I use my wrist a little, not to add power but to fine tune my speed control (and feel less rigid).
pj
chgo
best hand positions to ensure maintaining level cue during stroke- ?
- Thread starter evergruven
- Start date
pj
chgo
You're a scientific kind of guy. Is it really necessary for you to do that or is it a quirk?
“Feel less rigid” is probably what you’d call a quirk. I like to think speed refinement is real, but maybe not major - it’s not a lot of movement or force.
pj
chgo
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
You def wouldn't be the only one that likes to feel speed and touch by using a supple wrist. Some folks like to lock up the wrist and solely control the stroke with the elbow joint. For others, the action of the elbow joint (and even shoulder joint for those that have elbows that move up and down) is mostly there to produce an action in a flowy wrist which provides all the finesse and fine tuning for the stroke.
Not trying to be a contrarian, but when I try for a pure pendulum with a wrist hanging freely from gravity and a light clasp on the cue, I get some ulnar and/or radial deviation, I believe because the cue weight is not inert but is acting on my wrist. My point being that the pendulum is limited in application because it's hard to get a truly pure pendulum. Like many players, I preset a different than hang-with-gravity hand position as I first grip the cue, which can alter the stroke path, of course.
Eva Lawrence has had some unusual (IMHO) elbow and arm movements in her stroke. Likewise, I remember a teacher friend sitting with me ringside saying about a different pro, "She's a top pro but has unorthodox arm movement, I should tell her," and I replied "Should you tell her after she finishes breaking-and-running this third rack in a row, or should I?"
Eva Lawrence has had some unusual (IMHO) elbow and arm movements in her stroke. Likewise, I remember a teacher friend sitting with me ringside saying about a different pro, "She's a top pro but has unorthodox arm movement, I should tell her," and I replied "Should you tell her after she finishes breaking-and-running this third rack in a row, or should I?"
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
I think what you said on grip is right in line with what PJ and I were saying regarding the hanging hand grip and how the cue's movement brings in some wrist action....which can be used effectively to feel and fine tune speed.Not trying to be a contrarian, but when I try for a pure pendulum with a wrist hanging freely from gravity and a light clasp on the cue, I get some ulnar and/or radial deviation, I believe because the cue weight is not inert but is acting on my wrist. My point being that the pendulum is limited in application because it's hard to get a truly pure pendulum. Like many players, I preset a different than hang-with-gravity hand position as I first grip the cue, which can alter the stroke path, of course.
Eva Lawrence has had some unusual (IMHO) elbow and arm movements in her stroke. Likewise, I remember a teacher friend sitting with me ringside saying about a different pro, "She's a top pro but has unorthodox arm movement, I should tell her," and I replied "Should you tell her after she finishes breaking-and-running this third rack in a row, or should I?"
Ye, the presets are common and often done poorly so most are best leaving the grip loose and outside their conscious control. If you leave it be it will work just fine, if you want to preset or lock down the wrist in some way, you need to know what you are doing or be acting under the guidance of someone who does.
Spot on about the funky techniques... every golf instructor would have a million swing fixes for Jim Furyk if they saw him swing, but if they still want to suggest them to him after watching him hit balls, they should turn in their teaching cards.
I've never heard the term 'speed refinement' relating to the stroke before, but if you mean a speed adjustment during the stroke execution, that could get a little tricky.
