Bent knees stance, what to know?

boogieman

boogieman

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
Recently I started having horrible pain from my regular stance. I'm 6' tall. I've never bent my knees while shooting. I had my old stance locked in air tight. This is no longer an option. It feels like I'm standing in a fire pit while on the shot. This has been going on for a month and I feel it's not going away. I understand that as we age we may have to adapt our stance to the reality of our bodies.

Last night I finally accepted that this is something I have to figure out. No more excuses, no more playing great for a race to 7 then going into "dog it" mode for the rest of the night. It's time to learn a stance that works with my body. I can no longer play pool and focus on strategy and execution if I'm standing in a roaring campfire. I tried shooting in a similar way to my old stance but with bent knees and a feeling of pushing my butt out/up, giving relief and getting the lumbar area of my back right. This brought immediate relief.

I'm practicing body awareness and listening to what my body is telling me. Stance should be stable and comfortable. I'm playing 4+ hours at a time I have to be comfortable enough for endurance.

Is there anything I should know about bent knee stance or any resources to watch on this? Any players that have a similar stance to emulate? Any additional thoughts about this strategy? Am I going the right direction?
 
Yes, I experimented with bent knees for quite awhile and even played on tour with them. I'll share that experience with you in a minute, but first --- have you considered that your alignment might be off and that you were compensating by twisting your body somewhere, causing you pain? You might just need an alignment adjustment.

As for bent knees --- Believe it or not --- I got the idea for playing with bent knees from watching Allison Fisher play when she first came to the U.S. and the WPBA tour. Both her knees were bent. But she didn't stay that way over time. Maybe it was part of her transitioning period from snooker to pool and she was trying different things.

It's a martial arts-type stance and it does work --- however --- the amount of knee-bend is not something you can calculate and therefore is a variable in your stance. It's tough to be consistent with the exact same amount of knee bend every time you get to the table. Once you start to bend too much, you may hit your knuckles against the rail as you stroke through your shots --- Ouch! That really does hurt. Another issue is that you may find yourself feeling like you're suddenly shooting up at the cue ball and your cue is suddenly scraping along the rail. Been there done that too.

So if you do decide to try playing with both knees bent, try to lock into a particular feel at the table so you don't stray too far. I used my weight distribution as my feel point. When it was off, I checked my knee-bend. It was usually starting to get too low.

End result --- I liked it, but it was hard to be consistent with the stance, so for me, it didn't work.
 
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FranCrimi said:
Yes, I experimented with bent knees for quite awhile and even played on tour with them. I'll share that experience with you in a minute, but first --- have you considered that your alignment might be off and that you were compensating by twisting your body somewhere, causing you pain? You might just need an alignment adjustment.
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It could be the case, but this is something bothering me throughout the day, not just at the table. I've been to the chiropractor and everything seems OK on that front.
FranCrimi said:
As for bent knees --- Believe it or not --- I got the idea for playing with bent knees from watching Allison Fisher play when she first came to the U.S. and the WPBA tour. Both her knees were bent. But she didn't stay that way over time. Maybe it was part of her transitioning period from snooker to pool and she was trying different things.

It's a martial arts-type stance and it does work --- however --- the amount of knee-bend is not something you can calculate and therefore is a variable in your stance. It's tough to be consistent with the exact same amount of knee bend every time you get to the table. Once you start to bend too much, you may hit your knuckles against the rail as you stroke through your shots --- Ouch! That really does hurt. Another issue is that you may find yourself feeling like you're suddenly shooting up at the cue ball and your cue is suddenly scraping along the rail. Been there done that too.

So if you do decide to try playing with both knees bent, try to lock into a particular feel at the table so you don't stray too far. I used my weight distribution as my feel point. When it was off, I checked my knee-bend. It was usually starting to get too low.

End result --- I liked it, but it was hard to be consistent with the stance, so for me, it didn't work.
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Thanks for the info. There's a lot of great advice in there for me to digest.
 
boogieman said:
It could be the case, but this is something bothering me throughout the day, not just at the table. I've been to the chiropractor and everything seems OK on that front.
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Well, this may not be your particular situation, but I have worked with players who have had chronic pain off the table, and we found that the source of the inflammation that caused the pain was from their stance. Since you play 4 or more hours at a time, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you could experience pain off the table as well from lingering inflammation.

You could also be experiencing an injury from something unrelated to pool that may just take some time to heal. Hard to tell, really, but rest always helps.
 
FranCrimi said:
Well, this may not be your particular situation, but I have worked with players who have had chronic pain off the table, and we found that the source of the inflammation that caused the pain was from their stance. Since you play 4 or more hours at a time, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you could experience pain off the table as well from lingering inflammation.

You could also be experiencing an injury from something unrelated to pool that may just take some time to heal. Hard to tell, really, but rest always helps.
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I imagine it became inflamed at the pool table. It started after doing a night of 117 games of 9b. I've been trying to take it easy but it's tough to keep the resemblance of a stroke without some practice. I think I was exhausted and started standing bad just out of exhaustion that night. We've cut it down to usually 3 races to 5 or 7 instead of 4 races to 20. 😅

We were playing 3-4 nights a week with at least 2-3 races to 20. Now it's a few games here and there throughout the week and sunday league. Maybe 1 or 2 nights at the most through the week and sunday league is 3 races to 3, so pretty quick on sunday.

