CTE Pro One Sweeps

what helped me was to determine if it was my stroke habits or my lack of understanding. common since would say if you are trying to learn something then its your lack of understanding and cant be your stroke. then i filmed myself on a few racks. i was dropping my elbow, popping my head around, and definitely not hitting the right spot on my cueball. but i was ''accurate enuff'' on the perceptions to fool myself into believing this was the learning curve, and stroke was not as much of a factor then in actually was. it took me 3 shots on film to know i had some fixing to do with my stroke so i hit square one. stroke drills, stroke drills, stroke drills. contact drills ect... when i came back to it i had that clicking moment where balls just started to pocket. fell into the perceptions with ease, forgot all about the pivot because it had become 2nd nature to just fall into the perception i feel is correct. visual pivoting becomes such second nature you literally forget youre doing it and it becomes ''part of your stroke'. if the ball was close but rattled out or was in the vicinity of the pocket my pivot, or bridge distance was off. if i missed a ball completely then obviously it was the wrong perception.

sorry for the rambling, point, film yourself on a rack or 2. enuff to forget you are being filmed because if you know about it you will correct it as much as possible because subconsciously you dont want a problem with something so fundamental in the first place. its very east to blame the one part of a system that is the most difficult or has the more room for error, when in reality i was taking shit for granted.

hope this helps.

-HWC.

halfwaycrook said:

what helped me was to determine if it was my stroke habits or my lack of understanding. common since would say if you are trying to learn something then its your lack of understanding and cant be your stroke. then i filmed myself on a few racks. i was dropping my elbow, popping my head around, and definitely not hitting the right spot on my cueball. but i was ''accurate enuff'' on the perceptions to fool myself into believing this was the learning curve, and stroke was not as much of a factor then in actually was. it took me 3 shots on film to know i had some fixing to do with my stroke so i hit square one. stroke drills, stroke drills, stroke drills. contact drills ect... when i came back to it i had that clicking moment where balls just started to pocket. fell into the perceptions with ease, forgot all about the pivot because it had become 2nd nature to just fall into the perception i feel is correct. visual pivoting becomes such second nature you literally forget youre doing it and it becomes ''part of your stroke'. if the ball was close but rattled out or was in the vicinity of the pocket my pivot, or bridge distance was off. if i missed a ball completely then obviously it was the wrong perception.

sorry for the rambling, point, film yourself on a rack or 2. enuff to forget you are being filmed because if you know about it you will correct it as much as possible because subconsciously you dont want a problem with something so fundamental in the first place. its very east to blame the one part of a system that is the most difficult or has the more room for error, when in reality i was taking shit for granted.

hope this helps.

-HWC.

Click to expand...

I like everything you said and unfortunately it's just scratching the surface. I've got 1000's of hours into these aspects and got most of it figured out but still a few other mysteries to solve.

My personal prognosis for the additional mysteries is because perception itself is relative.

For instance, perception breaks down and a different solution must be applied when distance becomes the factor. Distance itself is relative.

For instance, jacking up the cue stick, breaks down perception even in close distance of sphere relationships.

Ever have that straight shot that you need to draw back but the side pocket is in the way and you need to draw past it to get down or up table AND there's even a slight favorable angle to avoid the side pocket NO PROBLEM and you suck it back straight in the side hole?

I'm not embarrassed to say at this present moment, why that is or have complete control over it. Even with a level cue relative to shooting off the rail.

When that distance between cb/ob starts getting more than 1 1/2', I won't bet my life I can suck it back with complete command. It takes a particular alignment, I know this, but that's not good enough, I need to know EXACTLY WHY and the starting point is perception, I'm positive of this for me and I'm positive it's the same for most as well......just maybe a different shot or shots that I described.

Something about that perception owns me and in conjunction, it effects my stroke. That's why I'm not a big proponent of fixing stroke to solve most problems. Most problems are due to perception and alignment. I am positive of this.

I've lined up people with a few basic remedies, very alien to them ofcourse and uncomfortable but one thing that is universal, their stroke instantly gets straighter.

......except for one guy who had me scratching my head because nothing worked and then he told me he was almost blind in one eye......ah ha!

The most interesting thing to me was when I finally deduced a last alternative question to him. His stroke had a big curve to it. I asked him as he was stroking, if his stroke looked straight and he said "yes".

Amazing.

One method or exercise I came up with to help alignment and perception, is to roll out all the balls on the table, pick a ball that you are not going to pocket, because we are all too engrained with alignment to shoot a ball toward a hole.

Shoot at that ball in such a way that after contact, the cb stops dead BUT spinning left or right (do both spins through out the exercise) like a globe and make sure it's spinning as much as possible.

Do it from every distance, cue elevations etc etc you can.

You will be astonished at how sometimes you barely get any spin at all believe it or not.

Do it for an hour and then go play some pool. You will play better and the exercise itself is fun and very productive.

Especially for one pocket.

The sweeps took me a while to get used to. Think of this. Once you have found and locked in the "two lines" for your visual, all you need to do is change your view from the two lines straight to the center of the cue ball and move into your stance. That is a pro one sweep. What also helps is doing the manual pivot to see what the "shot looks like", then get back up, doing the sweep to center cue ball. if they match, you have it.