub74 (Markus Berger) | Delete

03 Feb 2009 at 20:20
@jjm
I know the public obstacles on felt -> but (at least in Austria) they aren´t in use for competitions! (but I think especially beginners should start with them).

Finland JJM (John Mittler) | Delete

03 Feb 2009 at 17:19
I have set up only one felt course in my life, back in 1992. I asked the carpenter to make the obstacles to minimum legal size in gate, fishbone etc. When the course was ready and we had national competitions there, I took the biggest win margin of my life, more than 20 points to second place. But I understand also players who would like to take the game a bit less seriously... a difficult fishbone is fun only when your technique is in top condition.
@Bub: felt courses usually have "pro" obstacles and public obstacles. A good carpenter can made also triple gates: a public obstacle that can be adjusted to wide size, medium size and small size.

Sweden Lurre (Lukas Oja) | Delete

03 Feb 2009 at 14:57
Interesting as always calle. I'd used to think how the ball will follow a line drawed in my head, but it might be worth a try to apply this no obstacle theories.

Austria bub74 (Markus Berger) | Delete

03 Feb 2009 at 14:47
Very small openings are great to separate very good players from good players.
But they aren´t good to separate moderate skilled player from even less skilled players. At this level it has more to do with luck to pass the opening than with skill.
It would be a nice thing to have different possibilities to make lanes more difficult. (e.g. for professional tournaments and for semi-professional tournaments.)

In general it would be good if courses/lanes are designed that way, that a very good shot deserves an ace. A good one brings the ball in that position to make a two. And a worse shot should end up in a penalty (restart from the tee, or leaving a difficult putt). Eternit and Beton courses aren´t really designed for that. Also MOS is maybe not very good in that. E.g. Vulcano on eternit. To easy to make an ace. You can not gain something with a very good shot.

Maybe this is a topic on it´s own?

United States of America Smitty (Jeffrey Smith) | Delete

03 Feb 2009 at 14:06
C-J, enjoyed reading your blog. I like the way you think about obstacles. There are obvious similarities in the American Putt-Putt game. For the Texans/Cajuns who are now reading, the Longview, TX course is a good example.

Sweden C-J (Carl-Johan Ryner) | Delete

03 Feb 2009 at 12:23
Eternite courses without small openings are just as challenging as those with big openings, if not more. On felt the obstacles are there to pass, on eternite they are often there to be used as a mean to get an ace. That's my way of looking at it.

Sweden Viking (Pierre Geerhold) | Delete

03 Feb 2009 at 11:35
Very interesting C-J. About the thinking "no abstacles on the lane" i totally agree, i have always tried too think like that but not very succesfully.
About the size on the openings i am with you when you talk about the felt obstacles but not the eternite. In my eyes you should "work hard" to get a perfect round not just touch the ball and you have passed the obstacle. And as i have said in the Swedish forum before, i am a bit surprised that you, on of the best in the world, wants it as "easy" as possible. One would think that you would like a little challenge when you are playing.
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