How can you fix the sidearm stroke?

[pagaspoling]

Well, when it comes to that sentence I highlighted, I could read it a hundred times and still not know what the heck he's talking about. As for the other stuff, yes, there are problems with what he said. I'm all for somebody giving it a try to help other players and being a little humble about their lack of knowledge. But if you're going to act like an expert, then you'd better be able to take the heat.

Again, can you specify what problems you're alluding to? I'm trying to take all the heat I can but you don't specify what the problems are so I can adress them. I don't think it looks very good when you are criticizing me but not answer me directly.

The problem with your solution is that while it does 'fix' the problem of arm position, it doesn't address the cause of the mechanical flaw.

The elegant solution is to just change where the feet are and get down naturally from there.

With that stance there's not a lot of other ways the player will put both his head and hand on the shot line, you can try it yourself. We have three anchor points and we would like to build a tripod, this player has all anchors on the same line. You can bump him on the hip to get him to feel how unbalanced he is, then probably he will put his left foot more to the left while keeping the right foot somewhere close to the shot line. Then he can rotate his ribcage to the right and get his whole arm rotated counter clockwise to make the arm hang straight down.

If you tell him that he should be able to take a small bump from both sides (and give him one when he stands like this) he will probably sort out that stance pretty fast.

 

[WobblyStroke]

Again, can you specify what problems you're alluding to? I'm trying to take all the heat I can but you don't specify what the problems are so I can adress them. I don't think it looks very good when you are criticizing me but not answer me directly.

Great. So u did address it. The feet are the culprit and there was no need to muddy the waters beyond that. Once the feet are taken care of, the rest will come from that naturally.

I got so distracted by anatomical terms and back n forth with Fran, I missed you already provided the same solution.

 

[FranCrimi]

Since Fran's sandpaper grit is set to kill, maybe I'll field this one...
I believe the solution lies in the footwork as I posted above. The problem with your solution is that while it does 'fix' the problem of arm position, it doesn't address the cause of the mechanical flaw. This is how we fall down the compensation rabbit hole and keep stacking fix for a fix for a fix bc we are fixing the symptoms instead of the root of the problem. Simply stepping into the shot correctly should fix the crowding and alignment issues causing the problem we see in the arm. Notice that your idea to twist the trunk to the right accomplishes the same thing in terms of upper body position relative to where his legs are placed. I just tried your fix and it works...but now what am I gonna do for my strained neck? Pile on more compensations?

The elegant solution is to just change where the feet are and get down naturally from there.

You're on the right track in that he needs a complete stance adjustment, which includes his feet, of course. You never change a player's torso position without adjusting their feet. However his stance adjustment has to be built around where he should be placing the cue under his eye. If it's a cross-dominant eye placement, then his stance will be different than a same dominant eye stance.

So you have to watch him play for awhile first in his current stance and study where he places his cue under his eye in various types of shots, and see if it's a consistent placement. You should also give him a dominant eye test and also test the severity of the eye dominance.

A stance correction like this is a process that takes place over time as the player slowly adapts to the change. There usually is some tweaking involved as well as the player goes through the adaptation process. The player is a live person who will be reacting to this drastic change. You can't fix this accurately in one day.

 

[WobblyStroke]

You're on the right track in that he needs a complete stance adjustment, which includes his feet, of course. You never change a player's torso position without adjusting their feet. However his stance adjustment has to be built around where he should be placing the cue under his eye. If it's a cross-dominant eye placement, then his stance will be different than a same dominant eye stance.

So you have to watch him play for awhile first in his current stance and study where he places his cue under his eye in various types of shots, and see if it's a consistent placement. You should also give him a dominant eye test and also test the severity of the eye dominance.

A stance correction like this is a process that takes place over time as the player slowly adapts to the change. There usually is some tweaking involved as well as the player goes through the adaptation process. The player is a live person who will be reacting to this drastic change. You can't fix this accurately in one day.

Agreed. Quite a lot of things change along with the foot placement. Def more than a one day job. But, in the series of steps we take to the final product, adjusting the feet is a pretty good one to start with.

