Follow through pictures, thoughts, etc.

[Patrick Johnson]

Spidey:
...if you know you're limited to a 1" follow-through and have to hit a firm shot, you WILL decelerate prior to making contact with the CB. Conversely, if you view the CB as a hologram and stroke to a point beyond it (longer follow-through), you will accelerate up to the instant of contact. The difference between the two is profound.

Just to be clear: there is a difference, but it's entirely in the speed, direction and accuracy of your stick/CB contact. It doesn't change the duration, "quality" or effect gained from the momentary tip/ball contact. If you can get the same speed, direction and accuracy from a stroke that only follows through 1 inch (for instance, if you stop your grip hand by running it into the rail right after contact), you'll get the same hit and effect (accompanied by lots of cursing).

In particular, accelerating up to the moment of contact (or beyond) doesn't change anything during contact.

pj
chgo

 

[SpiderWebComm]

Just to be clear: there is a difference, but it's entirely in the speed, direction and accuracy of your stick/CB contact. It doesn't change the duration, "quality" or effect gained from the momentary tip/ball contact. If you can get the same speed, direction and accuracy from a stroke that only follows through 1 inch (for instance, if you stop your grip hand by running it into the rail right after contact), you'll get the same hit and effect (accompanied by lots of cursing).

In particular, accelerating up to the moment of contact (or beyond) doesn't change anything during contact.

pj
chgo

Never said otherwise. I agree.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

Never said otherwise. I agree.

Right - I just chimed in to clarify in case somebody didn't read you right.

I'm sure we'll have plenty of other threads to argue about.

pj
chgo

 

[Bugz]

I don't know jack about shit, but I would say to change that right foot like others said before me. My reasons are a little different:

1) If you feel pressure or nerves, you might accidentally push off with your right foot in the middle of a shot. Causing your line to go outta wack and you might miss.

2) Seems like your locking your front knee, which is fine if thats how you want to shoot. It just might get to you after a long session of playing, hence why they say not to lock your knees when you stand for long periods of time.

3) By having your right leg so far back, you might have the tendancy to 'twist' during a shot your not 100% confident in position/speed/or angle.

 

[8ballEinstein]

Why? What specific effect do you think would be added, increased or changed during the extra contact time?

"It would matter" doesn't mean anything by itself, and isn't convincing.

pj
chgo

Two things. Increased spin on off-center shots and decreased squirt.

By itself "it would matter" may not mean anything but after I mentioned "noticable effect" earlier in my post, I thought it would be understood.

 

[Fatboy]

Bump for a friend to see, he missed this thread.


Somedays because of my back I cant play at all, other days I have poor form, if I havent played in a month staying down has awalys been a problem.

I know what I need to do to solve this problem, practice, practice, practice-just like Miz said in the beer commercial.

Its just a huge handicap having a bad back and playing pool or alot of other things. Be thankful if you have a good back.

 

[berlowmj2]

discomfort

Whenever I feel uncomfortable physically, back,neck or foot etc., I just want to get out of the stance as quickly as possible and jump up. Hard to control when you are hurting.

My understanding is that, if you feel uncomfortable, you should get up BEFORE completing the shot, relax-chalk cue whatever, & begin your pre-shot routine all over again.

This takes a great deal of discipline & is easier said then done.

My limited experience is that, if I feel good, the ball usually goes in & the CB obeys.

If not, things seldom work out.

 

[Palmetto cue]

Good observation! It's ether two shots or he is moving his bridge hand with his follow throw.

Larry

Different shot is my guess unless he moved his left leg also.

 

[Scott Lee]

8ballEinstein...No, it won't matter. Even if you DOUBLED it to 2/1000th's (which is the dwell time for a soft tip), it still wouldn't matter. Once the CB is gone off the tip, nothing you can do afterwards (more followthrough, twisting, etc) has any effect on the outcome of the shot.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

A link was posted that showed that tip cantact with a hard tip lasts about .001 sec. Now if you could increase that contact by 10%, to say .0011, do you think it would matter very much? I do.

