What I Stole From Fractional Aiming Systems

On a serious note. Can someone explain to me what, when looking at the cue ball and object ball, what two and three dimension looks like? Also, Patrick, when you are lined up using your system, do you do anything to compensate for throw. I just read somewhere that hitting the object ball harder when cutting from a long distance negates the throw. I like to hear someone explain some of these techniques. I know another way is to compensate or adjust your aim but I think there are some tips, when cutting balls, that people tend to keep to themselves.

Just curious. Love the game and am trying to improve.

dougster26 said:

On a serious note. Can someone explain to me what, when looking at the cue ball and object ball, what two and three dimension looks like? Also, Patrick, when you are lined up using your system, do you do anything to compensate for throw. I just read somewhere that hitting the object ball harder when cutting from a long distance negates the throw. I like to hear someone explain some of these techniques. I know another way is to compensate or adjust your aim but I think there are some tips, when cutting balls, that people tend to keep to themselves.

Just curious. Love the game and am trying to improve.

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If you can focus on the CB or the OB (spheres), then you have stereoscopic/binocular vision and can see in 3D. You can see edges with the right eye that the left eye cannot. If you can only focus with one eye, the you have monocular vision and can only see a sphere as a 2D disk.

I know of 2 shortstops that have only one eye and that can be a blessing when shooting pool for there is no confusion that may arise when the dominant eye weakens and the other eye starts to dominate when aiming.

Yes, the sphere looks round like a disk, and when you are looking down on the shot the ball look like a disk. When you get down on the shot, the sphere still looks like a disk instead of an ellipse as a disk would.

Do I make sense?:smile:

Patrick Johnson said:

Is aligning the sights on a rifle at the target an aiming system? If it is, then I think "system" means too many things to be meaningful.

pj
chgo

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Aiming w/ sights on a rifle is definitely an aiming system - it's a systematic way to aim. Shooting a rifle like this is feel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNqPB3LVmcI

See the difference?

Patrick Johnson said:

And since everybody aims systematically, there's no such thing as non-system aiming. CTE, ghost ball, HAMB - it's all just aiming.

pj
chgo

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So the next time someone knocks aiming systems in general...like Lou... make sure you speak up and bring him up to speed.

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Patrick Johnson said:

And the next time you swoon over some pivot system?

pj
chgo

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I swoon because it works perfectly and has added tons and tons of consistency to my game. It has solidified my PSR to a much higher level.

If it didn't, I'd be a naysayer and JoeyA would be blue-inking me But, alas.. it does.

Thanks for the info Patrick and LAMas. When practicing I try thinking outside the box because I know what I am doing isn't working.

I like asking questions and people like you and Fran C. have taken the time to help.

I do think I may be trying to get to technical and need to concentrate on my basics. Making sure my feet are in the right position, lining up the shot and executing a straight stroke.

Thanks again guys. I really appreciate it.

I have used the exact aiming system Patrick is talking about. The second part of aligning with the ghost ball is just that a part of a pre-shot routine that aligns your body. There are times when it works best and thats when the ball is close to the rail as you can usually pick a spot on the rail to sight with.
Aiming at the ghost ball gets worse the further from the rail you get. Not that you still don't do it. But You then only mostly on a point to point contact. IMHO
Comparing it with shooting guns? My father taught me how to pre-position the body for gun alignment. He was one of the top shooters in the 5 state area in his time. I taught it to others when I was on a shooting team. Worked for everybody. In Fact our team took 5th in the Nationals from a small town of 15,000 years ago. I was shooting 10s right away after using his system. Lot's more than picking up a gun, using the correct breathing and sighting then squeezing the trigger.
I have adapted my fathers pre-shot aiming technique to my pool pre-shot. I believe GeneO uses a part or all of this after I told him about it. Most all aiming methods don't cover this in detail. In teaching aiming systems it sometimes may be very beneficial in teaching the student WHY.

Had a B or C player come over one time before a tourney to listen in on some instructions I was giving on this. Later he came back and told me he took 2nd in the tourney, the highest he ever placed using this technique. They guy obviously knew initially on where to hit the OB. He just needed a good pre-shot.

Anytime one follows the same steps over and over I would have to consider it a system.

I think the alignment piece you originally referred to is a huge benefit of the aiming "systems" out there. 90/90, CTE/Pro1, SEE, etc. all recommend or even require the user to follow prescribed steps to start from a specific alignments, move down into the shot in a certain way, etc. All of these steps, whether purely mechanical or laced with "feel" (like pivoting etc.) are still steps and through training become subconscious and very repeatable.

I was pretty consistent before messing with aiming systems, I'm even more so now. I wouldn't dream of stepping into a shot without being aware (at least subconsciously) of my back foot placement and initial alignment. I agree with one of CJ's recent posts, you start out very mechanical during training but to reach your top gear you eventually need to let go of the steps and just perform them, only going back to the very mechanical approach when working on something new or fixing a flaw.

People do perceive things differently, that's why it's good to have as much as knowledge as possible when teaching, or even for your own use in double checking your aim etc. I find using discrete points like centers, edges, even shadows, etc. easier to see than a point in space or on a portion of a ball that I can't see directly, but that's just me, and probably why when I gained the information presented in the systems I took to it. I was already a pretty good ball pocketer before, it's just with the systems it gave me even more confidence and I felt even more locked in, leading to better results. I would still teach a new student the basic ghost ball concepts before overwhelming them with throw, cling, systems, etc.


After over a year now of experimentation and using the systems I agree that the pivot portion has a "feel" component to it, especially as sometimes described. In practice the moves can be done repeatedly and consistently and thus to me can be legitimately part of the system. I certainly don't feel like I'm dialing into the shot visually, once the initial pocket is chosen and the lines are sighted the pivot just happens with almost no visual reference to the object ball/pocket path. However it happens, the feeling I get of being completely locked in can't be ignored and the results confirm those feelings.

Scott

My father taught me how to pre-position the body for gun alignment. He was one of the top shooters in the 5 state area in his time. I taught it to others when I was on a shooting team. Worked for everybody.

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Would you be willing to tell us more about aiming guns? Sounds fascinating.

I like that you say pre-position the body, some amateur pool players try to put the cue stick down first than hold it rigidly in place while they wrap their body around it--bad news.

Thank you.

I'm right handed, left eye dominant. When I'm sighting the ball in my standing posistion, the left side of my body is facing the shot with my. Once I'm on the line, I just turn my torso to the left and bend forward at the same time. My left (front) foot ends up parallel to my cue.

Works pretty well for me.