 

[pagaspoling]

You're on the right track in that he needs a complete stance adjustment, which includes his feet, of course. You never change a player's torso position without adjusting their feet. However his stance adjustment has to be built around where he should be placing the cue under his eye. If it's a cross-dominant eye placement, then his stance will be different than a same dominant eye stance.

So you have to watch him play for awhile first in his current stance and study where he places his cue under his eye in various types of shots, and see if it's a consistent placement. You should also give him a dominant eye test and also test the severity of the eye dominance.

Do you think the cue should be under the dominant eye (or in the same spot) on all shots?

 

[MikeLeClair]

Stance. He's facing completely forward in your pic so for him to have the cue on the shot line he needs to bend his arm back in. Try telling him to face the shot line, slowly turn his feet and body 45 degrees (roughly) while keeping his back foot on the shot line and then bend at the hips as though he's picking something up off the ground. This will pull his hips away from the shot line allowing his arm to naturally stay straight (hand, elbow, shoulder all in line with the shot). Mark Wilsons book "Play Great Pool" speaks a lot about fundamentals and problems like this. Very good read for anyone of any skill level.

 

[Island Drive]

Just because your Fargo is in the 700's doesn't mean diddly.
That's like saying the instructor Has to be a better player than their student. NOT
Tiger Woods had instruction during his prime years.
Varner the Same.
Chris Reinholt made a post awhile back, on how to pocket balls frozen to the rail, but he didn't know how to explain how/why other than ''hit the obj. ball thicker''.
That's not teaching.
Very few pros Know how to teach.

 

[WobblyStroke]

Just because your Fargo is in the 700's doesn't mean diddly.
That's like saying the instructor Has to be a better player than their student. NOT
Tiger Woods had instruction during his prime years.
Varner the Same.
Chris Reinholt made a post awhile back, on how to pocket balls frozen to the rail, but he didn't know how to explain how/why other than ''hit the obj. ball thicker''.
That's not teaching.
Very few pros Know how to teach.

You're not wrong of course, but the statement I responded to was 'you don't know pool'...he does. Also, his solution was fine. He just didn't stop typing soon enough lol.

Most of us learn from experience and don't just blindly listen to wise words from legendary coaches like Harvey Pennick (for golf) who said something along the lines of "in instruction, less is more.". He too learned that through personal experience of giving what he thought would be his greatest all encompassing golf lesson. He didn't realize till later that the info overload and resulting confusion made it his worst lesson.

By describing some things that would happen as a result of a change in foot placement as well as providing an alternative way to achieve that change, Pegas brought in some confusion and ppl lost sight of the fact that the footwork change would start this player well on his way to fixing his issue (caused by crowding the line). Also, bc of poor word choice, it was hard for some to see that what he was saying beyond the footwork change was at least plausible as a solution for this player. Had he stopped after the first statement, nobody would be questioning his ability to teach rn. So ye, less is more.

"Less is more" (he says after yet another 3 paragraph post)
<---- This guy smh

 

[FranCrimi]

Do you think the cue should be under the dominant eye (or in the same spot) on all shots?

Do you?

 

[FranCrimi]

Agreed. Quite a lot of things change along with the foot placement. Def more than a one day job. But, in the series of steps we take to the final product, adjusting the feet is a pretty good one to start with.

Yes. You start with their feet after you've determined the player's proper head placement over the cue. If you don't do the first step, you will be just guessing with their feet adjustment.

 

[FranCrimi]

You're not wrong of course, but the statement I responded to was 'you don't know pool'...he does. Also, his solution was fine. He just didn't stop typing soon enough lol.

Most of us learn from experience and don't just blindly listen to wise words from legendary coaches like Harvey Pennick (for golf) who said something along the lines of "in instruction, less is more.". He too learned that through personal experience of giving what he thought would be his greatest all encompassing golf lesson. He didn't realize till later that the info overload and resulting confusion made it his worst lesson.

By describing some things that would happen as a result of a change in foot placement as well as providing an alternative way to achieve that change, Pegas brought in some confusion and ppl lost sight of the fact that the footwork change would start this player well on his way to fixing his issue (caused by crowding the line). Also, bc of poor word choice, it was hard for some to see that what he was saying beyond the footwork change was at least plausible as a solution for this player. Had he stopped after the first statement, nobody would be questioning his ability to teach rn. So ye, less is more.