I've just been trying to rest and such, doing some stretches, ice and heat, being cautious of posture etc. There's a fine line between healing and overdoing it at this point so if I start feeling pain I stop. The bent knees seem to be helping, might be a temporary fix but I gotta do something. It's already better than it was a few weeks ago so hopefully it will heal up.
 
boogieman said:
I imagine it became inflamed at the pool table. It started after doing a night of 117 games of 9b. I've been trying to take it easy but it's tough to keep the resemblance of a stroke without some practice. I think I was exhausted and started standing bad just out of exhaustion that night. We've cut it down to usually 3 races to 5 or 7 instead of 4 races to 20. 😅

We were playing 3-4 nights a week with at least 2-3 races to 20. Now it's a few games here and there throughout the week and sunday league. Maybe 1 or 2 nights at the most through the week and sunday league is 3 races to 3, so pretty quick on sunday.

I've just been trying to rest and such, doing some stretches, ice and heat, being cautious of posture etc. There's a fine line between healing and overdoing it at this point so if I start feeling pain I stop. The bent knees seem to be helping, might be a temporary fix but I gotta do something. It's already better than it was a few weeks ago so hopefully it will heal up.
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It sounds like you went from zero to a hundred with those 117 games. Yes, it's harder when you're older but even younger people have to work up to something like that. You definitely pushed the envelope there.
 
Yeah we overdid it by a mile. We were used to 2-3 races to 20. Normally 6 or 7 hours with a couple of breaks. That night was a little over 10 hours with maybe a 5 minute break. That night we were joking about it only being 2 hours of overtime. You can't take back a dumb mistake and I can only hope to learn from the experience. It's killing me to be only playing 2-3 hours now but I'm being really careful to not overdo it too much. Gotta remember to be smarter in the future.


Too bad I failed on the tough part! 😅
 
boogieman said:
Yeah we overdid it by a mile. We were used to 2-3 races to 20. Normally 6 or 7 hours with a couple of breaks. That night was a little over 10 hours with maybe a 5 minute break. That night we were joking about it only being 2 hours of overtime. You can't take back a dumb mistake and I can only hope to learn from the experience. It's killing me to be only playing 2-3 hours now but I'm being really careful to not overdo it too much. Gotta remember to be smarter in the future.


Too bad I failed on the tough part! 😅
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I like the dented skull and missing tooth.

By the way, what shoes were you wearing? Whenever I've had the "feet on fire" sensation, it was standing too long in shoes with broken down padding.
 
FranCrimi said:
Leg and hip? Please don't tell me that you lean on your front leg. Say it ain't so.
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No I don't. I really had everything down well as far as fundamentals, just this leg has everything screwed up. I tried practicing some for about 30 minutes and it's on fire again. I might just not play for a week and see if it gets better. This sucks. I guess I'll read a pool book or watch some videos. It won't stop me from wanting to play but I just gotta take a break. I honestly hate the thought of not playing for a week but I gotta quit fighting it.
 
Older people get arthritis, bad knees, bad feet, and in general fall apart. We do nothing per text book. We improvise, adapt, and overcome.


Have guy I know who try’s daily to play Pool. His problem
Is Glaucoma, and Macular Degeneration.

Funny this is he had limited peripheral vision, and can see nothing below nipple line.

I as you drive? He replied very slow, very careful, and not at night.
 
I'm 6'3" and always play with both knees bent. I have had lower back issues in past as well so the strain of a straight leg, full bend stance is just not something I can deal with for any significant length of time...certainly not for 117 games lol.
For me, the double knee bend stance is very solid and stable. I simply get aligned while standing, set my feet and just lower straight down as if squatting to take my stance. If looking for other guys to model your exploration into this method after, I would suggest you look at other tall players. Neils Feijen springs to mind immediately and he has his own YouTube channel on which I am sure he covers his stance and its particulars.

Re: Allison Fisher using bent legs at start of her transition, I am sure it was to get used to the shorter height of pool tables compared to snooker tables. Her snooker technique always had a straight back leg and this reappeared in her pool game as well. Snooker was big where I came up in pool so many players had similar transitions back and forth. The thing with snooker technique is that so many joints/rotations are maxed out or at full stretch for max consistency. A key fundamental Steve Davis often spoke of is getting the bridge arm shoulder stretched and as low as it will go. There is an 'on rails' feel to the stroke when things are stretched like this. I'm obv guessing here, but what makes most sense to me is that Ms. Fisher wanted to maintain that upper body stretch and feel but the lower pool table caused her to bend both legs in order to maintain the upper body angles she's familiar with and still get all the way down.

Strickland has an interesting take on bent knees as he also plays with both bent on all shots, just not to the same degree. What is interesting about Earl, is that from listening to his commentary, he often recommends more knee bend for certain types of shots like power tops. I've never heard of any other player/instructor suggesting altering the stance to make it more ideal for specific shots, but Earl gonna Earl.
 
See a doctor maybe orthopedist
Being “ on fire” is not normal
I am not an instructor
 
Changing stance is just part of the aging process.

You'll get used to bent knees.


Jeff Livingston
 
boogieman said:
No I don't. I really had everything down well as far as fundamentals, just this leg has everything screwed up. I tried practicing some for about 30 minutes and it's on fire again. I might just not play for a week and see if it gets better. This sucks. I guess I'll read a pool book or watch some videos. It won't stop me from wanting to play but I just gotta take a break. I honestly hate the thought of not playing for a week but I gotta quit fighting it.
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Everybody seems to be automatically blaming your issue on age because you mentioned age. I'm saying that regardless of your age, when you overdo it, you can injure yourself. So don't be too quick to start 'adjusting' your stance because of your age. Let your injury heal first.
 
FranCrimi said:
Everybody seems to be automatically blaming your issue on age because you mentioned age. I'm saying that regardless of your age, when you overdo it, you can injure yourself. So don't be too quick to start 'adjusting' your stance because of your age. Let your injury heal first.
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Old people heal slower, then young people.

Getting old is a bummer.
 
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