can't play without elbow drop!

Pete said:
I'm sorry, I meant (and did say), my stroke. When I drop my elbow it leads to some flaws in my stroke (tip doesn't hit where I planned it to, and the stroke is all over the place).

I hope that clears that up.

Pete
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I think you are using your shoulder in there somehow.
 
Scott Lee said:
Mike...Catagory B and C are the same. It doesn't matter if the elbow is raised before moving downward, or not. [....]
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No they're not the same Scott. I'm drawing a distinction here. Call the set position home base. At home base the forearm is vertical and the elbow is "in position." In both my category B and category C the forearm and elbow can be at home base when the ball is struck. But there's a big difference between the two.

The difference is for category C the elbow is moving at this point and the shoulder is already involved.

For category B the shoulder is not yet involved, the motion and the muscles have up to this point been the same as that of the pendulum stroke, and it's only after this point the shoulder begins to become involved.


Additionally, since the CB is literally GONE from the tip in 1/1000th of a second, any additional movement (such as the piston movement, or exaggerated followthrough) has no physical effect on the CB. While it is true, that some players may find the exaggerated elbow drop to be a 'comfortable' way to finish their stroke, it certainly has no physical benefit to the outcome. In other words, you will not get more accuracy. or 'action', on the CB, with this type of movement.
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This is true for category B droppers. For category C droppers the elbow drop in the follow through is at least in part a consequence of the fact the elbow is already in motion at impact. For these people the shoulder motion does affect the shot.
 
Snapshot9 said:
means you are standing too straight with your cue. Your body should not touch the cue throughout the stroke. Stand at a 45 degree angle to your cue.

Moving your upper arm during the stroke usually means you are holding the cue with your grip hand too far forward, and you are trying to 'push' the cue ball instead of stroking it. This is a typical reaction from a player that is somewhat insecure about their stroke. Many kids develop what I call the 'Hully Gully' stroke because they think it looks Cool, but it hinders them after they get to a certain level in their game. It means the difference between being reasonably good and really good.
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My cue does NOT touch my body at any time during the stroke, that would be bad. My hand touches my nipple area at the end of my perfect delivery....SPF=randyg
 
Flex said:
With all due respect Randy, while rising up may be problematic, following straight through the cue ball may help increase consistency on force follows, at least it does for me. I tend to pot those shots more often and get what appears to be added spin when it's needed. Perhaps I'm wrong, but one of my pool instructors taught me to shoot the shots that way. He gave me "his permission" to do so, not that I needed it. And as for dropping the elbow on those kinds of shots, the drop if it occurs at all, and sometimes isn't needed IMHO, needs to occur after the tip contacts the cue ball. When I've tried to control my stroke to such an extent that I get no straight forward motion on the cue stick after contact with the cue ball on those power shots, my accuracy has gone down, and I've gotten less action on the cue ball.

At this point, I'm not planning to try to change my stroke to accommodate a pinned type follow through. When I asked Mark Wilson about this some time ago, he was very cautious not to condemn dropping the elbow on the kind of shot we're talking about here.

Obviously, I'm not in any way suggesting a shoveling motion should be used, just the normal drop that may occur when really putting oomph into the shot.

Flex
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Yes, we should follow straight through the cueball, for at least 1/4 of an inch. Then the cue should take it's Natural route........SPF=randyg
 
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JohnnyP said:
Randy:

I made this a few years ago, after seeing ads for Doug's StrokeTrainer. I called it the "Stroke-Master". Drove my wife crazy. I would go around the house chanting STROKE-master, STROKE-master.

Two bearing rings support the cue in the tube. Each ring has three roller bearings. The rings are slid onto the cue, and are sized for a friction fit near the joint, spaced about six inches apart.

Turned out to be very hard to use. It ain't natural. For one thing, you must stroke absolutely straight, along the axis of the tube, or the bearings will bind. Then there's the follow through. First time I tried to shoot a ball with it, I accidentally tried to lift the whole thing off the table at the end of the stroke, with my normal follow through. Can't do it. Gotta drop the elbow to use this.
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Johnny P: If it makes you drop your elbow, something is wrong.

Look at this website, you might be a genius....SPF=randyg
www.cuetrack.com
 
pooltchr said:
Actually, there is some vertical motion although it is much less than the horizontal motion.