"Less is more" (he says after yet another 3 paragraph post)
<---- This guy smh

It's like Einstein's e=mc squared ( can't find the squared character right now). Simplicity at it's best. Less is more. All that good stuff. But in order to achieve simplicity, you have to do everything in the right order. Once you know the order, it's not complicated or even difficult.

But taking something out of order, isolating it and highlighting it, only confuses those who are reading it. That's not simplicity. That's the opposite of simplicity.

 

[WobblyStroke]

Yes. You start with their feet after you've determined the player's proper head placement over the cue. If you don't do the first step, you will be just guessing with their feet adjustment.

Wherever the feet eventually end up as their precise ideal spot, they certainly won't be anywhere near both on the shot line where they are in the photo so you can begin the feet adjustment and fine tune for comfortable head placement if the student doesn't just find it automatically when they open up...which they very well might given that a standard parallel step in will accommodate quite a few visual centers from a very similar foot placement. Even if their visual center isn't ideally set up, we aren't talking about changing by a whole lot to get it right at that point. That's what makes it FINE tuning. Before we get to that, we have to take out the most glaring obvious problem in the setup by stepping in right to give the arm some clearance over the shot line thereby making the bulk of the adjustment in one step.

I agree with you about proper head placement being an absolute must. But this doesn't need to be found if the student is already doing it. By getting him to open up and undo the crowding of the line that is causing the elbow flare, we aren't necessarily pulling the head position off the spot it wants to be in over the cue.

Really we are nitpicking here about order. No matter what, these two things have to happen very early on as without opening up, the player will still be crowding the line, and without having his head in the right spot to see shots correctly once open, his improved mechanics won't help him much if he can't see the shot right. We need both.

FWIW, DMing with Pegas recently (before this discussion even), he too determines the visual center and builds everything around that. You two aren't as far apart as you might think .

 

[FranCrimi]

Wherever the feet eventually end up as their precise ideal spot, they certainly won't be anywhere near both on the shot line where they are in the photo so you can begin the feet adjustment and fine tune for comfortable head placement if the student doesn't just find it automatically when they open up...which they very well might given that a standard parallel step in will accommodate quite a few visual centers from a very similar foot placement. Even if their visual center isn't ideally set up, we aren't talking about changing by a whole lot to get it right at that point. That's what makes it FINE tuning. Before we get to that, we have to take out the most glaring obvious problem in the setup by stepping in right to give the arm some clearance over the shot line thereby making the bulk of the adjustment in one step.

I agree with you about proper head placement being an absolute must. But this doesn't need to be found if the student is already doing it. By getting him to open up and undo the crowding of the line that is causing the elbow flare, we aren't necessarily pulling the head position off the spot it wants to be in over the cue.

Really we are nitpicking here about order. No matter what, these two things have to happen very early on as without opening up, the player will still be crowding the line, and without having his head in the right spot to see shots correctly once open, his improved mechanics won't help him much if he can't see the shot right. We need both.

FWIW, DMing with Pegas recently (before this discussion even), he too determines the visual center and builds everything around that. You two aren't as far apart as you might think .

That's what the word 'observe' means. It means to watch. It doesn't mean to change. You guys are the ones making changes when you do the vision center test and then tell the player to place the cue there. Do you even bother to observe the player's cue placement while playing or do you just go straight to the vision center test?

 

[WobblyStroke]

Let's not lose sight of the forest through the trees. The question was how to fix that arm. Opening the stance is the clear and obvious answer. Obviously we must remain cognizant of how the players views the game when implementing any change cuz what good are improved mechanics if you can't tell where they're aimed.

I don't really do the vision center stuff either ala dr. dave. I just meant people have a way of viewing the game and I agree wholeheartedly that we shouldn't disrupt that when implementing a change. That said, most (if they have a steady preferred head position) will be able to reestablish that from a standard 'cookie-cutter' stance most instructors teach (this is why I said if you don't like Niels' breakdown you can watch 20 different ones just like it from others with very minor differences). Minor adjustments may be necessary from that generic starting point but this isn't some long arduous process and can be handled pretty quickly.

