It seems to get worse with age...
keep playing oliver. i've seen you play on postup and you've got a mean 1p game!
Thanks. It's the traveling that's wearing on me.
Probably real good stuff if it would fit in my head.
Anything in particular I can help understand better?
interesting read and thorough description of your journey
check your PM
Thanks, will do
WTF?????? anybody read all that shit????? anybody got the cliff notes version?
Well, cliff notes would be that your eyes lie to you most of the time and after a certain point mechanical fixes no longer work
If you watch the top pros, many don't have a 100% straight stroke, there's lateral movement in the swing yet delivery/ contact is pure.
There's a lot of rabbit holes in the game and not all juices are worth the squeezes.
Thats right, many/most don't. However the closer you get to the very elite - Filler, Gorsty, Kaci - the less lateral movement there is. Even more obvious in snooker. This squeeze might really only "worth it" for pro level. Thus the 2 paths forward that I wrote about towards the end.
What I do think this bit of work does though, is help a lot of people, who feel stuck, to understand what is happening with their mechanics. In my own experience, not being able to understand wtf was wrong with my stroke sometimes, was by far the most frustrating bit. Fixing it is whole other story, not relevant for most.
Great post, Oliver. Glad to see you posting here as well. Have you considered starting a Substack? I would definitely subscribe.
It's really interesting to hear your topics on this because I have a similar issue. I align slightly right of center, steer to the left on follow through, and I'll naturally miss a straight shot to the right (CB too far left) if I don't compensate. I've also been working on it for the past 18 months, including getting help from Thorsten and Stephen Feeney (coach of Ronnie O'Sullivan and Mark Williams). It's funny that you mention Thorsten as having a naturally straight stroke because he frequently mentions that he feels like he has a similar issue.
This resonated a lot and led me to continuously tweak my mechanics, even though my game was "perfectly fine" by many people's standards (~630 Fargo).
For the two paths, Thorsten also offered me the same choice by different names: "compensating" or "fixing". He seemed to imply that neither one was the right choice and many top players have went with the "compensating" route.
The Brock string is interesting because it seems similar to the SightRight tool that Stephen Feeney uses in his lessons. These types of tools seem really helpful in learning more about how you "see" and what is optimal.
My latest change was to rotate my shoulder a few inches farther back to be completely in line with my head (which you already do). It's been about a month, but this seems to have completely solved my alignment and vision issues, but not the issue with steering the cue to the left on follow through. We'll see where this latest adjustment will take me!
Thanks.
I'm curious about your experience with Feeney. I've gone through the whole 'sightright' thing as well, the main point is solid I think, but some aspects are not covered (in my opinion). Was he able to offer any meaningful help?
Thorsten had the tiniest amount of left (?) swoop if i remember correctly, but it was so minimal. I have seen an older video where it appears to be much worse. Not sure what to think about that.
Got any vids of your latest form?
This is very interesting to me. I have vision issues that require a very strong prism in my glasses lenses to keep me from seeing double. Some of the things that Oliver described are exactly what I deal with. I can line up a perfectly straight-in shot, and when I get down over it, it does not look straight. It looks like I need to cut the OB slightly to the left (IOW, it looks like I need to aim the cueball slightly to the right.) I am left eye dominant, right handed. I have to consciously keep my head to the right so that the shaft is more under my left eye. I see cut shots much better this way, but still have the distortion. Likely caused by the prism in my lenses
I don't personally wear glasses, so I can only imagine how much more difficult it must be. Let me know if you need any specific advice or feedback.
I had a few beers last night and I seem to have offended by being flippant. Sorry if I offended you. No, I do not think is is AI.
What I do think is that your points could have been made more concisely. However since I really have nothing to contribute to your thread, I will take my leave.
Bon Chance
No worries at all, i try not to waste time on getting offended! And I am also guilty of beer-posting from time to time.
