My hand hits my chest, and I have a level stroke. This is because when the hand hits the chest, the wrist naturally "breaks"
By "breaks" I mean it bends back towards the pinky. It's the same technique a lot of elbow droppers use, and it will cause the cue to stay level.
Jon,
I understand the wrist movement to which you refer. I still have a hard time picturing a 'level' or straight line traveling cue stick movement with the hand hitting one's chest.
Is your cue riding along your chest for the whole stroke? If I remember correctly your arm was angled in toward your body & not hanging straight down. It may be swinging into your chest on a plane other than perpendicular to the table or your upper body may be turned to the right or both. I think restricted was Fran Crimi's word for it.
If the arm comes up with a firm grip & locked wrist the tip would move up above one's head. But if the cue shaft is held down on the bridge hand as the stroke hand comes up, the tip pivots down on the bridge hand unless one's anatomy keeps it from doing so.
I don't see how the wrist action to which you refer can prevent that from happening by itself alone. Perhaps you
are dropping your elbow & extending your forearm.
The thing is that if ones chest is higher than the shaft line & the hand comes up to the chest then the connection to the cue brings the cue with it. The wrist action can negate a bit of that but I would bet that the cue stick is not moving straight as that happens unless as I said another part of your anatomy is helping to negate it as well.
Bob Jewitt's comparison of a pendulum & piston stroke clearly shows that the tip moves opposite of the stroke hand for a pendulum stroke. Hand up tip down, hand down tip up, & then hand up on the finish & the tip goes down.
If one were to let the cue sit in the hand & let it 'roll' across the different parts of the hand
with no wrist action the tip movements would be accentuated. Allowing the hand to hinge forward on the back stroke & then backward on the forward stroke would take some of that tip movement out of the stroke. But IMHO it would not be enough alone to keep the cue moving straight for any length of stroke other than the smallest in nature.
I certainly am not looking to argue with you, especially about
your stroke, but this goes to the point of my thread looking for a bio-mechanical explanation for the claim of a straight line sweet spot in a true pendulum stroke. If one's hand is coming up to one's chest that is a 'pendulum' type finish.
Sorry for the long post but this is an important point as to what type of stroke lends itself to a more straight line cue & tip travel for the sake of precision.
Regards & Best Wishes,
Rick