bridge length and parallax, help me explain

Solartje

Solartje

the Brunswick BUG bit me
Silver Member
Hi all,

Before i start with my question, some short background. I am known to have the biggest up and downswings in my game in the country. I can play greath level and i can miss every single ball. im not taling about having a good or bad day, im talking about missing balls 2balls wide in a straight in shot 15inches from the pocket, to potting long straight in shots one handed with my eyes closed 10/10, and this in a matter of seconds.

Been working on the mental part and preshort routine for 6 months, helped me, but didnt solve the problem.

Been working on my stance, stroke and quiet eye for 1.5 year, helped me alot, but didnt solve the problem.

My eyes are weird though. I have no strong eye dominance. there is a slight priority to my right eye, but i can change the eye dominance consciously and non-consiously. depending on several factors: if i slept well, general lightning, distance of OB, left or right cuts, etc.. I aim with my right eye above my cue. (and when i make those HUGE missers, where i can't seem to be able to find a problem in the stroke or bad contact, or not hitting center ball) it feel like my eyes lie to me. I aim straight, the stroke is straight, the cb goes straight, but the OB doesnt go straight.

When im down on the shot and looking at the OB, i see two or (or sometimes) three cueballs.
two from each eye, and one that looks like a combination of both ghost-images forming a eye-shaped cb. the cb i see the clearest (the one you see what your dominant eye) never stays on the same side if i switch my focus between OB and CB or even when not switching the focus point at all. i can blurr one out and only see one, and blurr the other one out and see the other.

for example: i look at cb, cb is lined up to OB, i look at OB and back to CB, and now the cb looks like it is moved to the right and the CB is not lined up to the OB, and it constantly changes. (ps yes im 200% sure my body is not moving a single 0.0001inch)

Now since a week, im playing with a much longer bridge. From 6-7 " to 10-12"; and i don't seem to have this dominance changing problems anymore. Well... i correct this, i'm pritty sure the dominance changes still occurs, but the further bridge, aka CB laying further away does "something" so I can aim true every time. the cb just goes where i aim it at.



I supose it has to do with parallax and eye dominance, but i can't really tell why????

anyone has got an idea? I want to understand why sudenly the cb always goes where I aim, so i can aply this knowledge everytime and not lose it.

One of the things im thinking is that the further the object is (the CB), the smaller the parallax difference is. when using normal bridge, the 2 CB's i see are so far apart, that i get :eek:, with the longer bridge it looks like all the cb's are almost melted into one solid cb that always is lined up, no matter what eye is dominant. this sounds logic, but i didn't think that those fiew extra inches would change so much.

im losing accuracy with unwanted english, but the at least om not missing 2 balls wide anymore and potting like a machine. The unwanted english i can always remove by using a pivoting aiming system, but i got a pritty straight stroke.
 
Last edited:
i think i can help no doubt..................

Solartje said:
Hi all,

Before i start with my question, some short background. I am known to have the biggest up and downswings in my game in the country. I can play greath level and i can miss every single ball. im not taling about having a good or bad day, im talking about missing balls 2balls wide in a straight in shot 15inches from the pocket, to potting long straight in shots one handed with my eyes closed 10/10, and this in a matter of seconds.

Been working on the mental part and preshort routine for 6 months, helped me, but didnt solve the problem.

Been working on my stance, stroke and quiet eye for 1.5 year, helped me alot, but didnt solve the problem.

My eyes are weird though. I have no strong eye dominance. there is a slight priority to my right eye, but i can change the eye dominance consciously and non-consiously. depending on several factors: if i slept well, general lightning, distance of OB, left or right cuts, etc.. I aim with my right eye above my cue. (and when i make those HUGE missers, where i can't seem to be able to find a problem in the stroke or bad contact, or not hitting center ball) it feel like my eyes lie to me. I aim straight, the stroke is straight, the cb goes straight, but the OB doesnt go straight.