The pendilum stroke refers to the movement of the arm, not of the cue. The arm moves in a pendilum motion, and the cue actually moves much like the locomotive cross bar you mentioned....primarily forward, but with some up and down movement. The cool part is that both move forward on a straight plane, which is exactly what we want a cue to do.
Steve
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Well Steve, first of all I most likely knew what a pendulum stroke was
beore you were born, so I really don't need it explained to me.

Second: your 'explaination' not only doesn't reflect reality, it doesn't
address the point in question.

Care to try again.

Dale
 
"elbow drop" rationale

The "elbow drop or not" question has come up a lot over the years. FYI, I have a good summary of arguments and rationales here:


Good luck with keeping that elbow still,
Dave


Johnnyz86 said:
so i've been trying to rework a lot of my fundamentals. my stance, pre-shot routine, only using the bicep, pause before final stroke, etc. helped out (although not at first) but the one thing i cannot change and get working better even after months is elbow drop.

i feel like it takes away from me trying to have a perfect follow through which messes up my shot. i can't do long stop shots at all compared to just concentrating on the follow through.

any advice?

the reason i want to do this is because i feel like it would help my consistancy. all it has done for months is make me consistantly worse! and i've stuck with it and lost matches too!
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pdcue said:
Well Steve, first of all I most likely knew what a pendulum stroke was
beore you were born, so I really don't need it explained to me.

Second: your 'explaination' not only doesn't reflect reality, it doesn't
address the point in question.

Care to try again.

Dale
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Since you are obviously more experienced at this than I, I will defer to your expertise.

Please enlighten me.

Steve
 
Randy:

Stroke-Master doesn't allow the cue to move up and down as you stroke. Cuetrack does, so it's easier to use.

My goal was to "put the cue on rails" to deliver a straight stroke, AND put the tip at a precise point on the cue ball.

My imagination went wild while I was working on it. I envisioned C players like me being able to practice with it and get table length draw from six diamonds. Heck, it had to work, because the cue is on rails. Can't miss, plus the tip is forced to make contact at the aiming point, since there is no up or down movement at contact.

Got it built, then reality set in.

Watch my follow through in this video and you will see why I almost lifted the contraption off the table at the end of my stroke.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6912406045383460884&q=source:015876516836748951011&hl=en
 
JohnnyP said:
Randy:

Stroke-Master doesn't allow the cue to move up and down as you stroke. Cuetrack does, so it's easier to use.

My goal was to "put the cue on rails" to deliver a straight stroke, AND put the tip at a precise point on the cue ball.

My imagination went wild while I was working on it. I envisioned C players like me being able to practice with it and get table length draw from six diamonds. Heck, it had to work, because the cue is on rails. Can't miss, plus the tip is forced to make contact at the aiming point, since there is no up or down movement at contact.

Got it built, then reality set in.

Watch my follow through in this video and you will see why I almost lifted the contraption off the table at the end of my stroke.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6912406045383460884&q=source:015876516836748951011&hl=en
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I see that your back hand is way ahead of 90 degrees. No wonder.....SPF=randyg
 
Randy:

Thanks for pointing that out. This explains why I hit lower than intended, and why my stroke timing is off. This screen shot shows the cue decelerating at impact:
 

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I find that on my best shots my hand finishes against my chest just above and to the right of my right tit. We aint all the same shape.

Dave Nelson
 
Randy:

Before impact, that's what I meant to say. The Red trace is the stroke acceleration, the Green trace is acceleration due to swerve.

The reference point for 0 g is at the left edge of the display, before the forward stroke begins.

The Red trace goes below the reference point well before the hit.

The trace below shows not only a late hit, but you can see by the Green trace that I also pulled the cue to one side as my stroke accelerated, resulting in an unintended off axis hit. The Green trace oscillates after the hit because the shaft is vibrating, after it was deflected to the side.
 

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JoeyInCali said:
I think you are using your shoulder in there somehow.
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Thanks Joey...

I'll take a look at that this weekend, and se if it's moving...

Pete
 
randyg said:
My cue does NOT touch my body at any time during the stroke, that would be bad. My hand touches my nipple area at the end of my perfect delivery....SPF=randyg
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Randy,

Why would that be bad "My cue does NOT touch my body at any time during the stroke, that would be bad."?

In Joe Davis'es book he shows the cue touching his tie to the point of wearing the threads on it out.

I shot for two year with it touching the side of my chest (I'm a big guy), because I didn't want my chest to get hit by the cue durring the stroke (I don't know if that makes sense, I'm a terrible writer)...

Thanks,

Pete
 
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