Advice on how to drive a point home...

G

Gideon

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My best friend, who I play pool with most of the time has a horrible horrible problem with the "Flying Elbow". On almost every damn shot he makes his elbow flys around like it has a mind of its own. Either out to the side, up, down... just jerks all over the place. No rhyme or reason to it from the looks of it.

Its throwing off the majority of his shots. Its quite obvious on his break shot the most, since he breaks from the same place each time, and claims to be hitting slightly below center on the cue ball... but with that flying elbow that cue ball goes all over the place.

How in the hell can I make him stop doing it. So many times we end up playing partners against someone, (Normally where one shoots and his partner shoots directly after him, cant remmeber if that is scotch or dutch... ) and he usually ends up leaving better safeties to me than the other team... :(

I've bitched him out repeatedly for it, I've followed him and popped him with my towel after each shot he did it on... I just cant make him stop. He is aware of it.. but.. gah... its so fustrating. Then he says "Gid, I wish I had your stroke its so smooth." You can have it you bastard, pay attention to what your doing...
*Fustrated*

Anyone have any suggestions that I can give to him to help him unlearn this jerking motion?

About the best I have been able to tell him is to just be concious of his stroke and to stay down and follow through and all that jazz... sure he stays down now... of course the tip of his stick is usually about 6 inches to one side of the point of contact... *Sigh*
 
jjinfla said:
Get one of those plastic soda pop bottles and have him practice stroking into the opening.

Jake
Click to expand...

Thanks for the answer. :)

I just hope he does not enjoy doing that too much. :P heh
 
Here is some advice: Tell your friend that all throughout his practice and execution stroke to imagine that he is balancing a glass of wine on his elbow.
 
just tell him to watch the pros, imitate their stance, and choose which one suits him best.
tell him that's the wrong way to do it. tell him he looks like a dumb ass when he's doing it...:D
 
of course you could always tell him nicely...:D
but if he is running out balls with his stance, what's the point?
just like earl, his shotmaking is wrong, he places his cue directly below his right eye...i wonder how he manages it...
i have already corrected this, i noticed that my cue is somewhere below my right eye, and after playing, my head ached a lot that i couldnt sleep, not because i won, but my head just dont want me to sleep...:D
now, my cue stick is always below my chin, dead center. ;)
 
locki said:
of course you could always tell him nicely...:D
but if he is running out balls with his stance, what's the point?
just like earl, his shotmaking is wrong, he places his cue directly below his right eye...i wonder how he manages it...
i have already corrected this, i noticed that my cue is somewhere below my right eye, and after playing, my head ached a lot that i couldnt sleep, not because i won, but my head just dont want me to sleep...:D
now, my cue stick is always below my chin, dead center. ;)
Click to expand...


Stroking from either side of the head, whether the left or the right, is not necessarily wrong, locki. It just means that the pool player is either right or left eye dominant.

Stroking in the middle (right underneath the chin), could mean that neither eye is dominant.

Look at Neils Fiejen when he plays. He is practically "right ear" dominant!!! lol

nbc
 
I've learned two things to correct this problem, I used to do the same thing for no particular reason.

1) lay a beer/soda bottle (empty) on it's side and stroke into it. Just like jjinfla said.

2) when the two of you are practicing...when he gets ready to shoot use the chalk and mark an X just in front of the CB where his tip should be at after stroking thru the CB. If his tip stops on the X, you owe him a quarter, if it doesn't, he owes you a dollar. Either you'll make lots of money or he'll fix his "kicking elbow" and you shouldn't loose money in the end.

It cost me about $21 one night to fix my problem...haha!!
Good luck and keep practicing.
(notice my quote at the bottom)

Zim
 
Trouble pulling your head up when shooting?

Try this...
have a friend hold a sharp pencil just an inch above your head (standing behind you out of view) while you're down on your shot...guarentee you wont pull up too often! This cured my problem after my 2nd shot! haha!!

Zim
 
I work from 11pm to 9am, so I don't get out and about too much. I normally play on base at our tournaments (8/9-ball)! There's about four B and 2 or 3 B+ players (I consider myself a B+). I'm currently the man to beat!

