Cross-dominant and having difficulty getting my head and feet in the right place

This was helpful.

An Annika Sörenstam clinic perspective

Leigh said:

This was helpful.

Click to expand...

I saw a video of Annika Sörenstam giving a clinic to a group of amateur ladies. She used a variety of clubs and swing lengths to send the ball to targets. She stood with her body in different positions and explained that the stance wasn’t as crucial as many thought. She stood facing the fairway with a wood and sent the ball to a target 70 yards straight ahead. The keys to her were the swing direction through impact and how long the swing was determined the distance.

The description I gave about the stance needs to be taken with the same idea in mind. You can simply lower your face and look down the cue length/aim line from the butt. Finding the center alignment vision picture matching Dr Dave’s center alignment photo is the key. I’ve chosen that as my consistent starting point. How you get your body into a stance to maintain that centered perspective and get the body in position to deliver the cue through impact on that same plane is entirely personal. That is called functional intent, the desired outcome.

Every seeming principle can be ignored, even eye alignment. Consider a fine player like Niels Feijen who aligns his aim while standing, then positions his body to deliver down the line. His head while in deliver position is not looking down the cue line. The alignment while standing’s, functional intent is to find the positioning for the cue for the desired shot. His functional intent of his stance is different though. Once the cue is placed every move now is designed to organize his body to deliver the cue precisely down that line. His head placement has two advantages that I can see. He has a sideways perspective of the cue plane relative to the horizontal and he can see the exact height his tip will be contacting the ball.

I don’t have to be aligned directly behind my key in order to unlock a door. We can learn precision. I’m not really aware of my fork or spoon when eating, yet I don’t miss and hit my lips. That said, I find it easier to get the tip to contact the cue ball precisely when I start from a consistent position. Feijen and Strickland are aware of precisely where they have positioned their eyes and head. That is their consistent starting point. Perspective and alignment are two different things. Synchronizing them is a functional intent of its own, arriving at a consistent starting point.

Chest to cue

BlueRaider said:

I've discovered another component to the tip steer issue--unknowingly letting my elbow flare out a bit when getting into my stance.

I previously thought that just correcting my stance would automatically correct my chicken wing problem, and for the most part, it did. But a slightly diagonal elbow position remained (maybe 5-10 degrees off of completely vertical on the shot line).

It was actually a comment Mark Wilson made about Filler where he kept his grip hand close to his hips/waist as he lowered himself to the table that got me thinking about this. When I would airstroke during my pre-shot routine, I wouldn't bring my hand/elbow in, and would instead get down into my stance from that airstroke position, causing the slight chicken wing.

I've found that intentionally bringing my hand in towards my body as the last step before getting down on the table keeps everything lined up better.

When I combine the bigger step forward + the more relaxed/inward hand position, I don't have any problems with tip steer and my overall accuracy is better.

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Cueing from beside the body, the side of the chest can lower and provide another contact point for the cue. Modern snooker training is a 4 point concept. The grip, chest, chin and bridge provide a “walled” stroke. When the cue is placed on line with the shaft in the bridge, along the side of the chest to the grip hand, sideways movement is constrained. The chin now constrains up/down movement.