Since this thread has disintegrated from the original question
my 4 cents and i am not an instructor
i think for “finesse” soft strokes you move your grip hand forward to limit you follow thru not change bridge length
although you might
my thinking by bringing your back hand forward it limits your back swing( i hope i dont have to explain that)
and so you have a smaller “drag strip “ to accelerate and thus stroke to your normal finish in a bridge length to the cue ball you are accustomed to
not changing for every shot
as for jim fuyrik
some might use his mechanics as a paradigm since he is a pro and successfull
my point is
copying pros can be a good and bad idea
i think for most of us
playing with the most simplistic way gives less areas for failure
pattern your play with gorst as your model
not keith mcgrady or even the guys with the piston stroke like efren
too many moving parts
unless you start very young
wobbly i know you will disagree
but please add to you response why its “ better”
jmho
since i am not an instructor
icbw
btw
wobbly although he gives lessons
is not an instructor either although he teaches and is knowledgeable to help many…..just sayin
my 4 cents and i am not an instructor
i think for “finesse” soft strokes you move your grip hand forward to limit you follow thru not change bridge length
although you might
my thinking by bringing your back hand forward it limits your back swing( i hope i dont have to explain that)
and so you have a smaller “drag strip “ to accelerate and thus stroke to your normal finish in a bridge length to the cue ball you are accustomed to
not changing for every shot
as for jim fuyrik
some might use his mechanics as a paradigm since he is a pro and successfull
my point is
copying pros can be a good and bad idea
i think for most of us
playing with the most simplistic way gives less areas for failure
pattern your play with gorst as your model
not keith mcgrady or even the guys with the piston stroke like efren
too many moving parts
unless you start very young
wobbly i know you will disagree
but please add to you response why its “ better”
jmho
since i am not an instructor
icbw
btw
wobbly although he gives lessons
is not an instructor either although he teaches and is knowledgeable to help many…..just sayin
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a soft speed shot that requires alot of of touch
for example
...in one pocket when you have to come off a ball on the foot rail side of the stack...... hit the side rail and freeze the cue ball on a ball sitting near his pocket on the foot rail
it seems to me
many of the old time straight pool players had their grip hand forward of perpendicular
because of the soft precise finesse shots used in straight pool?
what is your definition fran?
for example
...in one pocket when you have to come off a ball on the foot rail side of the stack...... hit the side rail and freeze the cue ball on a ball sitting near his pocket on the foot rail
it seems to me
many of the old time straight pool players had their grip hand forward of perpendicular
because of the soft precise finesse shots used in straight pool?
what is your definition fran?
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Similar to yours, I think. I'm trying to think back to when I was playing/competing full time, and I don't remember shortening up my stroke strictly for that purpose. Usually with a finesse shot, you're rolling the ball with some kind of spin. You're shooting with a loose grip and the stroke is usually long and flowing. It also is determined by the distance between the cb and ob. Obviously you would shorten up on short shots.
I don't know how limiting my backstroke would help me finesse a shot better. Maybe for a particular type of finesse shot? I don't know.
for me
trying to shoot a "finesse " soft shot with a long backswing would make the forward swing like trying to drive with the parking brake on
meaning of course you can move the cue stick slowly but over a longer distance there is more room to inadvertently build up speed
jmho
icbw
not a great analogy
if you pull the swing back alittle bit it doesnt go as high or as fast as when you pull the swing back farther(and higher)
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
I'll address this first and save rest for another post. Semantics imo. While I do part time it and have had just a few dozen paying students over the last 3 years or so, I do consider myself an instructor and will be making more time for this side gig moving forward. Tho to be fair, I'm not so much a pool instructor as I am a teacher of movement, which I've been doing across several sports for 2 decades at this point since back when I was doing my Kinesiology degree with a motor-learning focus. So when it comes to teaching people how to move, I've taught well over 1000 people and do have a ton of experience. It's just that recently I started teaching pool players how to move and how to apply certain motor control and biomechanics concepts to their pool strokes.
I'm just about the biggest movement nerd you can find and have done technical stroke models on just about every style. When it comes to strokes, I have a level of understanding few full time instructors do. I understand and play nonstandard strokes that most dismiss as flawed because they don't understand them or what makes them such consistent powerful techniques. I share these models (adjusted to be digestible by laymen) and many of the motor-control, motor-learning, and biomechanics concepts that are hard to find anywhere in the pool instruction industry in an upcoming book I am working on (as you know BBB, but might as well let others in on it). I was actually working on a more general how to move book, but while messing around on these forums full of knowledgeable players and respected instructors, I have come to see that many of these concepts, which are widely known and applied in other sports, especially in golf which is the gold standard of instruction industries, are conspicuously missing from the pool community. Not for long.
So ye, I'm an instructor. lol
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
I don't think anyone has ever used Furyk as a model for their stroke. That said, what his stroke was as a young man and even during his college career was a more obvious figure 8 which is not all that uncommon among the guys who play great with 'a lot of moving parts'.
I agree with you that you should use the simplest way possible. There are many ways to deliver a cue and how to feel that stroke. People will have preferences and that extends to what they prefer to simplify. For any details on pool strokes, you'll have to wait for the book, but let's stick with the figure 8 type golfers with a ton of moving parts to illustrate. Rather than having locked down mechanics and a bunch of immobilized body parts, these guys make sure that if they make a certain move, what their body will do as a result will repeat. The figure 8 is a great example of this as if you track the full range of motion of the shoulder in a fluid swinging motion, it will make a figure 8 (think closed stance tennis backhand transitioning into an open stance tennis forehand on loop).
