Playing one handed to improve your stroke

J

JoeW

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Someone (don’t remember who) mentioned practicing one handed play so I thought I would give it a try to see if it would help with my stroking that ole cue stick.

This seems to work quite well. I find myself emphasizing the right hand much more when I play two handed and this is helping with consistency.

I wonder if some of the pros or advanced players, or whatever you want to call them have found this to be a little known way to improve one’s stroke?
 
JoeW said:
Someone (don’t remember who) mentioned practicing one handed play so I thought I would give it a try to see if it would help with my stroking that ole cue stick.

This seems to work quite well. I find myself emphasizing the right hand much more when I play two handed and this is helping with consistency.

I wonder if some of the pros or advanced players, or whatever you want to call them have found this to be a little known way to improve one’s stroke?
Click to expand...

Joe

I do it almost every day. It helps me to concentrate on parts of my fundamentals that I take for granted and/or get lazy with. I have a video posted on youtube -

One handed/jacked up
 
Stance and Alignment

Blackjack said:
Joe

I do it almost every day. It helps me to concentrate on parts of my fundamentals that I take for granted and/or get lazy with. I have a video posted on youtube -

One handed/jacked up
Click to expand...

I do it quite a bit as well. I'm not sure it helps your stroke but it definitely helps to make sure your stance and alignment are correct...if not we probably couldn't make a ball one handed.
 
A womans pro player forgot the name said her coach makes her practice one handed 6 hours a day to help with her stroke
 
Blackjack said:
Joe

I do it almost every day. It helps me to concentrate on parts of my fundamentals that I take for granted and/or get lazy with. I have a video posted on youtube -

One handed/jacked up
Click to expand...

That is an amazing video. Certainly says something about how to aim a cue ball. I can now see where learning to play one handed corrects many aspects of a "bad" stroke.

Thanks everyone.

I don't play anywhwere near Blackjack's speed and cannot do some of the things he does. I do find that resting the cue on the table and then stroking several times makes me get "better" alignment and that it is a self teaching / correcting method for learning what to pay attention to during the stroke. It seems to take some emphasis off the stroke and puts more emphasis on alignment and of course the back hand. These differences seem to bring out what is needed for a good stroke when aligned. It is difficult to put into words and perhaps I have it wrong. I do know that it has done a lot for how I play with the cue stick !
 
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Wow I haven't thought about this in a long time.

When I was 18 The owner of the local poolhall said this is something I needed to be doing. Being 18 I didn't listen.

One day a regular wanted to gamble a little bit. I was in a bad slump but I couldn't really fairly spot him in 8 ball because he didn't play well. The owner jumped up and said that I would play him one handed without using the rail. I said what?:sorry: Well he backed me as he usually did. To my suprise I didn't do as bad as I thought I would do. Actually hit them really well.

To make a long story short. It got me out of my slump. Later that night a guy named Bob came in. He was over my head but the owner put me in a game even with him and backed me. I ran over him all night. Had him stuck almost 200 playing 20 a set. Eventually I let him off even.

After that I put this into my daily pratice routine. It really taught me how to focus on every shot and not take any for granted.

Sorry for the long story. It just brought back old memories.

Junior
 
There is a guy on my league team that plays practice rounds one-handed quite often (and many times against me, as he is a better player than I, as a sort of equalizer) and I just thought he was having fun, messing around. For fun, I tried to do it a bit the other day, and saw how challenging it really is. Now I see this thread, written by and including people whose opinions I trust, and that gives me a whole new perspective on playing one-handed. Cool.... (Gotta try it again, soon.)
 
Though I did not specifically use one handed play as a [ractice tool, I did notice that for the most part, the bridge hand was not needed AT ALL in order to play VERY high speed 8 ball on a 9 footer.

I found this out while playing my future wife and trying to find a fair handicap.

Just playing one handed wasn't it.

I had tuned my stroke enough to where I rarely felt tension in my stroking arm, which is critical to playing well one handed.

One thing I can't say enough, is how important the elbow drop was for me to play one handed well. I was doing pretty ridiculous stuff, like drawing 6-7 feet when I could use the rail, carom shots with control, bank shots.

It really does make you focus on position, though. There are a lot of areas on the table you do not want the CB to end up.

Russ
 
I was told that the famous pool coach Mr.Jerry Brieseth tells his students to practice hitting the balls with one hand for an hour at a time to improve the stroke.
 
ctyhntr said:
Wow, seven postings so far and no jokes or innuendos about stroking with one hand.
Click to expand...

Yeah, maybe everyone had the thought, but congratulations on being the first one non-constructive enough to actually post about it. :thumbup:

JoeW,

Liz Ford posted that in her workout regimen with some of the european pros, that this was a critical component to the "single shots" section of the workout.
http://sticksandballsandholes.blogspot.com/2010/02/single-shots.html


It seems like this is largely considered a pretty good idea. I find that it also helps me pause at the cue ball (set position) to verify alignment and reduce tendency to miscue.
 
Blackjack told me about this years ago,and so did my pool coach,"FINALLY" I listened to them one day while practicing (goofing off) and it made me see how my body alignment was out of whack,now I do it with Joe Tuckers stroke trainer,snaps me back into dead stroke like right now.
 
I had the pleasure of spending some time with Bob Jewett a few years back and he recommended lining up all the balls on the first diamond and stroking them into the far corners one handed on the rail. It is something I do at the start of practice and when my stroke just doesn't feel right.
 
Wow - Thanks Blackjack, this is why AZ is such a great place.

I would never have thought of practicing one handed shooting to improve my stroke ( which I am always trying to improve ) AZ is certainly the place to learn from - everything pool.

Thanks Blackjack, it's people like you that make this site GREAT !!!

Tommyd1
 
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