Preface

I am very happy to offer to you today as an ebook Ipad version "The Basics", which is the first book I wrote in 1998 . Thanks to new technologies, it is easier to combine knowledge, images and expertise. This interactive version presents to you a more comprehensive book, with new tools such as videos and audio commentary.

I hope you will enjoy this formula as much as we liked to create it and it will allow you to appreciate and learn this wonderful game of French billiards better. I now leave you to your book with a few words of introduction which I wrote at that time:

I became a state-certified billiards teacher in 1986. At that time I didn't know how to teach this game, apart from what my peers had given me. Therefore I didn't know where to start.

Eight years passed, lesson after lesson. At the beginning I proceeded the same way as my teachers, but my lessons gradually changed, as they still do now. During my first courses I put all the pupils on the same «level of incompetence». Then, as I noticed their various qualities, I began watching them and taking their considerations into account. Some people came to me to slightly improve their level, others to have a clearer conception of the game, but some others had bigger ambitions. Despite those differences I taught them on the same level. All my lessons were based on the fact that they wanted to improve. I tended to ignore that it is only the pupil who can choose, decide, and try to reach the level he wants. My role as a teacher is to accompany him on this personal journey, according to his choices and expectations.

Today I am grateful to my pupils because all these books probably wouldn't exist without them. It is by watching them and spotting their difficulties that my lessons became clearer and more structured. With this set of handbooks I want to make something clear and simple and I sincerely hope I will achieve my goal.

This first volume is for absolute beginners or people with very little experience. As you read you will find everything necessary to improve your game easily. What you will get here can be found in any ball game or discipline, i.e. THE BASICS.

Good billiards and good study.

Laurent Guénet

Champion et recordman of France

Monitor FFB state certified