I Have been practicing the long straight in shot in Max Eberle's Zen Pool and have noticed I miss to the same side always. My question is how do i figure out if it is an aim issue or not hitting the center of the cueball? Thanks for any help
The simplest way to check this is alternate straight in shots with putting the cueball on the spot and shooting it to the short rail center diamond. If you aren't hitting the cueball in the center, it will rebound left or right. You must shoot this shot hard to get the best results. If you are getting unwanted english, then you have to work on hitting the cueball in the center. And I would suggest looking first at your stroke plane--align shoulder, elbow, wrist and foot on the vertical plane. Most typically, players are too over the cue with their shoulder joint and too much the other side of the cue with their elbow. It's a very common pattern, even with good players. Observe Max carefully. He has as good stroke mechanics as anyone in the game.
You might also work on eye alignment. Basically, there are two ways to align your eyes--centered or favoring your dominant eye. Be aware, if you use the centered method, you cannot sight down the shaft; you can only sight (aim) the line from the cueball to the target (the shaft will appear to point elsewhere). If you use dominant eye aiming, or want to, try closing your non-dominant eye to aim. That will force you to sight like a rifle down the shaft. Eventually, you'll see how to do this with both eyes open. Lastly, most players prefer to use both eyes, even with dominant eye aiming. Therefore, to engage both eyes, begin moving your head so that the shaft falls between your dominant eye and your nose. For me the sweet spot was the closest I could get to centered while still being able to sight down the shaft; I'm probably 1/2 way between my dominant eye and my nose.
Getting all this to work takes time. Max says in his DVD it took him three solid months to correct his mechanics and aiming. Obviously, if you have access to video or a friend with a sharp eye, it will help a lot. A mirror is useful too.
One last thing, when making a change in, say, your elbow position, what will feel like a huge change will in fact be much less. As you are learning, exaggerate your change; even then, you probably aren't doing it enough. "Feel" and "real" are at times very distant partners.