Many pool instructors teach a stroke technique of moving only from the elbow joint on down until after the cue ball is hit. Do you agree with this? And if so, how do you help students through this process?
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Pivoting at the Elbow
- Thread starter Tennesseejoe
- Start date
The "fixed elbow" stroke is recommended (by me and others) for stroke straightness/accuracy/consistency. I'll be interested in the discussion of how best to teach it.
pj
chgo
There are several devices in the thread on weird pool tools that constrain the stroke. A method of stroke training that is free is to ask the student to watch their ferrule -- not either ball. Also if the shot is with the butt of the stick over the rail -- and with a couple of other conditions -- the student can't drop the elbow early.
In general, lower arm only movement is nice. Few pool (snooker isn't what I'm discussing) pros have a totally pinned elbow.
scott lee would put his hand on my elbow when i stroked
it was a long time ago i could be mis remembering
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I had what Mark Wilson called a total collapse of the elbow when I shot. I think learning the fixed elbow was the single best thing I have done in 20 years to improve my game. It is not easy to do and not easy to ingrain because, IMO, it is not a natural movement. We always think natural movements are best, but results say otherwise. Maybe I could have done XYZ and made my collapsing elbow stroke work great, but the fixed elbow yielded immediate results for me..
The fixed elbow has cascading benefits. It makes you realize you were probably hitting the ball harder than necessary and, for me, helped me realize what being relaxed really meant. It also gave me better speed control and I got more english with it.
The fixed elbow has cascading benefits. It makes you realize you were probably hitting the ball harder than necessary and, for me, helped me realize what being relaxed really meant. It also gave me better speed control and I got more english with it.
why do you think that happened?
To answer both questions, I think I must have some lateral movement going on while dropping the elbow, or maybe the dropping elbow caused my hand to react a certain way to throw the cue off line. It could be anything. The more I started paying attention to pro players the more I saw the fixed elbow. I didn't think it necessary to know for sure why fixed elbow worked better.
As far as the english showing itself I would sometimes hit a shot with certain english and it wouldn't take the way I expected. I've learned to repeat the shot concentrating on the fixed elbow and the english would work much better. I wasn't keeping the elbow up during the shot in those cases. I also spent a good amount of time doing detailed observations of how the cue ball rolled when shooting the same shot over and over. When the elbow was fixed I would get a longer roll and a more consistent speed. For instance, if I hit a follow shot and got say 1.5 diamonds of cue ball roll on a "normal" stroke I would get 2 diamonds with a fixed elbow stroke. I decided I wasn't going to try and figure out exactly why that was.
For me the difference is night and day -- and I was even playing pretty well before the fixed elbow change.
pagaspoling
Member
Pivoting from the elbow is a very important part of a good cue delivery and for beginners it can be isolated and trained on its own. I think the best way to train it is with short and slow shots, where it is useful, and try to get the player to have a short bridge and the grip quite a bit forward on the cue. With a 4 inch bridge and follow through it makes sense to most players that only elbow motion is the best option to create a good stroke. A good way would is to put tape at 8-10 inches and tell the player that they cant stroke past that.
I encourage all my players to get as low on the cue as possible and with the head on the cue it makes no sense to only pivot from the elbow since that would make your head move with longer swings. If you want to use a full 10-12 inch bridge and make a full backstroke the elbow has to lower some in order to keep the head still.
While this is an important technique for instructors to teach, there are also players who are very successful elbow-droppers. Just because a player drops his or her elbow, they shouldn't be automatically categorized as doing something wrong. Instructors should troubleshoot problems and not just change players for the sake of change.
Do you think such a player should be introduced to the fixed elbow method as an option for them to try or would you only do that as a last resort?
Well, I would have a discussion with them about it, but more as a way of providing them with accurate information, because someone will invariably point out their elbow drop stroke as a problem, when it actually isn't for them. So I would like to help that player avoid confusion about it through good rather than bad information. I would also present the possibility that both strokes can be used by the same player (as I do), and give them examples of where the fixed elbow stroke can be more efficient --- particularly on small shots, where a full elbow drop isn't necessary.
That makes perfect sense. thanks
I appreciate what you've shared, but players can get there in different ways, for example, hard hitters are told by me to soften their grip and delivery without the fixed elbow becoming the training device.
Maybe this will be construed as being a nay-sayer, but here goes. Scott Lee and Randy G. both used to stress pivoting from the elbow with no elbow drop as the best way to shoot. Probably the easiest way to learn for a rank beginner because there are fewer moving parts. They put out a joint training video where they discussed this. It has been quite a few years ago that I watched this, so my memory may not be 100% correct. Near the end of the video they played several games against each other to demonstrate what they had discussed throughout the video. On every shot, regardless of who shot, the shooter dropped their elbow. Seems to demonstrate that the elbow drop can occur naturally no matter the teaching or intention. Snooker players seem to be the ones that have successfully put this method into practice more so than pool players.