When im down on the shot and looking at the OB, i see two or (or sometimes) three cueballs.
two from each eye, and one that looks like a combination of both ghost-images forming a eye-shaped cb. the cb i see the clearest (the one you see what your dominant eye) never stays on the same side if i switch my focus between OB and CB or even when not switching the focus point at all. i can blurr one out and only see one, and blurr the other one out and see the other.

for example: i look at cb, cb is lined up to OB, i look at OB and back to CB, and now the cb looks like it is moved to the right and the CB is not lined up to the OB, and it constantly changes. (ps yes im 200% sure my body is not moving a single 0.0001inch)

Now since a week, im playing with a much longer bridge. From 6-7 " to 10-12"; and i don't seem to have this dominance changing problems anymore. Well... i correct this, i'm pritty sure the dominance changes still occurs, but the further bridge, aka CB laying further away does "something" so I can aim true every time. the cb just goes where i aim it at.



I supose it has to do with parallax and eye dominance, but i can't really tell why????

anyone has got an idea? I want to understand why sudenly the cb always goes where I aim, so i can aply this knowledge everytime and not lose it.

One of the things im thinking is that the further the object is (the CB), the smaller the parallax difference is. when using normal bridge, the 2 CB's i see are so far apart, that i get :eek:, with the longer bridge it looks like all the cb's are almost melted into one solid cb that always is lined up, no matter what eye is dominant. this sounds logic, but i didn't think that those fiew extra inches would change so much.

im losing accuracy with unwanted english, but the at least om not missing 2 balls wide anymore and potting like a machine. The unwanted english i can always remove by using a pivoting aiming system, but i got a pritty straight stroke.
Click to expand...

hi there,

i can feel your pain. i understand your problem. many players have these problems but just don't identify them.

in my perfect aim lesson i teach everyone to look at a shot right eye dominant and left eye dominant.everyone can do this. i've found this very valuable to each player because one way will look better than the other. the one that looks better is the dominant eye. this has to be estabished first or nothing can be corrected. especailly in you case.

i know your struggling and i know i have the answers for you. i'll bet your way down low on the cue? this creates some of the problems you talk about.

many of these issues you talk about are addressed and taken care of with perfect aim. i would like a chance to work with you on this.

the phone lesson that i am doing right now is mostly about correcting the problems you describe. most players don't have them described as well as you do or know how to describe them. they just know they can't shoot straight.

what you describe is why the person that never seems to miss will all of a sudden miss and doesn't know why. if you don't know why you can't correct it. therefor it keeps happening again and again. it doesn't matter how easy the shot is you will miss it the same if your eyes are not right. the brain needs the correct info. if the eyes are not in the most correct position they cannot relay to the brain what the body has to do.

give me a call. i'm sure i can help you. i will do this for free.

i'm trying to learn myself. i am learning. by helping players i am learning so i can help more players.

i know it's expensive calling from there. here is my land phone

715-254-6964. i don't know what your time zone is there but we need to coordinate times. i'm on central time in the usa. from 1:00pm to 11:00 pm i am available. i will help you understand what is happening and how to correct it and keep it corrected.

again this is free. you owe me nothing. well, maybe if you ever get to the usa you can buy me lunch. how's that.

pick a time when you can be by a pool table and we'll go to work. i'll let you know if that time will do it. should take about 1/2 hour.

looking forward to working with you. geno.............
 
Give Geno a shot. If this is an eye dominance issue I think he could be very helpful.

----

This might also be "analysis paralysis". When I started playing pool I had one book and one occasional teacher, and I spent at least 5 or 6 years learning from experience + books. I developed some bad habits, but as I got more books and got onto the internet I made the decision to fix the worst of them (spinning balls in with outside english). It took YEARS to fix that one major bad habit and I still struggle with it 5 years later.

Now on AZB I read about all this other aiming stuff, backhand english, eye dominance, head adjustments, focus points on the CB and OB, etc. I try one thing one week, then read about something else and spend a week on that... then try something else. I try 5 different shooting adjustments that don't allow me to fall back on years of shotmaking experience... and the result is inconsistency.

I'm not saying "don't try new things"... but if you're going to try something that you feel will really help your game, you need to focus 100% on that and not experiment with other stuff at the same time. Otherwise you won't make balls the "new way", you won't make balls the "old way", you'll just lose consistency and miss shots.

