a chuckle for the instructors out there!

Gerry

Gerry

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
To begin with...I have always missed shots the same...to the left, and I'm left handed. I feel this is a good thing because I only have 1 variable to fix IMO.

SO, that being said....I'm doing drills at the pool room yesterday....mostly shooting cross table "Z" patterns because that brings out the flaws in my stroke, and a guy asks what I"m doing. I fill him in and he sais "if you miss the same EVERY time, just aim to overcut it one way, and undercut it the other!"....which I have tried in the past, but I figured it was a short term bandaid, and went about trying to retrain my stroke to a snooker stroke....which has yet to work. He felt I was crazy because I have a natural flowing smooth stroke....why play like a snooker player with a stroke like yours?

Then he sais "lets set up some shots, and try out the bandaid" so we did, and I didn't miss for about 1/2 an hour.....until a miscue. His arguement was by over/under cutting eventually my brain will retrain itself to see the fix as the correct thing and I can just shoot naturally. There must be some validity to this because right or wrong the balls were finding the back of the pocket. :D

My questions:

1. Any teachers out there ever use something like this?

2. Why is it when my arm/chin/cue alignment is "snooker correct", sighting down the cue looks crooked? but when I shoot my normal way it seems straight?

thanks, Gerry
 
I have the same problem, when I miss it the object ball goes to the left almost always, but unlike you I am right handed. I have used that bandaid before, but feels it so wrong to shoot off line. So I didn't use the fix, I just kept practicing my stroke until I get it right. I could never fix it until one day, I ask this great player how he shoot so straight. I told him about my problem and he observe my stroke, and he told me my bridge is fine but my back swing does a little chicken wing movement, so I conciously practice my back swing to make sure it is straight and smooth, and pay more attention to my entire body alignment, and it work. I can now shoot long straight shots with good accuracy (on my good days that is).
 
Gerry said:
To begin with...I have always missed shots the same...to the left, and I'm left handed. I feel this is a good thing because I only have 1 variable to fix IMO.

SO, that being said....I'm doing drills at the pool room yesterday....mostly shooting cross table "Z" patterns because that brings out the flaws in my stroke, and a guy asks what I"m doing. I fill him in and he sais "if you miss the same EVERY time, just aim to overcut it one way, and undercut it the other!"....which I have tried in the past, but I figured it was a short term bandaid, and went about trying to retrain my stroke to a snooker stroke....which has yet to work. He felt I was crazy because I have a natural flowing smooth stroke....why play like a snooker player with a stroke like yours?

Then he sais "lets set up some shots, and try out the bandaid" so we did, and I didn't miss for about 1/2 an hour.....until a miscue. His arguement was by over/under cutting eventually my brain will retrain itself to see the fix as the correct thing and I can just shoot naturally. There must be some validity to this because right or wrong the balls were finding the back of the pocket. :D

My questions:

1. Any teachers out there ever use something like this?

2. Why is it when my arm/chin/cue alignment is "snooker correct", sighting down the cue looks crooked? but when I shoot my normal way it seems straight?

thanks, Gerry
Click to expand...

I have been a member here for quite sometime, but rarely post. When I saw this thread I had to reply. I have fought this very issue several times over the course of 15-20 years of playing. 99.98% of the time that I am consistantly missing to one side; my head is not aligned. Move your head farther over the cue stick. If you are a chin dragger, move the stick 1/2" to 1" left or right( I usually have to move right, but I am right handed). If you play at a very high level; you will be amazed at how much of a difference can be see with a very small adjustment.
 
Gerry said:
To begin with...I have always missed shots the same...to the left, and I'm left handed. I feel this is a good thing because I only have 1 variable to fix IMO.

