I think the ideal is robotic with feel, but I don't know in which order to learn them - maybe together.
pj
chgo
Synchronizing Eye Movement with Final Delivery
- Thread starter ChrisinNC
- Start date
pj
chgo
It is crucial to combine your breathing with your eye movements, in a synchronized manner. I also find a subtle transfer of weight in your back hand as the cue moves is a must- do. Additionally, when shooting jacked up the front foot should have weight 65% on outside of foot, while back foot should have similar % on the inside, while on tip-toe.
Finally,- and specific to the break shot- one should to this shot with pants zipper open. Naw, I just forget to zip mine often and I don't wanna be the only cockmanout any more. But the rest is truth.
Finally,- and specific to the break shot- one should to this shot with pants zipper open. Naw, I just forget to zip mine often and I don't wanna be the only cockmanout any more. But the rest is truth.
I'm but a B player on one of my better days, so I'm not exactly the kind of responder the OP is looking for, but I do just as described above. If it is a day when my focus is sharp and I stroke like this on every shot, my shooting is better than normal.
Maniac (I'm not going to describe "normal" :embarrassed2
How about looking at the pocket last!!!!
I knew a very good player (sadly deceased) named Tommy Lazlo from East Detroit. He was a very methodical player who played all games well. He once told me he liked to look at the intended pocket during his final stroke. He would look at his cushion contact point while banking.Talk about doing things your own way!
Dave
I knew a very good player (sadly deceased) named Tommy Lazlo from East Detroit. He was a very methodical player who played all games well. He once told me he liked to look at the intended pocket during his final stroke. He would look at his cushion contact point while banking.Talk about doing things your own way!
Dave
Predictable results are the key
Spending time researching quiet eye, attentional focus and sports related decisioning making, leads to some interesting insights.
The number of strokes is not the issue when measuring successful performance. Best expert results are recorded in the prediction part of the brain. Del Hill, an elite snooker coach to several world champions has some videos made by a student on YouTube. During a section on the stroke he advised to be decisive. His base suggestion was a couple of strokes, stop and pause before the shot, then shoot. The student a bit later did a single stroke, paused then pocketed the relatively easy shot. Del indicated that he saw what happened. He said that since the brain was able to see a successful execution after the single preliminary it decided to shoot. Del was in full agreement. That element of prediction is confirmed in EEG and fMRI results from sports research.
Most players are successful on short shots near the hole. This is about the individual player not instructors. Unless a player is novice he probably has developed some predictable skills with natural timing. Starting from the simple successful shots a player should challenge himself at the edge of his expertise. When shots that once challenged you can now be handled with authority, you will feel the rhythm best suited to you.
Personally I think stopping myself and starting over is one of the hardest skills I work on. That skill involves using the prediction formula. Taking aim needs to be done while standing. I need to approach the aim line by stepping forward to the shot. I put my foot on the target line. As I get down the cue and cueing arm need to align on the target line. Holding it on line the rest of my body moves into position.
Settling into place my eyes move from the cue ball to the target area. Meanwhile my eyes come back to my moving cue. If the cue is not running straight, I need to get up, not fiddle in place. If it is moving straight; would the ball traveling on that line, pocket the ball? If not, I’m misaligned, start over. If I’m aligned and cueing straight, I stop, find my target and shoot. Experts at this point are usually not aware of where they are looking and many say they really don’t care. Brain scans show that during the shot, in various sports they really aren’t visually focused on anything. The looking part is over. Many pros during exhibitions close their eyes and look away while executing shots.
Quiet eye is about where the focus is prior to the shot, not during. That final gaze at the target location is highly focused and in my estimation experts are predicting the outcome. In experts the final gaze is longer than less skilled. We’re likely taking about 200-600ms. In other words longer by just a part of a second. The more certain they feel the more the stroke flows just like with a sitter. Think about the sitter. You line up, feel success with certainty, then simply shoot. My stroke there is a single, separate deliberate, positive stroke with no hesitation. What is yours? It’s a template for what you need to do. Maybe a harder shot needs one more preliminary stroke or two to gather your focus, but the final stroke should be positively focused with a predictable result in mind.
