10-05-2008, 12:36 PM
Your post brought back something I was taught about 40 yrs ago. Until I read your post it was something that I have grown accustomed to do without thought, but it so vividly made me remember, I'll share it. I'm just reminiscing here so if you want the short version just go to the last paragraph.
When I was 16 or 17 and beginning to get very serious about the game, I hung out at a pool room where the counter man would always shoot pool on table 1 by himself until someone needed help.
At the time he was about 65 or 70yrs old. The man would run hundreds of balls without a miss in between customers, phone calls, distractions, whatever. I'd sit for hours and watch him.
Now and again he'd get out of line and pop in long nearly straight shots in the heart of the pocket. This one day I said to him, that's one of the shots that stops me all the time, I seem to alway spin them out without realizing it.
He said to me, when you know you have a problem with a shot fix it. He said he did the same thing often until he began using ever so slightly a touch of inside english on those shots to (as he called it) "straighten them out". Since then it's become an important tool in the toolbox. FWIW.
On the dead straight ins that feel uncomfortable to me, I let go of the cue at contact or a split fraction before. I just let it rest on the tip of my middle finger. (Waiting for new DVD, "Finger tip is the teacher". :grin-square:
