A new video about vision center

dr_dave said:
The first step is to find your "personal best stance" per the info and demos here:



Then, while in your personal best stance, shifting the upper body back and forth with the cue aligned straight can help you easily identify your "vision center" head position.

And then, if your stroke mechanics are good, you might actually shoot the shot straight.




You're welcome. I aim to swerve. 🤓
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Thx. Again, who am I to debate Dr. Dave, but I disagree. I’m of the pursuasion that building awareness of vision center is the best & most critical first step, and developing ones stance using proprioceptive indexes while remaining as “square” as possible to a reference shotline is a much better approach, starting from feet up. There are obviously many ways to skin a cat, and they can all can work great - but connecting our visualization methods & stance to objective visual references in a manner that is most consistent with how our innate binocular visual processing system works & the bipedal bio mechanical processes that humans do since birth, are likely to yield more consistent results. I’ve given much time to exploring many approaches, including yours, those of several pro pool/snooker instructors and found best success by investing non trivial time to develop a stance that stays square as possible to the shotline by aligning stance during PSR and approach to one of two visual references of the CB/OB - CTC & CTE. All shots in pool can be thought of as minor angular offsets (ball and tip fractions) from these two primary visual references. This is essentially what CJ teaches & seems to take much flak for. The CTE cult touches into some similar visualization stuff but IMO have gone way off into the weeds…

Ideally we would be like perfectly symmetrical robots and simply square up to the shotline, aim a laser pointer thru it & drop perfectly squarely down onto it, and poke our stick thru it. Ie pool stick just come out of center mass. But, we have eye dominance issues and we have to create clearance for the cue butt to clear our hips once down on a shot. Most do this (consciously or subconsciously) by blading their upper bodies towards their dominant side - this can lead to minor deviation in our visual perception between PSR & delivery - since most folks will not have a consistent, natural way to establish same offset during PSR, nor will they be able to blade torso while keeping head/eyes perfectly square as they drop in. This leads to (minor or major) conscious/subconscious twisting of torso, head, arm, wrist to “correct” or match what they saw & aimed at during PSR.
It can obviously be made to work, but some (me included) think that a better approach is to build a stance square around visual center using feet/hips - and maintain same vertical axis for entire torso/head - by essentially aiming with your eyes/feet in PSR, and pushing hips straight back during drop in, vs “bending over”.

Establishing ones best stance without first being aware of ones visual center and using objective visual references & physical indexes that one can actually see/feel such as centers/edges of the balls and heels of our feet - vs guessing at sub mm contact points, invisible ghost balls or imaginary shot lines - is IMHO a much less consistent approach. Similar approaches are taught in other activities; I mentioned shooting which is probably the most obvious parallel, but snow skiing is another activity that I draw on that teaches similar concepts (square downhill hips/head/eyes thru turns), but I think archery and most martial arts have related concepts.

I’m aware that all this bucks some conventional approaches in pool and may seem weird. Just sharing, not arguing 😁✌️
 
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Lawnboy77 said:
Would it be easier if we just closed our non dominant eye? I don’t, but sometimes I think back at a great local player that I grew up with who lost his left eye due to a BB gun accident. He was a right handed shooter and deadly accurate. Probably one of the best players in our area at the time.
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The short answer is no. Ideal depth perception requires 2 eyes. Using 1 eye only essentially reduces us to 2D. If one did only use 1 eye, there is no more real concept of “center vision”, as the center of that eye IS your center vision, in which case it would indeed make sense to align stance and cue directly under that single eye, and is why cross eye dominant shooters will have to make other head/stance adjustments. Apparently some folks can make 1 eye only work, but I think most would agree that it’s suboptimal.

As an aside, 1 eye vs 2 open is an age old debate in pro pistol shooting world- there are many reasons why 2 eyes open is usually advocated but I’m not sure they all apply to pool, other than depth perception. There are exceptions, many slow speed pro bullseye shooters use blinders or blurred lens on their weak eye (same as squinting, but relieves the optical stress), since focusing on multiple focal fields (rear sight, front sight, target is easier/quicker for many folks with 1 eye. Also, cross eye dominant shooters will often have to resort to learning how to close their naturally strong eye to achieve high level accuracy+speed. Actually there are other visual corollaries between shooting & pool, ie one can think of CB,OB and the pocket as analogous to rear, front sights and target. Which is also why I believe primary visual focus/attention on CB & loose awareness only on OB while shooting (like front site focus in shooting) is IMO beneficial. But in pool, thankfully we’re not dealing with high speed focus issues, so the analogy breaks down.

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. Sorry to Bob if this has wandered too far off original topic.

Cheers
 
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While I can't speak the advantages of Dr. Dave's method to Dr. Dave, it does appear to be more mechanically sound referenced to visually biased methods and their inevitable real time adjustments. It's the stick that makes the shot. It's a precision instrument that only needs linear impetus to work at 100% accuracy.
 
straightline said:
While I can't speak the advantages of Dr. Dave's method to Dr. Dave, it does appear to be more mechanically sound referenced to visually biased methods and their inevitable real time adjustments. It's the stick that makes the shot. It's a precision instrument that only needs linear impetus to work at 100% accuracy.
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Interesting. I’ll think about it!
 
phreaticus said:
Interesting. I’ll think about it!
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I'm of the opinion that experience, while necessary and inevitable, causes brain damage or at the very least, corruption of your source code. Consider the pros that have to win or nothing. Their craft and delivery of said craft is often fraught with hiccups and pauses to access their intellectual opinion on what would otherwise be a flowing performance. I don't really have to go there to finish this point but as a setup for this post and to tie it in with aiming, I'll say performing pool has to be a leap of faith. In line with that, determining the cue line, placing the cue there and pulling the trigger with only speed in mind is fundamental and should be thoroughly prepared and rehearsed.
 
straightline said:
I'm of the opinion that experience, while necessary and inevitable, causes brain damage or at the very least, corruption of your source code. Consider the pros that have to win or nothing. Their craft and delivery of said craft is often fraught with hiccups and pauses to access their intellectual opinion on what would otherwise be a flowing performance. I don't really have to go there to finish this point but as a setup for this post and to tie it in with aiming, I'll say performing pool has to be a leap of faith. In line with that, determining the cue line, placing the cue there and pulling the trigger with only speed in mind is fundamental and should be thoroughly prepared and rehearsed.
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Also interesting, will digest all!
 
dr_dave said:
Personally, I think it is better to be looking down your cue at the CB and OB for a long straight shot, in your actual stance, with your body and head as they are while shooting, like this:


Other approaches and helpful advice can be found on the "vision center" resource page.
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Randy G at Cue-Tech teaches a similar exercise to Dr. Dave’s:
  • Place a small object, such as an upright golf tee, at one end of the table.
  • Place your cue stick at the other end of the table so that it is pointing directly at the golf tee. This must be done carefully.
  • Sight down the cue stick as though you are in the address position (but leaving the cue on the table). Move your head to the back and forth (right and left) until the cue stick looks like it is pointing straight at the golf tee—that is your vision center.
 
Freeze two lone balls in front of you. If you have to borrow them, that's allowed... Shoot push shots such that the cued ball tracks the other in a perfect 180 degree line. This will demonstrate any misalignment or errant calibration in your shooting mechanism.
 
In all of the conversations about vision center, it seems what's overlooked is the brain's ability to compensate. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that many top players aren't perfectly aligned visually. So of course being perfectly aligned and getting down on the shot exactly the same is ideal, but I'm sort of skeptical of how much someone would actually improve IF they have been misaligned for years BUT have attacked the shot line the same all that time.

I've been down this road long enough to disregard just about any post that claims overnight improvement by simply changing this or that technique.

Even though this isn't aligning multiple objects, watch this video to consider the brain's compensation abilities.

 
BasementDweller said:
In all of the conversations about vision center, it seems what's overlooked is the brain's ability to compensate. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that many top players aren't perfectly aligned visually. So of course being perfectly aligned and getting down on the shot exactly the same is ideal, but I'm sort of skeptical of how much someone would actually improve IF they have been misaligned for years BUT have attacked the shot line the same all that time.

I've been down this road long enough to disregard just about any post that claims overnight improvement by simply changing this or that technique.

Even though this isn't aligning multiple objects, watch this video to consider the brain's compensation abilities.