I shoot when my expectation is a predictably positive result. If not, I have to choose another option or start over. Make decisions when standing up. If you change your mind when down get up and start over. Only get down and shoot when you are wholly committed to the shot.
Many players like Joshua Filler and Jayson Shaw find the target and certainty in their alignment quickly allowing them to shoot with authority. Use your sense of certainty to dictate when to shoot. The center line of my body is where I experience certainty. An off center feel means something isn’t quite right. I start over if that centered sense of certainty is missing.
Getting focused on technique instead of on achieving a result can be a mistake. Get focused on the shot. Make the ball, get the shape, repeat. A straight stroke helps.
Spending time researching quiet eye, attentional focus and sports related decisioning making, leads to some interesting insights.
The number of strokes is not the issue when measuring successful performance. Best expert results are recorded in the prediction part of the brain. Del Hill, an elite snooker coach to several world champions has some videos made by a student on YouTube. During a section on the stroke he advised to be decisive. His base suggestion was a couple of strokes, stop and pause before the shot, then shoot. The student a bit later did a single stroke, paused then pocketed the relatively easy shot. Del indicated that he saw what happened. He said that since the brain was able to see a successful execution after the single preliminary it decided to shoot. Del was in full agreement. That element of prediction is confirmed in EEG and fMRI results from sports research.
Most players are successful on short shots near the hole. This is about the individual player not instructors. Unless a player is novice he probably has developed some predictable skills with natural timing. Starting from the simple successful shots a player should challenge himself at the edge of his expertise. When shots that once challenged you can now be handled with authority, you will feel the rhythm best suited to you.
Personally I think stopping myself and starting over is one of the hardest skills I work on. That skill involves using the prediction formula. Taking aim needs to be done while standing. I need to approach the aim line by stepping forward to the shot. I put my foot on the target line. As I get down the cue and cueing arm need to align on the target line. Holding it on line the rest of my body moves into position.
Settling into place my eyes move from the cue ball to the target area. Meanwhile my eyes come back to my moving cue. If the cue is not running straight, I need to get up, not fiddle in place. If it is moving straight; would the ball traveling on that line, pocket the ball? If not, I’m misaligned, start over. If I’m aligned and cueing straight, I stop, find my target and shoot. Experts at this point are usually not aware of where they are looking and many say they really don’t care. Brain scans show that during the shot, in various sports they really aren’t visually focused on anything. The looking part is over. Many pros during exhibitions close their eyes and look away while executing shots.
Quiet eye is about where the focus is prior to the shot, not during. That final gaze at the target location is highly focused and in my estimation experts are predicting the outcome. In experts the final gaze is longer than less skilled. We’re likely taking about 200-600ms. In other words longer by just a part of a second. The more certain they feel the more the stroke flows just like with a sitter. Think about the sitter. You line up, feel success with certainty, then simply shoot. My stroke there is a single, separate deliberate, positive stroke with no hesitation. What is yours? It’s a template for what you need to do. Maybe a harder shot needs one more preliminary stroke or two to gather your focus, but the final stroke should be positively focused with a predictable result in mind.
I shoot when my expectation is a predictably positive result. If not, I have to choose another option or start over. Make decisions when standing up. If you change your mind when down get up and start over. Only get down and shoot when you are wholly committed to the shot.
Many players like Joshua Filler and Jayson Shaw find the target and certainty in their alignment quickly allowing them to shoot with authority. Use your sense of certainty to dictate when to shoot. The center line of my body is where I experience certainty. An off center feel means something isn’t quite right. I start over if that centered sense of certainty is missing.
Getting focused on technique instead of on achieving a result can be a mistake. Get focused on the shot. Make the ball, get the shape, repeat. A straight stroke helps.
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I firmly believe in this. whenever i feel something is off i can never make the shot, even if its a hanger. or if i barely make it i know i got lucky.
but even if the shot is difficult but everything feels right i know i will make it. of course, the context is that i've racked up enough successful executions of the shot previously to 'know that feeling' and feel that 'conviction'.