I don't know what exactly you need to fix in your stroke but something you said interested me... about the longer bridge. One of the interesting bits of info on Dr. Dave's site says that every stick has a sweet spot where pivoting the stick with your back hand will allow you to stroke with any sidespin you want... and the ball still goes straight where you're aiming. The sweet spot is different from stick to stick but generally LD shafts have a pivot point that is further back than other sticks. When it's working, you can line up a straight in stop shot, then pivot to put heavy left or right spin, then stroke... and it should just slam into the pocket and spin in place. Maybe you found your sweet spot by accident.

Also, I went for years looking at OB last. But I feel my stroke is straight and decided to give CB last a try. It's been working just fine and there are times where I swear it helps me make balls. Sometimes I feel like I don't want to look at either ball, but at a middle distance shortly after the cue ball (in situations where accuracy is important and I just want to send the CB along an exact line, nevermind spin).

Just give it a serious try for a few racks and see if it doesn't feel right. For me it did, on many shots. It might help.
 
Sounds like your stance had you too close to the cue ball. If I bend my bridge arm a lot and get really close to the cue ball, I get double vision also. If I lean slightly back in my stance, it increases my bridge length a little, but also puts my head back, and helps me sight better.
 
creedo: its true that i have been re-learning alot of things after several years of banging without knowing. and it sure has decreased my game several times, and that i had been learning to much to soon in the beginning, but i don't feel like this is the case of the inconsitency though. after the initial deadstroke, folowed by the long time downswing, folowed by the lasting increase in my game. ive been true this cicle many many times.

im 90% sure its about my stance and my eyes (with the latest being the most important factor).

i know BHE, and FHE very well. I worked with Colin on this when the first posts where made in here. i used to have circels on my shaft for each adjustment :) it wasn't just a lucky pivot point i found. i know the pivot point for each speed and distance for every single shaft i own :)

beware: ? mmm no idea what snorllax is :D I supose its some kind of a joke :thumbup: to bad im not getting it :grin-square:

cuetechasaurus: yes my bridge arm is alot straighter too. i forgot that this will increase the distance from cb - eye alot too !! probably a combination of both.

Geno: Geno, i have been folowing your posts and your perfect aim for some time and im at least interested in your aid. one problem, that has me prevented from contacting you sooner, i only have a cell-phone from my job, that i can't use to call to the states... and i'm not sure the dvd alone will be helpfull.

What i have done is contacted the person you worked with from belgium. (pieter?). if im correct he is one of the persons testing it. I haven't got a pm back yet, but i'll try to meat him in a poolhall somewhere, and let him explain me what you explained him on the phone.

If it really doesnt work, ill have to think about solving that phone call isue.


ps: im shooting LIGHTS out for 4 days now, won my first tittle, so its not like im playing bad and need any help. im playing the best pool in my life, and playing the 12-ball ghost. but im the guy in class who always asks= "but how does it work?"
 
i found this article that also talks about the same problem.


Ocular Dominance
Ocular domiance is when the brain prefers input from one eye compared to the other. Generally the brain takes the images from each individual eye and merges them into one image. However, because the eyes are not located in the same location there are times that if the brain tried to merge the images from the two eyes you would actually see double. In these situations the brain will suppress the signal from the non-dominant eye and focus on only the dominant eye. This suppression of the non-dominant eye will usually occur when someone is aiming or trying to ‘sight a line’

Eye dominance s similar to being right or left handed but is it not same as your handedness. About two-thirds of the population is right-eye dominant, however in some people neither eye is dominant. Eye domiance can change temporarily depending on the direction of gaze or the size of the image someone is looking at.

Eye domiance can be factor in some aiming sports like darts or archery. It is also an important factor in patients who have monovision as a result of contacts or refractive surgery.

or




If when you close an eye, the finger appears to jump in relation to the background, then the eye you closed is your dominant eye.