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Think of it this way, if you were able to get it down when not seeing the shot correctly, you can expect more consistency if you get the sight picture correct. That is of course after seeing some temporary setbacks until you "groove" in the new method. It's no different from fixing a wonky stance, etc. Once you reach a certain level, it's diminishing returns, but it is returns, and if you're serious enough about improvement it's worth it. As far as diminishing returns go, getting your vision correct is low hanging fruit, probably one of the easier fixes.

Not having something correct and adapting your stance/stroke to it can work, but it's an area for improvement, it just depends on how much grind you want to put in. If said fix lets you make 5 or 6 more balls out of 100 after months of grooving it, it's up to an individual to determine if it's worth the effort.
 
boogieman said:
Think of it this way, if you were able to get it down when not seeing the shot correctly, you can expect more consistency if you get the sight picture correct. That is of course after seeing some temporary setbacks until you "groove" in the new method. It's no different from fixing a wonky stance, etc. Once you reach a certain level, it's diminishing returns, but it is returns, and if you're serious enough about improvement it's worth it. As far as diminishing returns go, getting your vision correct is low hanging fruit, probably one of the easier fixes.

Not having something correct and adapting your stance/stroke to it can work, but it's an area for improvement, it just depends on how much grind you want to put in. If said fix lets you make 5 or 6 more balls out of 100 after months of grooving it, it's up to an individual to determine if it's worth the effort.
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I guess my question is -- if you are incorrectly visually aligned for years, but have been doing so in a repeatable fashion, how would the brain NOT compensate for this like the brain does in the basketball shooting video? I suppose the answer may be that it compensates just like it does for all of our shortcomings.

I'm all for working on one's game but even going back to the "Perfect Aim" days, I've always been a bit skeptical of the vision stuff. I'll grant you Dr. Dave's content appears sound, and this video is really well done. (Edit *** I realize this isn't one of Dr Dave's videos).

Just throwing something out there to consider.
 
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BasementDweller said:
I guess my question is -- if you are incorrectly visually aligned for years, but have been doing so in a repeatable fashion, how would the brain NOT compensate for this like the brain does in the basketball shooting video? I suppose the answer may be that it compensates just like it does for all of our shortcomings.

I'm all for working on one's game but even going back to the "Pecfect Aim" days, I've always been a bit skeptical of the vision stuff. I'll grant you Dr. Dave's content appears sound, and this video is really well done.

Just throwing something out there to consider.
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I understand what you were asking. Consistency is key for anything pool related. Doing something the "wrong" way consistently is probably better than doing something the "right" way inconsistently. I honestly think at some point it becomes diminishing returns, but the returns are there. Is it worth battling for 6 months to make 1% more shots? It's an individual thing based on goals and what else could/would bring better returns. It would take some real soul searching to determine if it was worth it.

If you recently found out that you're missing due to bad stance, it might be a good time to fix both stance and vision because you're going to be in the trenches for a while anyway. If you are playing great despite the fact you're misaligned, it might not be worth the effort to fix.

It is of my opinion that while the brain can and will compensate for things, if you put the brain in a place where it has to compensate less, you have more brain power for other things. Maybe that 2% that your brain took to compensate for one issue could now be put toward getting the CB 2% closer to where you wanted it.

I'm no expert or anything, just kind of having a discussion based off some of the stuff I've been going through for the last few years. I'll just say that I wish I had perfected all the fundamentals back when I was 15 years old. It would have been much easier than doing it now and eliminated the decades of the lack of consistency wonky fundamentals gave me.
 
I like Corey Deuel’s X drill, and variations on that theme, to calibrate vision center, stroke and stance, all in one. I line 6 balls up on the 2nd Diamond from the end rail, then line up 6 CBs in the kitchen to attempt to make each OB and have the CB follow in the same pocket straight in. A perfect score of all balls pocketed (12) is the goal.
 
7stud said:
What do you think of that little mirror on a stand training aid (Watermark) that you have on your website?


Has anyone else tried it?
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Sorry, but I have not tried it. Although, I do use a stand-up mirror at the table with students for helping them see all sorts of things. Concerning determining one's "vision center," I still think the best ways are what I demonstrate in my videos on the "vision center" resource page.
 
I have a mirror at home and I can tape a string to it, but how do I line up the mirror? Does it need to be perfectly perpendicular to the shot line?
 
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