This is a whole lot of writing back and forth over viewing what the head position is before making the same change. One would have to be an outlier not to be able to get their preferred head position from a very close approximation of a commonly prescribed stance, whether you prefer a video from Niels, Dr. Dave, Tor Lowry, Appleton, or just about any readily available YouTube instructor or written material. Perhaps an instructor striving for instant precision with regards to foot placement will arrive at an ideal position a bit sooner than a 'try this obviously better starting point and we'll adjust from there' approach, but we are talking about a difference of a few minutes...which break even with the watching to make sure of head position before you move anything approach anyway.

 

[FranCrimi]

Let's not lose sight of the forest through the trees. The question was how to fix that arm. Opening the stance is the clear and obvious answer. Obviously we must remain cognizant of how the players views the game when implementing any change cuz what good are improved mechanics if you can't tell where they're aimed.

I don't really do the vision center stuff either ala dr. dave. I just meant people have a way of viewing the game and I agree wholeheartedly that we shouldn't disrupt that when implementing a change. That said, most (if they have a steady preferred head position) will be able to reestablish that from a standard 'cookie-cutter' stance most instructors teach (this is why I said if you don't like Niels' breakdown you can watch 20 different ones just like it from others with very minor differences). Minor adjustments may be necessary from that generic starting point but this isn't some long arduous process and can be handled pretty quickly.

This is a whole lot of writing back and forth over viewing what the head position is before making the same change. One would have to be an outlier not to be able to get their preferred head position from a very close approximation of a commonly prescribed stance, whether you prefer a video from Niels, Dr. Dave, Tor Lowry, Appleton, or just about any readily available YouTube instructor or written material. Perhaps an instructor striving for instant precision with regards to foot placement will arrive at an ideal position a bit sooner than a 'try this obviously better starting point and we'll adjust from there' approach, but we are talking about a difference of a few minutes...which break even with the watching to make sure of head position before you move anything approach anyway.

But... but... but.... oh never mind. I give up. On to the next thread.

 

[pagaspoling]

But... but... but.... oh never mind. I give up. On to the next thread.

Good call. I think it is well established that the solution to the original question (assuming sighting is okay) is to start with the stance and let it affect the upper body in the desired way. I will try to make a well written post about my ideas about sighting and post it in a new thread in a few days.

 

[FranCrimi]

Good call. I think it is well established that the solution to the original question (assuming sighting is okay) is to start with the stance and let it affect the upper body in the desired way. I will try to make a well written post about my ideas about sighting and post it in a new thread in a few days.

You know...just when I think I'm out, they keep bringing me back in. The stance IS the upper body and the lower body too. It's how the player is positioned at the table from head to toe, so when you say start with the stance, you probably mean start with the feet. But to let things just happen naturally since you think you've done your work in positioning their feet ---- well, you will probably be disappointed.

 

[mrpiper]

If ANY mechanical issue is holding a player back, ask permission to record them playing with phone video recorder and help them see exactly what you are talking about then compare that to what should be. If they are interested in getting better this is a great teaching tool. I video myself all the time, and especially if I hit a slump, and can often find a slight issue that slipped by in my PSR, stroke, stance etc...

 

[WobblyStroke]

man we were so close to putting a bow on it and moving on.
but....sincewe're back....nah nevermind. next thread. lol

 

[BilliardsAbout]

Do you think the cue should be under the dominant eye (or in the same spot) on all shots?

Same spot is correct. Dominant eye is a myth, from another myth, "the rifle shot analogy". Pool is almost the opposite of rifle shooting.

Many right-handers have a line of sight or "vision center" between the right eye and nose. Test for your center by arranging a perfectly straight shot or cueing along the diamonds of the table. Move your head to either side and note the spot where the straight shot LOOKS straight. When the cue stick is beneath my cheek between my right eye and nose AND my head is rotated in my stance with consistent feet placement (left foot ahead so the left eye is ahead of the right eye) I see what I'm shooting at, accurately, consistently.

Without vision center and/or consistent head placement as WobblyStroke says in this thread, the same cut shots will look different to you, day to day, because your eyes change position relative to the shot--but consistency is the heart of good pool.