 

[Fatboy]

Different shot is my guess unless he moved his left leg also.

it was the same shot, I did turn my head over and asked for the second pic to be taken. Thats the only reason my bridge hand would have came back, I have been working on this since this thread started and not once has my bridge hand moved back. Thus I may have moved a bit between the pics, I wish we had like a 5 shot burst of pics to tell the real story.I'm gonna do that with a tripod for the camera as well sooner than later. I have bettter fundementals than these pics reflect, I'm not bragging I have a lot to learn and a long way to go, but this isnt a 100% fair assessment of me.

 

[JoeyA]

Looks plain to me like your feet are about shoulder width apart....this is your base....your a big boy, you need a bigger base....so spread those legs lol.


Keeb-

Keeb,
I just did a little test for myself to see how much less strain there is between "shoulder width" and "wider" feet placement and you only have to bend at the waist to the same particular height to be informed rather quickly which is more comfortable and more easy to maintain.

Good post.

 

[JohnnyP]

Eric: +1 on spreading the legs. You can see in my video I'm the real fatboy. My spare tire makes it hard to bend so it's more comfortable spreading my legs.

Joe: I'm still confused about which part of the hand you were talking about in that article. Is it the "Vee" between the thumb and index finger, or the thumb muscle?

 

[randyg]

Randy; I've been under the weather a little so I have not had the opportunity to respond to your Q.

Without having an crescendo (increasing in speed) stroke with an extended follow-through your just waisting your time trying to apply MAXIMUM EFFECT on the cue ball. Just as in golf, you cannot decelerate through the cue ball and expect, maximum effect, alot palyers do this in an effort to try an be more accurate. It will NOT work!

Don't confuse the crescendo stroke with hitting the cue ball hard, it just means the warm-up strokes and follow-through are FASTER, the FINAL stroke has to be SHARP and CLEAN. E.G. by swinging the cue faster the semi-circular centrifical force will force the cue tip to STAY on the cue ball a fraction longer to achieve MAXIMUM EFFECT! Just imagine the cue ball is a styrofoam cue ball, what the player wants to attempt is to think of trying to do is, stick the cue-tip THROUGH the styrofoam cue ball.

I really didn't want to get into a debate with the so called, "Scientific Pool Community", I've palyed with and against the BEST players in the world, all the slow-motion cameras, scientific formulated data and calculations sometimes cannot explain such a complicated mental and physical game. These are techniques I know work thru years of evaluation and experiment. Not by computer aided formulas and data!

There's nothing really NEW in pool and billiards in the last 100 years, players do what instinctivley feels correct, some are, some are not, this IMHO is what seperates good players from GREAT players, they just KNOW!

Bill Smith "Mr3Cushion"

OK. Get well soon......SPF=randyg

 

[Patrick Johnson]

...What specific effect do you think would be added, increased or changed during the extra contact time?

pj
chgo

8ballEinstein:
Two things. Increased spin on off-center shots and decreased squirt.

Longer contact time might increase spin a tiny amount (because the tip rotates a tiny bit farther from center during contact), but not enough to matter - probably not even a noticable amount.

But longer contact time cannot decrease squirt. In fact, if it increases spin a tiny amount, it also increases squirt a tiny amount.

The bottom line is that increased contact time, even if we could somehow change our stroke to make it happen (which we can't), wouldn't make any significant difference anyway.

pj
chgo

 

[dr_dave]

Longer contact time might increase spin a tiny amount (because the tip rotates a tiny bit farther from center during contact), but not enough to matter - probably not even a noticable amount.

But longer contact time cannot decrease squirt. In fact, if it increases spin a tiny amount, it also increases squirt a tiny amount.

The bottom line is that increased contact time, even if we could somehow change our stroke to make it happen (which we can't), wouldn't make any significant difference anyway.

Excellent summary! FWIW, I agree 100%.

Regards,
Dave

 

[8ballEinstein]

8ballEinstein... Once the CB is gone off the tip, nothing you can do afterwards (more followthrough, twisting, etc) has any effect on the outcome of the shot.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

I fully agree with the above. I'm saying a good follow-through helps the shot DURING tip to cue ball contact, not afterward.

 

[8ballEinstein]

Longer contact time might increase spin a tiny amount (because the tip rotates a tiny bit farther from center during contact), but not enough to matter - probably not even a noticable amount.

