Eagle eye and sightright
- Thread starter NathanDetroit
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About 6 months. Probably not worth the cost for me. I'm right handed and my vision center is directly under my left eye, which is known as being "cross dominant", which presents issues they don't address in the videos. The more I step in to my left to provide clearance for my cue, the more I have to crane my neck back to the right to get my left eye over my cue, which creates neck tension and puts all my weight on my right foot. I've settled on stepping in only slightly to my left, which creates a stance where my backhand almost brushes my right hip, and on my forward swing my arm hits my chest very soon after breaking 90 degrees, i.e. I don't have much clearance for my cue--that way when I reach my neck to the right to align my left eye over the cue, I don't feel like I am in danger of falling over to my right.
I don't think there is a training method per se. It's about measuring your vision center, aligning your vision center with the shot line during your PSR, so that you are "correctly" sighting down the shot line, then getting down into your stance and realigning your vision center over the cue. Once I did that, everything looked strange, e.g. a straight in shot looked like a 3/4 ball cut angle sending the OB to the right. It's very strange to aim a shot which you are sure will miss the pocket by 2" to the right, and it goes straight in. So, you have to retrain your brain to see a straight in shot as straight in--as well as what other cut angles that pocket the ball look like. One thing they suggest in the videos is to put an OB near a side pocket, then place the CB at various points on an arc around the OB, and shoot the OB in the pocket. That will show your brain what the cut angles look like that succeed in pocketing the ball. Essentially, you need to sink a lot of balls with different cut angles.
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Sight Right - or better said just the knowledge about it should be in everyone s arsenal (coach, instructors). Learnt the "method" and its sense 1983 when i visited London. Taught by a snooker player i met "accidently". One of the most impressive and rememberable moments i had in my pool journey.
Worth it- especially because you can show everyone, if he s "offline"
Worth it- especially because you can show everyone, if he s "offline"
It should be noted that you can find your vision center without SightRight. Dr. Dave and ShortStopOnPool have videos on finding your vision center.
Folding a piece of paper with a line on it works well also, but it's not durable and won't work well once it gets crumpled. I think Bob J. Has a thread somewhere on here about the paper method.
They might not describe it but it is clearly being done if you watch some videos of Mark Williams and Stewart Bingham. Basically, this step needs to be performed this way or the shift from standing perpendicular to the shot line with the cue across your chest to having the cue on the shot line after the sightright step will never be consistent.
So my guess is performing this step comfortably is why he no longer is using the extension.
And to the doubters out there, I bet he gets results from sightright. There is a reason that two washed up middle aged pros won the snooker world championship after switching to it, which was basically unheard of. And no, I don't believe it was purely psychological, if it was that easy then other middle aged pros would have found something to psychologically hang-their-head-on and been winning championships prior to this, which they did not.
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TeddyKGB
Active member
probably, he was at his best when he was fit around 2016
I've seen it. This seems easier.
I never understood why there is a weight limit….they can use a forty pound cue while playing me,
….I tried a 25 and a 26 ounce break cue…..too heavy, I broke worse.
And for the players who use the long, plastic extenders, I bet some of them get over 25 ounces in total. I think the rules are not clear about that, though. I think there is no max limit at snooker and I suspect some of the old fashioned "long equipment" was over 30 ounces.
I've heard players say that they like the extension because it seems to give them more stability. For me the add-on extension (8 or 9 inches) just makes the balance feel wrong.
At 7:40 he asks whether Ronnie would see this line straight according to this sighting aid, and if not whether he would improve if he centered his cue around his sighting center. His answer "I haven't got a clue".
How many top players are sighting perfectly aligned with their vision center? Is it possible many aren't centered right but have just learned to recognize the angles based on experience?