SO, that being said....I'm doing drills at the pool room yesterday....mostly shooting cross table "Z" patterns because that brings out the flaws in my stroke, and a guy asks what I"m doing. I fill him in and he sais "if you miss the same EVERY time, just aim to overcut it one way, and undercut it the other!"....which I have tried in the past, but I figured it was a short term bandaid, and went about trying to retrain my stroke to a snooker stroke....which has yet to work. He felt I was crazy because I have a natural flowing smooth stroke....why play like a snooker player with a stroke like yours?

Then he sais "lets set up some shots, and try out the bandaid" so we did, and I didn't miss for about 1/2 an hour.....until a miscue. His arguement was by over/under cutting eventually my brain will retrain itself to see the fix as the correct thing and I can just shoot naturally. There must be some validity to this because right or wrong the balls were finding the back of the pocket. :D

My questions:

1. Any teachers out there ever use something like this?

2. Why is it when my arm/chin/cue alignment is "snooker correct", sighting down the cue looks crooked? but when I shoot my normal way it seems straight?

thanks, Gerry
Click to expand...

When I was consistently missing center ball and consistently getting a little unwanted right English, Scott Lee recommended basically just that. He told me to make a tiny conscious adjustment to the left, and eventually I wouldn't be consciously adjusting, because by training myself to adjust, I'd train myself to perceive center ball further to the left (where it really is). Once my perception is trained, I'm not adjusting anymore, just perceiving center ball accurately.

As to your question #2, it sounds like an eye-dominance issue to me. Some people perceive the line of the shot best with the cue centered under both eyes, but some people need to the cue to be underneath one eye or the other to perceive the line of aim accurately. You can keep the arm alignment from your "snooker-style" stance and change your head position to put one eye or the other over the cue. Niels Feijen is a perfect example of this. His perfectly aligned right arm and his squared-off shoulders are 100% snooker, but his head is way off to the left side of the cue. The cue is actually against the right side of his chin, rather than the bottom of his chin. Also, he spreads his legs way out and bends his knees to lower his body since he's tall, which is not conventional snooker stance, but that's not really relevant to you.

Some people might recommend tests to figure out your eye dominance, and what to do based on the results, but I would just try practicing with the cue centered, under your left eye, and under your right eye, and figure out which one makes the aim look correct. Then adapt whatever mechanics you want to use such that the cue is in that position relative to your head.

-Andrew
 
Gerry said:
... 1. Any teachers out there ever use something like this?

2. Why is it when my arm/chin/cue alignment is "snooker correct", sighting down the cue looks crooked? but when I shoot my normal way it seems straight? ...
Click to expand...
Often when teaching a student to use side spin, and they miss on the thin side, and they miss the same way a couple of times, I tell them, "I don't care where you were aiming or how much too full it looked, this time aim fuller."

One of the greatest students of the game confided in me that for years he had hit the standard 14.1 side-of-the-rack break shot too full. When he understood squirt he saw that he was not compensating for the outside english enough, and he started to make the shots. He didn't need to wait for squirt to be revealed to fix the problem.

If you miss a shot too full all the time, aim thinner! Yes, it's better to fix the underlying problem, if any, but as a noted philosopher said, you play the game with the fundamentals you have, not the fundamentals you want.

As for the visual problem, it's probably that your eye that does the work is not in the right place. You may need to get your head where a straight shot looks straight.

I urge you to either video tape yourself or find an instructor who can do this. The instructor will know how to set up the equipment to best catch problems and will know what to look for.
 
Gerry...As Andrew Manning and Bob Jewett both noted, the mind has an incredible ability to fine-tune and adjust even the slightest corrections. Once I'm satisfied that a student has a repeatable setup and delivery process, I'll often recommend consciously making small adjustments in aim, to compensate for hitting too thick or too thin. Once the correction is made consciously several times, the brain begins to make the adjustment unconsciously, which leads to a higher level of confidence in a particular shot. The important thing is that you must make the CONSCIOUS correction, on purpose, and execute with success, several times, before the brain takes over and makes the correction automatically. One of the reasons you're not "seeing" the shot, when you set up under a particular area, is that your brain doesn't SEE it as correct. That's why the common belief in lining up the cue directly under the chin doesn't work for some people. The most important idea in the whole 'dominant eye' debate is not whether the cue is under your dominant eye or not, but that it's lined up under where you perceive a straight line. Then, as long as you can deliver the cue in a straight line, you should have positive results. An established eye pattern is a great help and influence on building repeatable successful results.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Gerry said:
To begin with...I have always missed shots the same...to the left, and I'm left handed. I feel this is a good thing because I only have 1 variable to fix IMO.

