A beautiful stroke with good timing is critical to high level pool. We all know that rushing the stroke is a common blunder. Unfortunately many people do the wrong things to try to fix it. Say there are three parts of the stroke:
1) The back swing
2) The transition
3) The forward swing
Where most people struggle is rushing the FORWARD STROKE. They jam their cue stick forward which leads to inaccuracy on their aim, tip, and swing speed (all three variables of the shot go haywire!). There are many reasons people do this. Some is because they've never learned the feel of a good swing and so use way more cue speed than necessary to achieve their results. There is also a mental aspect (jamming the cue forward usually stems from a fear of underhitting the shot, i.e. not getting enough movement, not getting enough backspin, etc.). But I'm not here to focus on why this happens. I'm not even here to focus on how to fix it (very hard to discuss without a pool table although I'll try). My main point is to tell people what DOESN'T fix it.
What doesn't fix it is slowing down steps 1 and 2. I'm tired of seeing people rush their forward swing. When they try to fix it it's like they can't stop their cue from jamming forward too fast. Instead what they do is take a super slow back swing, a long pause at the cue ball, then they jam forward from there! Arg!!! No!
I don't care if you take a non-slow-motion back swing. I don't care if you don't pause. All I care about is that the forward swing starts slowly and softly and picks up fluid acceleration through the cue ball. If you start your forward swing calmly then nothing else really matters, and if you don't then trying to make up for it by chalking your cue stick slower or tying your shoe laces slower in the morning isn't going to make up for that.
Now, many of you have never developed a feel for great timing. I'm not pretending I can help through a computer. That's why I don't do zoom lessons, I'd rather you were standing next to me at a table. But if I can give a hint it is this: The right feeling should be as if you're going to shoot SOFTLY to a cue ball that is about 3" PAST where it actually sits. In other words you start your cue soft, but then you accelerate all the way through the cue ball. Your cue will be moving slowly but you will get a solid hit out of it because you are peaking out through the cue ball and all of your cue speed goes into the cue ball. Try that out. Set up stop shots, start your swing like you're going to shoot a drag draw shot (soft enough to lose your slide) but then accelerate to the imaginary cue ball 3" past where the real cue ball is.
If you do it right you will discover that you can move your cue surprisingly slowly. This is because a jam stroke has one burst of power and then decelerates through the cue ball. You have to get your cue moving twice as fast to achieve results with a jam (picture a baseball batter trying to muscle and shove his bat at the ball. We call that a bunt!). Whereas when you let your cue swing it picks up speed all the way through the cue ball and you get all of your cue speed into the cue ball.
OK, as I said, I can't explain the feel of good timing. Maybe someone else can. And I'm not here to debate whether you want to pause or not. I'm just here to tell you that if I had a nickel for every time someone used a slow back swing, paused, and then rushed their forward swing I'd be a wealthy man. And when I hear people debating about the pause I just KNOW they are jerking their cue forward after that pause because they are focused on the wrong part of the swing in my opinion. Hope that helps someone. Happy shooting!
