IAbsolutely.....not so much shot to shot but when you get on a run.
Do the spot shot drill. Ball in hand in the kitchen after every shot.
Commit to doing it x number of times. Keep a pad nearby. Write down
numbers, make two columns or five columns. Try numbers 1 thru 25 or 50.
Now do the drill. After each shot, write a plus or minus next to that
number. When you think it was a good stroke, regardless if the shot
was pocketed, write down a plus (+). If you felt the stroke was less
than satisfactory stroke, write down a minus (-). If you pocketed the
ball regardless of how you rated the stroke, then just put a circle
around the plus or minus. Very simple record keeping for 50 shots.
Just a plus, minus and circle are needed.
Now I don’t know what skill level you are but I’m better than average,
I expect to run the rack every time and of course don’t. It’s because
I make a mechanical mistakes and my stroke breaks down. But I can
feel my stroke change when that happens. At the same time, when I
am running the table which is not uncommon for me to do, I also feel
the balance of my stroke. When I run the rack in 9 or 10 ball, I figure
I have a 50/50 chance of doing it again. If my stroke doesn’t break
down, I probably will. We played King of the Hill last Friday at Blue
Fin (3 players) race to six (6) games (ensures everyone plays at
least 3 games). The other players are strong players but I could
feel I was in stroke that day. I was right and it turned out I won 6-0.
Of course your stroke can vary from shot to shot depending on the
distance of the OB from the cue ball, location of the next shot, and
more importantly, where you want the CB to arrive. The type of stroke
velocity can & does change and will vary from the 7’ tables to 9’ tables.
My high run of consecutively pocketed spot shots is 16. I always play on
9’ tables. I never play on a 7’ tables so my stroke is geared for bigger tables.
More CB travel on 9’ tables. Anyway, during that streak, I could feel when my
stroke was off but the OB still dropped. That happened twice but the other 14
times my stroke felt smooth & straight & the OB usually dropped center pocket.
Reviewing the Digicue results without being able to correlate that with what you
just did or attempted is a flawed process. I’m just saying learn to use Digicue
intelligently instead of just looking at sets of numbers thinking I’m doing better
or worse when in fact you might not. IMO, instant display of the data for every
shot in real time is what’s genuinely needed & being able to display it a via a
wireless hookup to a tablet, laptop or computer monitor. Data must be assembled,
interpreted and eventually applied if you hope to attain maximum improvement.