Well it's clear when arguably the best snooker player in the world Ronnie O started seeking Steve Feeney as his coach because of his new methods teaching the sight right method, which he found great success in doing so , how important those fundamentals are then believing in them to when your not thinking but doing
1
Me....cue ball cue ball....object ball...fire away.
Eye gaze method
I have been told by a central Massachusetts advanced BCA instructor that I switch my gaze to the object ball too late. However, the following works for me: I focus on the ferrule and tip of my cue stick as it is moving back-and-forth through practice strokes to get the feel of the pendulum motion and then, at the top of my last backstroke just after the cue stick begins to move forward I shift my gaze to the object ball. It works very well for me.
I have been told by a central Massachusetts advanced BCA instructor that I switch my gaze to the object ball too late. However, the following works for me: I focus on the ferrule and tip of my cue stick as it is moving back-and-forth through practice strokes to get the feel of the pendulum motion and then, at the top of my last backstroke just after the cue stick begins to move forward I shift my gaze to the object ball. It works very well for me.
Do you ever look at the object ball before that final shift?
I have discovered in my last few practice sessions to incorporate a pronounced pause (at least 1 full second) at the end of my backstroke. This seems to be allowing more time for my eyes for their final shift from the cue ball to focusing on the object ball, which so far has been providing excellent shotmaking results! Thanks for all those that have responded to this thread.
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The ghost has ZERO chance now!
FTR...the one second pause helped my game also.
Maniac (and it needed help, believe me)
Yeah, there must be a beneficial reason that virtually all snooker coaches teach the pronounced pause at the completion of the backstroke. I don't know why it would be any different for pool players?
I can’t say I’ve timed Alison Fisher or Buddy Hall, but it sure looks like they both pause for about half a second. Maybe the break has a longer pause. I just wonder at what point you’re expending unnecessary energy holding your arm taut like that, and possibly disrupting your forward stroke as a result.
It could disrupt the forward stroke, I suppose, if it wasn't a more or less natural part of the shot rhythm. I don't hold it a planned amount of time, and not exactly the same each time - whatever feels right for gathering the final focus needed for the shot.
I agree a whole second is a looong time during a stroke - I don't do that often.
pj
chgo
I'll check out some youtube matches of some of the famous players that incorporate a pause and try to get back with a time estimate as to how long they each pause for. The ones that immediately come to mind I plan to check are Siming Chen, Allison Fisher, Chris Melling, Stephen Lee and Buddy Hall.
Update - all 5 of those players I mentioned above have a pause of closer to 1/2 of a second as opposed to a full second. I guess it just seems longer in comparison to the majority of players that have no pause at all.
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No wrong answers
Since Joe Davis recommended a pause at the back of the backswing, that was my mantra for years. That pause didn’t come natural on all shots and so I needed to have it as a technique thought every time. Sometimes it felt forced and unnatural. Del Hill, Ronnie O’Sullivan’s mentor/coach since he was 16, talked about the pause. His advice was to pause before the final stroke. Stopping after the preliminary strokes, then making the final stroke a separate, deliberate action, once the shot was sensed, was his advice. When adding that to my routine instead, the eyes had time to quietly settle on the target during the pause, and the backswing slowed. I no longer think about the pause at the back. Without technique thoughts the actual end result emerges as the intent of the stroke. The front pause is a marksman moment. Will pulling the trigger get the desired outcome? If not, I can stop now and get up. Without the front pause, there is no time for an unconscious body check predicting success.
Sensing the ball contact requires an awareness of the contact point collision. Learning to include the front of the cue ball projected to impact creates an outwards orientation and helps keep from undue fixation on the face of the ball. When becoming aware of the front, other things emerge. The front is more available, whereas the face gets blocked by balls and rails. The front is where the actual contact takes place and acts as a reality check to whatever aiming system you use. When two perspectives give you the same result your certainty level skyrockets. So taking a two dimensional fraction/overlap sighting method and then doing a 3D reality check, by including the front of the ball, will never hurt.
