Practising and Chilling Out

While the tournaments in China and Australia take place during the next four weeks or so, for those of us who didn’t qualify it means having a long wait until our next competitive action. There’s a PTC event in Gloucester in the middle of July but, until then, I will be spending my time practising and chilling out.

I’d actually forgotten the Wuxi Classic was even taking place this week. If you don’t qualify for a tournament, you tend to forget about it. You’d imagine we would be looking on with a bit of envy, but it isn’t as hard as you’d think to blank it out of your mind. It would have been nice to be there, of course, but there’s no point dwelling on it, so good luck to the players who are involved and I’ll just crack on and remain confident that my time will come.

I’ve been putting the hours in on the practice table, and been working on putting a few things right. I lost to my fellow Living Snooker blogger, Michael Holt, in the final qualifying round of the Australian Open, and I didn’t play that well. Michael’s a good player and can score really heavily when he’s on form, but I let my head get down during the match and never really recovered after that. It was a blip and I know I have to work on it to be able to deal with it if it happens again.

I’m going to Majorca for a few days with Gareth Potts, who’s a very good friend of mine, and some of his fellow pool pros, such as Mick Hill, Ronan McCarthy and Marc Farnsworth. It’s a chance to get away with the lads, have a few laughs and chill out. You can get caught in a bubble playing snooker, and pool for that matter, so it’s important to break out of it every now and then and forget everything.

I spend a lot of time at the gym, too. Not so much before a tournament, because I don’t want to strain anything or pull a muscle, because that would only make cueing very difficult if I ache everywhere. My running keeps me fit, but I really enjoy lifting weights because it makes me feel good about myself. I’m only 11 stone but I can lift really heavy weights for someone of my size, and from a mental point it’s a huge confidence-boost knowing you’ve achieved something like that. Plus, I like to look good too.

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