My Circle of Dragons pool training course is my best course, as it really gets to the meat of playing position and where and why we all make the same mistakes while playing position. It was designed from my martial arts experience.
I hold a 2nd Dan Black Belt in Shaolin Kempo. Each Circle of Dragons belt level is likewise earned and for each level you have to pass a test of the pool material. If you’ve completed your learning correctly then you are promoted to the next belt level.
After a lot of trial and errors with the design of this system I finally found one that works quite well and have used it since to the satisfaction of many students, many of whom have completed the course all the way to Black Belt level.
I have additional levels, which would make students a 6th-degree Black Belt in pocket billiards. As the tests to get to black belt level are solid indeed, no one has pushed yet attained higher levels of black belt, which include advanced kicking and banking systems.
Circle of Dragons was designed with only one thing in mind—teach pool shooters the proper way to run out consistently at the table. The belt colors rank in order from white to yellow, orange, blue, purple, brown (two levels of brown), and of course, black belt level (including five more levels) if they desire to progress that far.
We say a pool and billiards White Belt is “pure yet without knowledge”. A Yellow Belt: “The seed is beginning to see sunlight”. Orange Belt: “The sun is beginning to rise”. Green Belt: “The pine tree is beginning to develop and grow strength”. Blue Belt: “The tree reaches for the sky towards new heights. Purple Belt: “Coming to the mountain, the tree is mid-growth and now the path becomes steep”. Brown Belt: “The tree is firmly planted in the ground”. Black Belt: “The tree has reached maturity and overcomes darkness”.
I have further had a special set of billiard balls made solely for this course with dragons embroidered on one side of the ball and with the number of the ball in Japanese. These are really cool and accent the course very well. These are only used for the Circle of Dragons course student.
The Circle starts a journey and as we all know, the word journey implies a quest, in this case for perfection. Which is what pool players are looking for. As in the martial arts, each skill level builds atop the previous one.
In the martial arts they are called katas (specific movement sets) designed to build confidence with their difficulty increasing as the student advances.
For the Circle of Dragons, I have arranged these katas to drill patterns of play that require you to follow the proper way to shoot position, according to staying in line for each subsequent shot. It has been my intention that the Circle of Dragons provides the student an opportunity to learn faster and enjoy his time at the table more than ever.
Again, keep in mind that a journey is a quest and not a destination. I have provided some guidelines for each drill (kata test) that need to be accomplished, stretching yourself by increasing the level of accomplishment required through personal goal setting for each test. The suggested competency levels for Black Belt on every drill are to be completed five times in succession without fail.
My students find these belt levels to be challenging. They cannot be achieved without putting in the work required and the willingness to commit time and effort into them, though I’m confident that with hard work they are attainable. As we say in the martial arts… “When the student is ready, the master will appear.”
You can visit Ken's school at The Institute of Billiard Sciences for more.
