The Cue To Improve Your Stroke - FYI
- Thread starter Scaramouche
- Start date
Two thumbs up review for 360 PureCue
Scaramouche:
I have one of these (purchased it early last year when they first came out).
Although a great invention for what it's intended for, it may not be as applicable to pool players as it is for snooker players. Reason: the general differences in grip between pool and snooker players. Snooker players tend to have a more closed grip (often with the web of skin between the index finger and thumb making contact with the top surface of the cue). Pool players tend to have a more "open" (for lack of a better word) grip, lightly held / cradled on the fingers, most often with a visible gap between the top surface of the cue and that web of skin between the index finger and thumb.
The 360 PureCue was designed to highlight cue delivery issues when using a closed grip -- i.e. pressure/contact on the top surface of the cue, or otherwise a tighter grip than normal. It ensures you deliver the cue straight, without any lateral (side/top/bottom) pressure. Grip the cue too tight and apply too much pressure on one side of the cue (i.e. at the top surface), and the cue *will* break down (at the spring) on you. Snooker players that use the Del Hill-taught 4-point contact will find that too strong a contact at either of the 4 points will cause the 360 PureCue to break down on you as well. This is especially true of too strong a contact at the chest.
It also ensures that the cue delivery is smooth, and not a "snapping" or "jerking" motion. This latter benefit is the one that will appeal to pool players. Pool players that too much of a snappy/jerky stroke will find the 360 PureCue a VERY USEFUL training aid, for it punishes you for anything but a smooth delivery.
When my 360 PureCue first arrived, I took it to the table and shot a few balls with it. I was at first disappointed. To me, it felt just like a sneaky pete cue. On normal shots, the cue didn't punish me (i.e. break-down at the spring) -- AT ALL. (Just FYI, remember that I have snooker fundamentals, and was taught the proper grip / stance / head-eyes position / etc.) I actually had to "try" to make the cue "break down" like shown in the video, by gripping harder and pressing down on the top of the cue like some snooker club players with bad fundamentals do. But as I ratcheted-up the power and starting hitting the cue ball HARD, the 360 PureCue identified some issues with my stroke that I wasn't aware of -- some excessive snapping of my wrist and snapping-closed motion in my fingers. On hard power shots, I was using more wrist than arm, and the wrist snap I was implementing used a little too much "grabbing / snapping-closed" motion of my fingers. Thus, the 360 PureCue broke down on me to spotlight the bad "grabby grabby" motion in my hand.
I've since altered my power stroke -- thanks in large part to the 360 PureCue -- to rely more on a stronger pendulum motion on power shots through using my bicep, rather than "being lazy" by diverting the cue delivery to a floppy wrist with grabbing / snapping-closed motion in the fingers.
This is a great product, and I easily recommend this training aid to any pool player who wants to find out what a proper stroke feels like. Yes, it's sort of a "self-diagnosis" tool, but for those that either don't have the funds to hire a proper stroke instructor (e.g. randyg, Scott Lee), or may be a bit embarrassed to, it's a great start to immediately highlight and correct GLARINGLY WRONG issues with one's cue delivery. Don't get me wrong -- it's no replacement for proper stroke instruction. But it's a good precursor to the instruction (to clean/spiff you up prior to meeting Randy, Scott, et al.) and a good post-"touch up" for stroke maintenance as well, to keep the bad habits from creeping back in.
Hope this is helpful!
-Sean
Scaramouche:
I have one of these (purchased it early last year when they first came out).
Although a great invention for what it's intended for, it may not be as applicable to pool players as it is for snooker players. Reason: the general differences in grip between pool and snooker players. Snooker players tend to have a more closed grip (often with the web of skin between the index finger and thumb making contact with the top surface of the cue). Pool players tend to have a more "open" (for lack of a better word) grip, lightly held / cradled on the fingers, most often with a visible gap between the top surface of the cue and that web of skin between the index finger and thumb.
The 360 PureCue was designed to highlight cue delivery issues when using a closed grip -- i.e. pressure/contact on the top surface of the cue, or otherwise a tighter grip than normal. It ensures you deliver the cue straight, without any lateral (side/top/bottom) pressure. Grip the cue too tight and apply too much pressure on one side of the cue (i.e. at the top surface), and the cue *will* break down (at the spring) on you. Snooker players that use the Del Hill-taught 4-point contact will find that too strong a contact at either of the 4 points will cause the 360 PureCue to break down on you as well. This is especially true of too strong a contact at the chest.
It also ensures that the cue delivery is smooth, and not a "snapping" or "jerking" motion. This latter benefit is the one that will appeal to pool players. Pool players that too much of a snappy/jerky stroke will find the 360 PureCue a VERY USEFUL training aid, for it punishes you for anything but a smooth delivery.