SO, that being said....I'm doing drills at the pool room yesterday....mostly shooting cross table "Z" patterns because that brings out the flaws in my stroke, and a guy asks what I"m doing. I fill him in and he sais "if you miss the same EVERY time, just aim to overcut it one way, and undercut it the other!"....which I have tried in the past, but I figured it was a short term bandaid, and went about trying to retrain my stroke to a snooker stroke....which has yet to work. He felt I was crazy because I have a natural flowing smooth stroke....why play like a snooker player with a stroke like yours?

Then he sais "lets set up some shots, and try out the bandaid" so we did, and I didn't miss for about 1/2 an hour.....until a miscue. His arguement was by over/under cutting eventually my brain will retrain itself to see the fix as the correct thing and I can just shoot naturally. There must be some validity to this because right or wrong the balls were finding the back of the pocket. :D

My questions:

1. Any teachers out there ever use something like this?

2. Why is it when my arm/chin/cue alignment is "snooker correct", sighting down the cue looks crooked? but when I shoot my normal way it seems straight?

thanks, Gerry
Click to expand...
 
Great posts you all!....thanks.

I just got home from the pool room and played maybe 3 hours of 1 pocket with a friend. All I kept telling myself was overcut left/undercut right, even on banks! Everything worked great. Towards the end I could tell it was sinking in because I started to hit the ball in the opposite side of the pocket then I did before. I was pocketing balls VERY well, and the cb was going where I needed it to....which I had some trouble with before at times because of the mis-alignment.

Don't get me wrong, I play pretty well, but I'm always trying to correct ANYTHING out of sorts to get better. I noticed my misalignment was holding me back and killing my runs a few weeks ago when I missed at 84! That's when I got pissed enough to work on it.

The amazing thing is I played as well as I did compensating with spin for the alignment probs!:D

I'm going to re-read this thread again...thanx, Gerry
 
Gerry said:
To begin with...I have always missed shots the same...to the left, and I'm left handed. I feel this is a good thing because I only have 1 variable to fix IMO.

SO, that being said....I'm doing drills at the pool room yesterday....mostly shooting cross table "Z" patterns because that brings out the flaws in my stroke, and a guy asks what I"m doing. I fill him in and he sais "if you miss the same EVERY time, just aim to overcut it one way, and undercut it the other!"....which I have tried in the past, but I figured it was a short term bandaid, and went about trying to retrain my stroke to a snooker stroke....which has yet to work. He felt I was crazy because I have a natural flowing smooth stroke....why play like a snooker player with a stroke like yours?

Then he sais "lets set up some shots, and try out the bandaid" so we did, and I didn't miss for about 1/2 an hour.....until a miscue. His arguement was by over/under cutting eventually my brain will retrain itself to see the fix as the correct thing and I can just shoot naturally. There must be some validity to this because right or wrong the balls were finding the back of the pocket. :D

My questions:

1. Any teachers out there ever use something like this?

2. Why is it when my arm/chin/cue alignment is "snooker correct", sighting down the cue looks crooked? but when I shoot my normal way it seems straight?

thanks, Gerry
Click to expand...

#2 i've always attributed this to lateral movement in a pool stroke. people think it doesn't or shouldn't exist, but it's there in even the very best of players. i bet if you video tape your stroke from strait behind the cue you will see your cue moving slightly to the left at some point considering the things you've said.
 
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