- Close your left eye and see a finger jump, you are left eye dominant.
- Close your right eye and see a finger jump, you are right eye dominant.
- See two fingers when you try to point, neither eye is strongly dominant.

so im not going crazy :) I am one of those small % that have no strongly dominant eye. The thing is, how do I use this knowledge to aim.

does increasing the distance is enough? or is there something else i need to do? I try to focus always on the left of the two images i see, trying to force the right eye, that is lined up above my cue.
=====


own notes of things i found on the internet:

according to what i found, its called ambi-ocular, and i should put the cue in between both eyes.... i have tried this before but it isn't working very well.
maybe its just because i need to retrain all the visual feedback in my brain, to know when i'm aiming correctly? is this something i want to do? thats 5 years of visual images of shots in my brain to reprogram. i don't think i want to go that way, and not sure i need to ...


BUT i founs this!!! maybe it is the explenation for why it works for me.

in a archery shooting website, someone says to use your right arm as a guide to focus and folow it till your arch, that way you will always force the dominance of the right eye. the same if i would shoot left handed, i would folow the left arm with the left eye, to force left dominance... maybe this is why i shoort perfectly straight now with my right eye above the cue, because with the longer bridge, i see more shaft (i always first check the shaft movement when doing warming up strokes before looking at anything else), and i use the shaft on the right of my body to focus, and then slowly move my eyes up to see the cb...

mmm this could be the reason !! at least it sounds logic...
 

Attachments

  • 2.JPG
    2.JPG
    41.9 KB · Views: 407
Last edited:
ive tried the:

folow your arm with your eyes untill you can see your hand method to force the eye dominance and it works 10/10. :eek: thats greath!!!!!!!!!!
might sounds SO stupid for most readers i imagine, but for someone who has this problem this is HUGE!!

:D
 
Solartje said:
beware: ? mmm no idea what snorllax is :D I supose its some kind of a joke :thumbup: to bad im not getting it :grin-square:
Click to expand...

Yeah, I read a little bit further... Not really related.

When you encounter a Snorlax in the wild it hurts your eyes but seeing it is never a problem.

Un-seeing it is really the challenge.

Snorlax.jpg
 
i'm kinda right eye domanate but not 100% more like 60%, thats why I think its taken me so long to play ok. I see things differently.
 
Fatboy said:
i'm kinda right eye domanate but not 100% more like 60%, thats why I think its taken me so long to play ok. I see things differently.
Click to expand...

fatboy, what did you do to counter/solve this?


im sure there must be players with the same thing, that had this before and found a way to solve it. (maybe a different method then i suggest... ?)
 
Solartje said:
Now since a week, im playing with a much longer bridge. From 6-7 " to 10-12"; and i don't seem to have this dominance changing problems anymore. Well... i correct this, i'm pritty sure the dominance changes still occurs, but the further bridge, aka CB laying further away does "something" so I can aim true every time. the cb just goes where i aim it at.
Click to expand...
A longer bridge length, and using an open bridge, can help you see more of the cue in your field of vision. This can help you better perceive the actual line of the shot. See Diagram 3 in my December '08 BD article for an illustration.

Regards,
Dave
 
dr_dave said:
A longer bridge length, and using an open bridge, can help you see more of the cue in your field of vision. This can help you better perceive the actual line of the shot. See Diagram 3 in my December '08 BD article for an illustration.

Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...

thanks dave for the input,

but the post was more about eye dominance shifting and how to solve this problem, then about open vs closed or short vs long bridges. ;) using a longer bridge doesnt change anything in the brain.

you could add to your article thought, that using a longer bridge shortens the percieved distance in between the double image caused by parallax, decreasing the margin of error if the cue is not lined up perfectly under the dominant eye.

This could help alot of players who dont have an eye dominance, but it only reduces the problem, It doesnt remove it.

im looking into ways to remove this problem by forcing eye dominance. like: look to the right and then to the cb to force the right eye to be dominant.

its funny, i haven't been able to find a single thing about this problem pool-related on the whole internet.:boring2: (exept one very short post saying, if ambi occular, put cue in the middle of both eyes. wich i know from my own experience, doesn't work perfectly

This can't be the first time someone thinks about this? pool is a aiming-game, so the eye subject should be as important as the stroke.
 