When my 360 PureCue first arrived, I took it to the table and shot a few balls with it. I was at first disappointed. To me, it felt just like a sneaky pete cue. On normal shots, the cue didn't punish me (i.e. break-down at the spring) -- AT ALL. (Just FYI, remember that I have snooker fundamentals, and was taught the proper grip / stance / head-eyes position / etc.) I actually had to "try" to make the cue "break down" like shown in the video, by gripping harder and pressing down on the top of the cue like some snooker club players with bad fundamentals do. But as I ratcheted-up the power and starting hitting the cue ball HARD, the 360 PureCue identified some issues with my stroke that I wasn't aware of -- some excessive snapping of my wrist and snapping-closed motion in my fingers. On hard power shots, I was using more wrist than arm, and the wrist snap I was implementing used a little too much "grabbing / snapping-closed" motion of my fingers. Thus, the 360 PureCue broke down on me to spotlight the bad "grabby grabby" motion in my hand.
I've since altered my power stroke -- thanks in large part to the 360 PureCue -- to rely more on a stronger pendulum motion on power shots through using my bicep, rather than "being lazy" by diverting the cue delivery to a floppy wrist with grabbing / snapping-closed motion in the fingers.
This is a great product, and I easily recommend this training aid to any pool player who wants to find out what a proper stroke feels like. Yes, it's sort of a "self-diagnosis" tool, but for those that either don't have the funds to hire a proper stroke instructor (e.g. randyg, Scott Lee), or may be a bit embarrassed to, it's a great start to immediately highlight and correct GLARINGLY WRONG issues with one's cue delivery. Don't get me wrong -- it's no replacement for proper stroke instruction. But it's a good precursor to the instruction (to clean/spiff you up prior to meeting Randy, Scott, et al.) and a good post-"touch up" for stroke maintenance as well, to keep the bad habits from creeping back in.
Hope this is helpful!
-Sean
These type of posts belong in the Product Review section of AZ Billiards, not shoved down the throats of innocent cruising AZBers. :thumbup:
:thumbup: j/k Sean, it was a great post. I like hearing about new products like this in this forum but I am just curious because I have been to their website and thought they still had not come out with the equivalent of the American Pool Cue version.Also, do you still use the cue periodically or not?
JoeyA
These type of posts belong in the Product Review section of AZ Billiards, not shoved down the throats of innocent cruising AZBers. :thumbup:
Also, do you still use the cue periodically or not?
JoeyA
Joey:
Your "winky winky" humor was readily recognized and appreciated, and thanks for the plug. As you know, there's a difference between offering a one-time *review* of a product (from a user's perspective, no less), versus outright (and continually) baiting and selling people as the *seller* of the product without compensation to AZBilliards (e.g. via a paid-for banner at the top of these forums and/or a paid-for Club Membership). I know I don't have to tell you who I'm calling out here. And my stance on this is firm.
Back on topic, the American Pool version of the 360 PureCue is available, and has been for some time now (at least a year). It may've been backordered at some point in the past year due to supply/demand issues, but it's definitely not due to the product "not existing yet." Those that pre-ordered the product before the manufacturing run over a year ago (like me) had to wait for the product to become available, but the vendor was wonderful and stayed in constant contact (without prompting by me) during the whole time, giving me timelines on when the product will finally ship. The product's here, and I'm sure can be shipped immediately, although folks ordering it should contact the company and make sure.
Additionally, the 360 PureCue that I received is a straight-/conical-taper version (which doesn't bother me). The version offered on the website these days is a Pro-taper version. Just FYI.
And yes, I still do use it occasionally to do minor "check ups" on my stroke, just to be sure I'm not allowing that "lazy wrist / snapping-closed fingers" thing to creep back in on my power stroke. Plus, it's a fun cue to play with -- a little challenging on power and draw shots, but rewarding when you let the cue do the work and not try to force it. Great, great tool!
-Sean
If the American 360 PureCue is available, I wonder why on their website, they continue to say "Available Soon? (When you click on their icon.) www.gravitycue.com
Were you talking about Gene Albrecht, the guy with PERFECT AIM? He's even got a website where you can order his video, although I would wait for his newest version of Perfect Aim before you order it. I know the guy plays at a super high level so he must have a special way of aiming.
JoeyA
Joey:
1. I don't know what website you're looking at, but it's definitely either a Google-cached version, or else some w-a-y out of date copy. You should be going here:
http://gravitycue.com/category.aspx?id=24
(This is arrived at merely clicking on the "Buy Now" link on the main http://360purecue.com/ page. Notice there's no "Available soon" disclaimer right on the 360 PureCue's product page, where it would be stated if it were truly not available.)