But longer contact time cannot decrease squirt. In fact, if it increases spin a tiny amount, it also increases squirt a tiny amount.

OK, we'll have to disagree on this. I don't have hard evidence to back my case, just years of observation.

The bottom line is that increased contact time, even if we could somehow change our stroke to make it happen (which we can't), wouldn't make any significant difference anyway.

pj
chgo

Actually, I ve seen some of the top players change their stroke for increased contact time (possibly unconsciously). I really don't want to get into the mechanics of how they do it. Being from California, I got to see Jay Swanson and Keith McCready for countless hours do things with their stroke I didn't see anyone else do. While almost everyone was watching these guys control the balls on the table, I was noticing their stroke. Another guy I remember getting similar action on the ball with minimum effort was Surfer Rod - he had a wonderful stroke.

 

[JoeW]

Joe: I'm still confused about which part of the hand you were talking about in that article. Is it the "Vee" between the thumb and index finger, or the thumb muscle?

Sorry, I did not see your post. Yes it is the "V" between the thumb and the index finger. Here is the original link now that I know it is OK with Mike's revised rules.
http://www.sunburstselect.com/PBReview/ShootLikePros.htm


I think that duration of contact is a red herring in this whole discussion. It is resorted to as an answer by many people who do not want to deal with the other issues or who have a particular point of view.

The issue, as I see it, is not duration of contact but the type of contact that is made. Thus acceleration of the cue stick, reasonably lengthening one's stroke and having the cue stick pointed at (or touching) the cloth (for many -- not all shots) are the important issues to obtain a particular intended line of travel with the appropriate speed and the right amount of spin.

For instance, try estimating the line on which the cue tip will land after a shot has been completed. I found that this estimation and attempt to place the stick on that line following a shot improved my ball pocketing ability.

Attempting to place a cue stick on a particular line has noting to do with increasing the contact point dwell time but it has much to do with the accuracy of propelling a cb down a particular line. Using this technique the "quality" of the hit is improved.

 

[JoeyA]

Sorry, I did not see your post. Yes it is the "V" between the thumb and the index finger. Here is the original link now that I know it is OK with Mike's revised rules.
http://www.sunburstselect.com/PBReview/ShootLikePros.htm


I think that duration of contact is a red herring in this whole discussion. It is resorted to as an answer by many people who do not want to deal with the other issues or who have a particular point of view.

The issue, as I see it, is not duration of contact but the type of contact that is made. Thus acceleration of the cue stick, reasonably lengthening one's stroke and having the cue stick pointed at (or touching) the cloth (for many -- not all shots) are the important issues to obtain a particular intended line of travel with the appropriate speed and the right amount of spin.

For instance, try estimating the line on which the cue tip will land after a shot has been completed. I found that this estimation and attempt to place the stick on that line following a shot improved my ball pocketing ability.

Attempting to place a cue stick on a particular line has noting to do with increasing the contact point dwell time but it has much to do with the accuracy of propelling a cb down a particular line. Using this technique the "quality" of the hit is improved.

Joe, I think the attempt to hold the cue tip onto the cue ball has the same effect as the attempt to place the cue stick on a particular line. I think both of them give the player another perspective to help them provide a straight and smooth stroke. Personally, I like your attempt to estimate where the cue stick will land because in addition to the possibility that it might help some players to provide a straight stroke, it is possible that it may help them to stay down on the shot.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

OK, we'll have to disagree on this. I don't have hard evidence to back my case, just years of observation.

OK with me to agree to disagree, but here's one more question:

I'm sure you've observed some players doing more with their strokes than others - so have I. But how did you observe that it involves longer contact time?

I mean, a normal amount of contact time is only 1 or 2 thousandths of a second, and you say that a 10% increase makes a difference in the outcome. Does that mean that you can tell by observation if a tip stays on the CB for 2.2 thousandths of a second instead of 2.0 thousandths?

I'm pretty sure I can't tell by observation if the tip stays on the ball 100% longer.

My point is, sure, we observe some players doing lots more with the CB than others, but what real evidence do we have that longer contact time is the reason? I think it's because that's the impression we get when we hit the CB better - but that's not an observation.

pj
chgo