Practice Drills - No Table
- Thread starter EasyMoney
- Start date
Pull a piece of string straight and tape it down. Practice getting down straight on it. Stroke and try to make your tip finish on the center of the string. It's nice because you have some tactile feedback. When your stroke finishes properly you can feel it on the string.
Get a mirror and practice in front of that. Gives you an idea what you look like, even if you don't know what to look for. You might see something obviously bad.
I'm not big on the beer bottle thing. You can't really make a pendulum stroke into a beer bottle. The tip can't go left or right--of course good--but it can't go up or down either. That requires that your elbow move to keep it going perfectly straight.
Also, check out this thread on staying in stroke out of town.
Get a mirror and practice in front of that. Gives you an idea what you look like, even if you don't know what to look for. You might see something obviously bad.
I'm not big on the beer bottle thing. You can't really make a pendulum stroke into a beer bottle. The tip can't go left or right--of course good--but it can't go up or down either. That requires that your elbow move to keep it going perfectly straight.
Also, check out this thread on staying in stroke out of town.
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I purchased Joe Tucker's 3rd Eye Trainer for this very purpose. I found a plastic vitamin bottle that is almost exactly the same width as a cue ball. Now I practice stroking and hitting the bottle down the length of a smooth wooden table. If the bottle goes straight down the table and doesn't spin I know my stroke is good. Doing this one exercise allowed me to see very quickly that my stroke was completely off before. Made a HUGE difference in my game.
I was so diehard when I first dedicated myself to pool that before I bought a table. I took my girlfriend's big piece of felt that was used for her mini roulette set and weighted it down on the dining room table with phonebooks and other books for rails. I sandwiched an empty tennis ball can and weighted it down to make a pocket. I angled it so the object ball would roll back out after I made the "shot". I bought a cue ball and an object ball. The rest is stroke history.
Johnnyt said:
I use a large liquor bottle myself. Makes for a longer stroke. I practice stroking into it at fast, medium, and slow speed. Using different stroke lengths and speeds allows one to do some WIERD stuff with the cue ball.
The controlled slow stroke is one of Efren's biggest weapons...
I personally used this as my non pool table practice regimen for quite a long time back in the day. I personally don't see anything wrong with the elbow drop, as long as you practice this drill so much that it is solidly ingrained in muscle memory.
I know a lot of instructors are against the elbow drop, but I always looked at it as the way to deliver a long stroke in the straightest possible manner.
I know for sure I've seen top players using an elbow drop on long power shots...
Russ
Imageek2 said:
I bought a cue ball to use with the 3rd eye even though I don't have a table. Right now I just use it to practice lining up to center ball, I haven't figured out a good set-up to use on my desk for shooting it. I try to practice my stroke mechanics a little bit without using a cue ball.
From the looks of this thread...I am not the only pool nerd around. My girlfriends use to think I was crazy when I put my cue together and would sit and practice stance and stroke fundamentals on the kitchen table. All they saw was the "mental" part of fundamental. 
CaptainHook said:My boyfriend likes his pool cue more than me, wanna make out?
Cap'n.. I GOT to come hang out with you when I get back to Florida.. I live a little over an hour from you.. You know some INTERESTING people!
Russ
CaptainHook said:My boyfriend likes his pool cue more than me, wanna make out?
And to think I wasn't even gonna open this thread....
props to you
When I was a kid, I made a portable pool table with a wooden bed, wooden rails, cut-outs for pockets, made small wooden sticks, used a towel for the felt, and golf balls for....well....the balls...
Kewl idea with the liquor bottle...