2. What is the purpose of you advertising and linking Gene Albrecht's product that has nothing at all to do with the topic of this thread? I'm confused here. We're talking about the 360 PureCue stroke trainer. I offered a user review for it, you offhand dinged me for posting a review under the guise of "chiding" (I knew what you were getting at / disguising), so I responded to the underlying message directly. What do you do? You post a fake-innocent "oh you mean this guy?" outright advertisement in response. What's next, Joey? Some advertisements for, oh, I don't know, some other aiming system product in a *stroke trainer* thread?
-Sean
P.S.: You obviously are on the side of, and want to do something for Gene. If that's the case, bend his ear a bit about TRULY offering value to the very forums he likes to bait-fish. Instead of parasitically baiting and selling in these forums, and then hiding behind the "old-sick-man-who-wants-to-do-good-for-pool" excuse, convince him to buy a banner at the top. With as much as he says his business is good, he sounds like he can easily spare the funds. At least offer equivalent value -- *something* in return -- to the very forum that he likes to pinch. You claim to be a man of ethics, Joey. I know this one is not lost on you.
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Sean,
I appreciate your reply and in-depth review without a wink wink.
If there is anyone wanting to sell me the American Pool version to me located in northern California, I'd like to buy one. PM me here.
There was a guy who was selling them in For Sale section of the forum but I think he quickly sold them out. I googled but cannot find any US based distributor/supplier of this product.
I appreciate your reply and in-depth review without a wink wink.
If there is anyone wanting to sell me the American Pool version to me located in northern California, I'd like to buy one. PM me here.
There was a guy who was selling them in For Sale section of the forum but I think he quickly sold them out. I googled but cannot find any US based distributor/supplier of this product.
Sean,
I'll check again on gravity cue.
OK, I did. I go to www.gravitycue.com and there on the website it says American Pool Cue GravityCue and 360 PureCue, "COMING SOON".
When I click on the buy Now button, it brings me to another link and it doesn't show the price. Something is going on but I don't know what. I've used your link with the 24 id on it and it provides the pricing and the ability to order. Thanks!
You must be talking about someone else besides Gene with those mean-spirited comments about him. It has become apparent to me that many people value what Gene is offering for sale and the bitterness in which you constantly refer to him is unfortunately petty and uncalled for.
However your suggestion about Gene buying a banner is good advice. I agree with that.
Sean, we can agree on many things and the things that we disagree on, well, we will just have to agree to disagree. I see that Gene is a hot button for you so I won't bother teasing you with it in the future, however if I do make posts about Gene or Perfect Aim in the future, please don't be tempted to respond as you have done here or I will have to bring out the large blue fonts.
Life is too short to get wound up on anything like this. Your AZB friend, who still hopes to break bread with you one day.
(You do know that I bought one of those Cue Track, stroke trainers, don't you?):wink:
JoeyA
Joey:
I don't know what's going on with your experience on their page, but all I'm doing is going to http://360purecue.com/ (Notice the lack of the "dubya dubya dubya" stuff -- you don't need to do that silly stuff anymore. Take it from a guy that has written RFCs and IETF documents.) Then, from there, I'm merely clicking on the "Buy Now" red button next to the embedded YouTube video for the 360 PureCue Action Trainer. That's it -- honest. Your Internet service may implement a "speed boost" feature, which is actually a caching proxy server. In that case, that server's cache may be stale, and might have an old copy of the 21st Century Cue Sports content. (Kinda doubt it, unless there's others in your area that've visited that page in the past, and I kinda doubt that this server would've kept in cache a copy of this page that you visited long ago. But hey, stranger things've happened.)
<sigh> Here we go again with the fake-innocence. Joey, others are picking up on this (in this very thread, in fact), so please, do us all a favor, and knock it off? This from a fellow veteran. Let's get something straight -- a product's value (irrespective of "real" or "perceived") HAS NOTHING TO DO with the proper way to market that product, specifically of the techniques used. That "old-sick-man-who-says-he-wants-to-do-good-for-pool" does NOT give him a free pass to cast treble hooks into the forum, and not compensate it. Nor will having the greatest product in the world; it doesn't matter. Bad/unscrupulous/parasitic marketing is just that. For the life of me, I can't understand why you are not getting this.
Good, please bend his ear, because he seems to not listen, or just plain "not get it." He doesn't listen to others (and I'm not referring to just myself here), but maybe he'll listen to you.
Sean, we can agree on many things and the things that we disagree on, well, we will just have to agree to disagree. I see that Gene is a hot button for you so I won't bother teasing you with it in the future, however if I do make posts about Gene or Perfect Aim in the future, please don't be tempted to respond as you have done here or I will have to bring out the large blue fonts.