These figure 8 guys KNOW if they send the club along their max range of motion it will track what their body's limits are and do so predictably. Then it is just a matter of setting up such that their predictable, repeatable move results in the club going through the ball. Orientation of the clubface also doesn't need to be manipulated because the face will be where it is based on how they hold on to the club (not unlike how a tennis grip affects racket orientation during the swing and the type of shot it produces). So, even tho the swing may look like it has a ton of moving parts and would be difficult to coordinate, by leaning into their body's ROM limits, they can ride those limits like rails and produce very repeatable strokes. Furyk is one of the best ball strikers ever. His stroke, to him, is simple. It doesn't feel anything like what it looks like as he's mentioned in interviews. But when he makes his most trusted, repeatable move, that is the look that he gets.
Some pool players, use a similar approach. They find a very repeatable move which they can fully trust to repeat. Then they set up in a way so their move sends the cue tip where they want. If the move requires some other body parts to get the whole thing going, so be it. At the moment of truth (impact), their cue tip will be behaving in a predictable manner and that is what they are after. These action-reaction or domino sequence type strokes can often have funky appearances, but in terms of what the player is actually doing, they are very simple indeed. My stroke is simple. The model is elegant. And yes, it has more moving parts than a pendulum stroke. But I understand it fully. I understand why it works as it does. And this not only helps me fine tune and adjust on the fly if something goes off (no technique is immune to this), but it allows me to absolutely trust it...which is very useful under pressure.
I don't think it's 'better', but I know it is better for me. And that is kinda the point of the book I'm putting together for the pool community. I present different methods ranging from one end of the spectrum to the other across various stroke components. Then readers can decide what jives with their preferred movement style and personality most and build up a technique of their own, using the guidelines presented for stabilizing joints and securing swing planes they prefer.
As for 'you have to start young to play X technique'.... If you understand how the body works and have a clear concept of what you are trying to do, this is just not the case. I learned a sidearm chicken wing stroke in about 5min in my mid 30s and was running racks with it that night. It's in the book. Plus I run readers through what I did in those 5min to learn it. That said, understanding of other concepts presented earlier in the book is a prerequisite for understanding this style. Those concepts won't only help people understand these nonstandard strokes which I mostly started diving into as fun movement puzzles to solve, but they will deepen people's understanding of THE fundamentals and the functions they are serving, not merely their appearance.
why dont you give a specific example for the pool stroke instead of just teasing with a little peak at a shadow without revealing whats behind the curtain.
it seems to me you never really answer the question directly.
just allude to your superior knowledge of kinesiology and that no one else knows or understands it like you
it would be great if you could pick a stroke and teach us how to do it to do it "using the guidelines presented for stabilizing joints and securing swing planes "
put me down for a copy of your book....
it seems to me you never really answer the question directly.
just allude to your superior knowledge of kinesiology and that no one else knows or understands it like you
it would be great if you could pick a stroke and teach us how to do it to do it "using the guidelines presented for stabilizing joints and securing swing planes "
put me down for a copy of your book....
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
I think the golf example has many parallels and illustrates the point quite well for how something that is simple to execute can actually end up looking very complex with a lot of moving parts. The distinction I like to make for students is that some things in our swings (golf and pool really) are performed; others happen. These strokes with a ton of moving parts are generally not being coordinated and tuned at every detail to make things work. Those things happen as a result of something else that is performed. They are much simpler than they look.why dont you give a specific example for the pool stroke instead of just teasing with a little peak at a shadow without revealing whats behind the curtain.
it seems to me you never really answer the question directly.
just allude to your superior knowledge of kinesiology and that no one else knows or understands it like you
it would be great if you could pick a stroke and teach us how to do it to do it "using the guidelines presented for stabilizing joints and securing swing planes "
put me down for a copy of your book....
I obv can't get into specific techniques for a couple of reasons. It would take too long and would need background info (this is what the concepts laid out in detail early in the book set readers up to understand). The models can then be bullet point on a single page with that baseline info as a reference.
I don't mind hinting at things and letting people figure the details out for themselves. But I charge for the specifics.
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i think you underestimate the background knowledge of many on the site
thanks for being honest/transparent and your reply
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