Zim
 
locki said:
but if he is running out balls with his stance, what's the point?
Click to expand...

Hes not though. :P He can make the shots but with the wild way his cue travels due to "The Flying Elbow" there is no way to know where the cue ball is going to go. Usually meaning he has horrible shape. Or gets lucky and does something that would be incredible if done on purpose. (These he will take credit for and honestly say he meant it.) hehe

Thanks to everyone for the advise. I will use it to try and help him out. Tricky though, he knows he does it and has asked me to help, but gets pissed when I do. lol

Hes worse than my last g/f!!!

Thanks again. :)
 
It's either he has his hand way in front of the cue handle or the distance between the his back hand and his belt is too far - like a Luat stance.

Putting his hand by his waist will correct this "flying elbow". That way, he will have less moving parts with his stroking arm - only from the elbow down. This will lessen sideward swaying of his stroke.

If he cannot do that, the bottle suggestion is a good excercise for muscle memory.
 
pro-player said:
Here is some advice: Tell your friend that all throughout his practice and execution stroke to imagine that he is balancing a glass of wine on his elbow.
Click to expand...

This is what Scott Lee told me during a lesson to get me to stop dropping my elbow. He would then put his stick on the back of my bicep during my backswing and tell me to concentrate on keeping the pressure on the stick throughout the forward part of the swing. He can then practice in the bathroom maybe on a sink looking in a mirror and just concentrate on keeping the eelbow up.

The coke bottle helps too, as does making sure the follow through is a consistent length.

Sounds like a short lesson from an instructor might help. Dennis
 
The drill that works for me is to take a striped ball and put it on the head spot with the stripe running parallel to the table. Try to stroke the ball over the foot spot so it returns to the cue tip. Using a striped ball lets me see if I put any unintentional english on the ball.

But the balancing a glass of wine on the elbow thought sounds like it will help. I'm gonna try that next time I play.
 
lol! i did noticed that nbc! yeah, shooting on the right side of the chin is not necessarily wrong, what i mean by his shotmaking is wrong is by how he twists his cue during his shot, where he places his bridge, how long his backstroke is...well, if you manage to get this working for you, why change it?
well, to tell u guys the truth, i also have a friend like that, but he doesnt have the flying-elbow disease, he has a good follow-through, but sometimes he jumps up after a shot. also, his stroke is wrong. he can do unimaginable things on a cue table because he strikes the ball very very hard, making the ob search for a hole! lol! i told him he could win the world trick shot championship with his shots...:D
he is just too proud to admit that he is a poor player, and if i correct him through any physical way, i feel he gets mad because i think he thinks that i am degrading him. i just dont mind if he makes a shot out of luck, but when he makes a good shot, no luck this time, i tell him that its the right way. i tell him to remember the feel on how he did it and apply it when he makes another shot.
i also tell him not to concentrate on the next ball, i tell him, shoot first before preparing...in tagalog , tira muna bago prepare. that particular line helped him a lot.
 
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When I was first learning to play back in Glen Burnie, MD at the beautiful Jack & Jill's Cue Club, I had a habit of raising my elbow and taking a longer last stroke before following through. That lunatict "Geese" used to hold a lit cigarette just over my elbow and let me tell you - I was cured.

Vicki
 
hehe, yeah, even efren sometimes does the flying elbow. ;)
anyway, if you make a draw shot which is close to you, wont you raise your elbow? :)
 
Watch the tape "Pool School" with Loree John Jones and Jim Rempe. Jim says that when you need to use the mojo (juice) on a shot and you're drawing the ball, drop your elbow. If you try stroking the ball without the cb in front of you and you stroke slowly following through 8 to 10 inches, you'll notice the tip of the cue will have to travel in a downward direction at the end of the stroke if you don't drop your elbow. This is why Jim suggests dropping the elbow because the cue will not go downward but instead will continue on a straight plane. Personally, I'd much rather listen to King James Rempe than someone who is a BCA certified instructor. Don't take my word for it, get the tape and see for yourself. Rempe says on the tape that there are a lot of people trying to teach others how to play this game that have never won a major tournament.
 
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