<shakes head> Good grief, Joey. For the last time, it is not an issue of posts about Gene's product. It is the issue of ethics and propriety. Are you trying to say it's "ok" to derail threads with fornicative insertions of off-topic product rah-rah cheerleading into threads that have nothing to do with the topic being discussed? Joey, you've been around on these boards (and their predecessors, e.g. CCB and RSB) for quite some time. You know what spam is. And yet you subscribe to it?
It's not just Gene that's a hot button for me. It's any parasitic marketing, especially masked under a fake-innocence guise, which you obviously subscribe to (hey, you did it right here in this thread). Gene's name just bubbled up to the top because you know he happens to be the CyberPromo example in my book.
I don't mind product reviews of anyone's products. Heck, keep 'em coming! That's how we learn what are valuable products, and what aren't. But there's a stark difference between these three things:
1. A user review of a product;
2. That product's vendor gaff-hook fishing in a forum with no compensation back to his fishing grounds;
3. Those gaff-hooks loaded with bait to disguise their barbs (e.g. "pool stories" that are poorly disguised product boosters), or take credit for inventions / discoveries which are most certainly and well-documented to not be his/hers.
I stay out of threads that bug me -- or at least don't participate in them. E.g. aiming system threads, Gene's own-initiated threads, etc. You've obviously noticed my absence from all that silliness and immaturity. But know this -- you warned me about the blue fonts as you did above. I'll reciprocate -- post off-topic product advertisements (even disguised ones) and I *will* call you on it. That's a promise. You know that.
I hope to break bread with you one day as well. Perhaps break a few racks as well. Although I'm familiar with the CueTrack stroke trainers, I haven't seen one. The only stroke trainers I have are the LaserStroke and the 360 PureCue. At least ones that I actively use (there may be some others I bought over the years, but they obviously turned out to be duds, because they've been repurposed to keep shelves in my basement from floating away.
Your AZB friend as well,
-Sean
Easy Sean.
I make no bones about supporting Gene and others whom I see giving back to the pool world and to this forum. Gene is very worthy of any support that I or anyone else sends his way. I like the way Gene handles himself in this forum. It's nice to have a top player hanging out on the forum on a regular basis even if he is trying to sell me something. When you dangled that carrot in front of me, I think it was your second post to me, I couldn't hold back and had to bite. No worries, I'm all done.
But back to the gravity cue and the 360 Pure Cue. How much value do you put with what you see and saw in the video for the gravity cue?
BTW, something is going on because when I go to the http:\\360purecue.com it shows the same link in the lower right hand side of the main page and when I click on it, it does not show the price. Maybe I have some type of a re-direction virus mutation that can't make up its mind. Oh well, no worries. I may however try out my laptop and see if the same thing happens.
JoeyA
I make no bones about supporting Gene and others whom I see giving back to the pool world and to this forum. Gene is very worthy of any support that I or anyone else sends his way. I like the way Gene handles himself in this forum. It's nice to have a top player hanging out on the forum on a regular basis even if he is trying to sell me something. When you dangled that carrot in front of me, I think it was your second post to me, I couldn't hold back and had to bite.
No worries, I'm all done. But back to the gravity cue and the 360 Pure Cue. How much value do you put with what you see and saw in the video for the gravity cue?
BTW, something is going on because when I go to the http:\\360purecue.com it shows the same link in the lower right hand side of the main page and when I click on it, it does not show the price. Maybe I have some type of a re-direction virus mutation that can't make up its mind. Oh well, no worries. I may however try out my laptop and see if the same thing happens.
JoeyA
This idea was copied from a golf club that does the same thing - has been out for years and years.
Thank you for this review. I was thinking of getting one of these, it seems like a great idea, but I'm discouraged by the fact that the cue doesn't break down AT ALL on "normal" shots (maybe if they made the spring weaker it would work better?). One exercise I have started doing is to stroke my cue on top of a cue ball and try to keep it going back and forth in a straight line. It's hard to do .
Keep in mind that Sean already has snooker like fundamentals. Try it before you you ask for a weaker spring to make it work better. I understand that there is a U.S. supplier of this item.
JoeyA
When I find out for sure, I will post it in this thread.
I think I will have to try it for myself and then make a determination.
JoeyA
I ordered this product on blind faith as I've never tried it beforehand and I must say I'm pretty disappointed thus far. As soon as I opened the box and took the cue out of the wrapping I could tell the spring was way to stiff and probably wouldn't do much for me. I played a few racks, practiced some draw and force follow shots and the cue didn't break down whatsoever. I'm just a bar box B player and the cue only punished me twice while power drawing and a miscue or two, the tip is horrible btw. The spring should most definitely be a little looser as I had to force the cue to break down for the most part but not to much or power drawing could become impossible.
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