Solartje said:
thanks dave for the input,

but the post was more about eye dominance shifting and how to solve this problem, then about open vs closed or short vs long bridges. ;) using a longer bridge doesnt change anything in the brain.

you could add to your article thought, that using a longer bridge shortens the percieved distance in between the double image caused by parallax, decreasing the margin of error if the cue is not lined up perfectly under the dominant eye.

This could help alot of players who dont have an eye dominance, but it only reduces the problem, It doesnt remove it.
Click to expand...
Good points.

Solartje said:
im looking into ways to remove this problem by forcing eye dominance. like: look to the right and then to the cb to force the right eye to be dominant.

its funny, i haven't been able to find a single thing about this problem pool-related on the whole internet.:boring2: (exept one very short post saying, if ambi occular, put cue in the middle of both eyes. wich i know from my own experience, doesn't work perfectly

This can't be the first time someone thinks about this? pool is a aiming-game, so the eye subject should be as important as the stroke.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Consistent sighting (even if using different sighting for different types of shots), and finding one's "vision center" are critical aspects of the game. FYI, I have some info and resources on these topics here:


This might not be exactly what you're looking for, but you might find the stuff interesting anyway.

Regards,
Dave
 
dave, your articles are always interesting :)

especially with the added azb comments in many posts form the greath posteres in here. If im looking for some info, im sure there is always something to read in you library.

thanks for making this all public and easy to acces.
 
Solartje said:
dave, your articles are always interesting :)

especially with the added azb comments in many posts form the greath posteres in here. If im looking for some info, im sure there is always something to read in you library.

thanks for making this all public and easy to acces.
Click to expand...
Thanks ... and you're welcome.

I aim to squerve,
Dave
 
At last someone who speaks my language. I see the cueball the same way you do and always tried to find new ways to use both cueballs when aiming. I would use the right cueball in my double vision of the cueballs to aim left cuts as it's the left eye that views the right one. And you can actually see the left edge of the cueball easier and better. Vice versa for right cuts. I haven't actually tried to move my head back further to reduce it but will. Try it out tonite, great thread.
 
TheConArtist said:
At last someone who speaks my language. I see the cueball the same way you do and always tried to find new ways to use both cueballs when aiming. I would use the right cueball in my double vision of the cueballs to aim left cuts as it's the left eye that views the right one. And you can actually see the left edge of the cueball easier and better. Vice versa for right cuts. I haven't actually tried to move my head back further to reduce it but will. Try it out tonite, great thread.
Click to expand...

hehe :thumbup: im glad i found another weirdo eye poolplayer.

ps: ignore the post about looking to the right completly and then going back to the cb...
the reason why when looking to the right, forces right eye dominant, (i know its stupid... :o) is because your nose is in between the things to your right and your left eye. So the left eye can't see it, and cant be dominant... as soon as you move your focus to something in the middle again, the eye dominance has free-play....Dooo'Ohh.

still im doing something!! with my eyes that is working, but i can't put my finger on it yet...:angry: been doing it for a week and played like a monster, and not doing it for 2 days and having the same misses again. FRUSTRATING.

in fact we can use any eye we want, and place the cue under that eye, and aim/stroke straight. the problem is, wich eye we choose, and how can we keep that eye dominant..

personally i don't like aiming with edges of CB's. i prefere to use center of CB, and use the same eye for both left and right cuts...
maybe i should start with focusing on a edge (helps making one of the two cueballs clear) and the move the focus to the middle of that clear CB and then aim that center to the center of the ghost-ball and align my (right) eye with the center of that (left) cb.... will try this tonight. (I guess it also depends on how you aim... overlaping (focusing on edges might be better) or ghostball (focusing on middle might be better)


Have you tried putting your cue in between both eyes, and aim with the intersection of the two cueballs? i know its hard to get the intersection clear, but you have to look into a point at infinite distance... like gasing but not focusing?


im going to search google again to see if i can find something on ambi-occulars to aim correctly..
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top