I watched a video of Mark Williams, and I think I see what you are talking about. He holds his cue horizontal and extended in front of his body, and what looks to be perpendicular to the shot line, then steps in. That is not taught in the SightRight videos. I rewatched some of the SightRight videos that use Stephen Hendry as the model, and he does something similar, however his cue is not completely horizontal in front of him. The snooker player who they use as the model for the Step In video actually lays his cue on the shot line, and then steps in around his cue. The videos never tell you how to hold the cue while standing and aligning your vision center on the shot line during your PSR.
As far as the step in goes, the videos say you have to practice how far to step in to the left (for a right handed player). They say that if you step in too far to the left, then the butt of your cue will be left of the shot line, and with the tip of your cue on the shot line, the tip will point across the shot line to the right. And, if you don't step in far enough to the left, then you won't be able to get the butt of the cue on the shot line, so the butt of your cue will be to the right of the shot line, and with the tip of your cue on the shot line the tip will necessarily point across the shot line to the left. That assumes that your cue remains a fixed distance from your body, which for snooker players who use their chest and chin to guide their stroke is a reasonable assumption. A pool player, for instance, could step in farther to the left and still get the butt of the cue on the shot line by using more clearance between his/her body and the butt of the cue.
The videos say you have to practice the step in so that you step in to the left the exact distance that is needed to get the butt of your cue exactly on the shot line. "The whole purpose of the SightRight step in is to get the butt of the cue on the shot line." They don't say anything about holding the cue out in front of you horizontally before the step in--all they say is to relax and stand with your feet shoulder width apart, feet turned outward like you are waiting for a bus with the shot line hitting your belt directly under your vision center.
There are Master Classes, which cost additional payments to view, so it's possible the horizontal cue thing is taught in one of those classes. However, if it was something fundamental to the SightRight teachings, I would think it would be taught along with the PSR alignment and step in.
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They say to stand perpendicular to the shot line and hold the cue across your body as a starting point. The videos are purposely vague so you have to pay for their instruction.
I think the extension transformed SVB's stroke, or if transformed is too strong of a word, he at least changed it some. Before the extension his stroke more often resembled Fedor's with the natural elbow drop. With the extension on, and having a bit more cue to work with -- he locks his elbow in place a lot more. Maybe that has nothing to do with the extension, but I see how the two can go together after having played with one for a while.
I don't really like "the look" of Shane's elbow-locked stroke. It appears very "snatchy" for lack of a better term. It looks like not only does he abruptly end his stroke, but he even pulls it back a bit after it's conclusion.
Well, they are not that vague. In the video on the "Step In", they show a graphic arts depiction of Stephen Hendry standing in his PSR, with his vision center aligned with the shot line. There is a circle around his right hand, which is holding the butt of the cue. The shot line roughly hits the middle of his waistline, and his right hand is on the outside of his right hip, so his right hand is half a body width to the right of the shot line. The video says to note that his right hand is well to the right of the shot line. Then the video explains how it's very natural to step in so that the butt of the cue aligns with the shot line. These same steps are prescribed again later in the video series (Session 7- Recue of the SightRight Step and Stance) where Stephen Feeney says, aligning your vision center on the shot line in your PSR "invariably means that the butt of your cue [i.e. your right hand] will be well outside the line of aim of the shot. The purpose of the step is then to get the butt of the cue [i.e. your right hand] on the line of aim that you sighted..."
Stephen Feeney, the inventor of SightRight, emphatically rejects the long taught notion that you should start with you right foot on the shot line, which would put the butt of the cue on the shot line when you are standing square to the shot. Instead, he teaches that the shot line should hit the middle of your body when standing square to the shot line in your PSR--the exact location depending on where your personal vision center is. That way, your vision center is aligned with the shot line, and you see the "true" angles of your shots.
If you are saying that Stephen Feeney teaches that you should start with the cue extended in front of your body with your right hand on the shot line, then I believe that is incorrect because he says the exact opposite in the videos on the Step In. Here is good look at Mark Williams during his match against Ronnie O'Sullivan, and he doesn't appear to do anything unusual, and I don't see any wrist rotation [edit: supposedly the video below was from the 2023 championships but reading the youtube comments apparently it's not]:
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