You still have to build in a "stop" mechanism. When the two points of view don’t match, you need to start over. Don’t ask what’s wrong. Knowing it’s not right is enough. Start over by asking what does the successful shot "look" like. This is imagery. It involves all senses. Let your body guide you. If getting up makes you self conscious, get over it. Take a walk around the table. Clean the ball paths. See the small details of the shot so your body can "see" what needs to be done.
To me The Pause is a marshaling moment. Whether at the back or at the front it needs to have enough time to gather the needed resources and info. Putting it at the front, for me, allows me to stop more easily, if needed. At the back, feels like stopping half way through my stroke and gives me that unnatural feeling. If stopping is still a possible option once the stroke is in motion it might feed into hesitancy, a product of uncertainty.
This perspective gives the pause a functional intent. For others it might just keep them from pulling themselves off line transitioning from back to forward. A pendulum stroker needs to have the stroke slow to a stop before moving forward. Most shots have a needed cueing incline. Provided a shooter keeps a high elbow on the backswing, the transition from back to forward can arc down from the top making a static stop unnecessary and still maintain an on line cue path.
Pendulum players already have a pause/stop at the back and arc strokers can benefit from a front pause. There is no wrong answer. Each point posted has the same issue. They are all right from a particular perspective.
What kind of player are you? This was meant to reveal some perspectives and give insight into how the functional intent concept might relate to your thinking on this. Figure out why you would want to pause and what function that provides. Then where and how long become easier to establish.
Since Joe Davis recommended a pause at the back of the backswing, that was my mantra for years. That pause didn’t come natural on all shots and so I needed to have it as a technique thought every time. Sometimes it felt forced and unnatural. Del Hill, Ronnie O’Sullivan’s mentor/coach since he was 16, talked about the pause. His advice was to pause before the final stroke. Stopping after the preliminary strokes, then making the final stroke a separate, deliberate action, once the shot was sensed, was his advice. When adding that to my routine instead, the eyes had time to quietly settle on the target during the pause, and the backswing slowed. I no longer think about the pause at the back. Without technique thoughts the actual end result emerges as the intent of the stroke. The front pause is a marksman moment. Will pulling the trigger get the desired outcome? If not, I can stop now and get up. Without the front pause, there is no time for an unconscious body check predicting success.
Sensing the ball contact requires an awareness of the contact point collision. Learning to include the front of the cue ball projected to impact creates an outwards orientation and helps keep from undue fixation on the face of the ball. When becoming aware of the front, other things emerge. The front is more available, whereas the face gets blocked by balls and rails. The front is where the actual contact takes place and acts as a reality check to whatever aiming system you use. When two perspectives give you the same result your certainty level skyrockets. So taking a two dimensional fraction/overlap sighting method and then doing a 3D reality check, by including the front of the ball, will never hurt.
You still have to build in a "stop" mechanism. When the two points of view don’t match, you need to start over. Don’t ask what’s wrong. Knowing it’s not right is enough. Start over by asking what does the successful shot "look" like. This is imagery. It involves all senses. Let your body guide you. If getting up makes you self conscious, get over it. Take a walk around the table. Clean the ball paths. See the small details of the shot so your body can "see" what needs to be done.
To me The Pause is a marshaling moment. Whether at the back or at the front it needs to have enough time to gather the needed resources and info. Putting it at the front, for me, allows me to stop more easily, if needed. At the back, feels like stopping half way through my stroke and gives me that unnatural feeling. If stopping is still a possible option once the stroke is in motion it might feed into hesitancy, a product of uncertainty.
This perspective gives the pause a functional intent. For others it might just keep them from pulling themselves off line transitioning from back to forward. A pendulum stroker needs to have the stroke slow to a stop before moving forward. Most shots have a needed cueing incline. Provided a shooter keeps a high elbow on the backswing, the transition from back to forward can arc down from the top making a static stop unnecessary and still maintain an on line cue path.
Pendulum players already have a pause/stop at the back and arc strokers can benefit from a front pause. There is no wrong answer. Each point posted has the same issue. They are all right from a particular perspective.
What kind of player are you? This was meant to reveal some perspectives and give insight into how the functional intent concept might relate to your thinking on this. Figure out why you would want to pause and what function that provides. Then where and how long become easier to establish.
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