Does anybody shoot without taking warmup strokes?

scottycoyote

scottycoyote

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
its tax season and im an accountant, so this time of year i dont get to play much, if at all. WHen i do play, since its not very often, i find myself kind of forgetting how to play, not doing the things i usually do, etc.

So last night i get home and sneak a few games in, and I was shooting really great, i think i ran 4 or 5 racks and never missed a ball. I noticed i was aiming alot with my cue stick still and up next to the cueball.....then id either shoot or maybe take one practice stroke, and it was working awesome.

Kind of like how luc salvas shoots....not fast like him but if you notice he just lines up and aims and shoots, not many practice strokes if any at all.
I realise your practice strokes are to help you get in the groove and set your cue speed and how hard youre going to strike the ball, but this worked so well for me im thinking of just sticking with it. Just wondering who else here shoots like this and your thoughts on it. Only thing i can figure is maybe its helping me fine tune my aiming by sighting down the cue and not moving it as much.
 
scottycoyote said:
its tax season and im an accountant, so this time of year i dont get to play much, if at all. WHen i do play, since its not very often, i find myself kind of forgetting how to play, not doing the things i usually do, etc.

So last night i get home and sneak a few games in, and I was shooting really great, i think i ran 4 or 5 racks and never missed a ball. I noticed i was aiming alot with my cue stick still and up next to the cueball.....then id either shoot or maybe take one practice stroke, and it was working awesome.

Kind of like how luc salvas shoots....not fast like him but if you notice he just lines up and aims and shoots, not many practice strokes if any at all.
I realise your practice strokes are to help you get in the groove and set your cue speed and how hard youre going to strike the ball, but this worked so well for me im thinking of just sticking with it. Just wondering who else here shoots like this and your thoughts on it. Only thing i can figure is maybe its helping me fine tune my aiming by sighting down the cue and not moving it as much.
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Grady shoots without warm-up strokes sometimes.

-Andrew
 
scottycoyote said:
its tax season and im an accountant, so this time of year i dont get to play much, if at all. WHen i do play, since its not very often, i find myself kind of forgetting how to play, not doing the things i usually do, etc.

So last night i get home and sneak a few games in, and I was shooting really great, i think i ran 4 or 5 racks and never missed a ball. I noticed i was aiming alot with my cue stick still and up next to the cueball.....then id either shoot or maybe take one practice stroke, and it was working awesome.

Kind of like how luc salvas shoots....not fast like him but if you notice he just lines up and aims and shoots, not many practice strokes if any at all.
I realise your practice strokes are to help you get in the groove and set your cue speed and how hard youre going to strike the ball, but this worked so well for me im thinking of just sticking with it. Just wondering who else here shoots like this and your thoughts on it. Only thing i can figure is maybe its helping me fine tune my aiming by sighting down the cue and not moving it as much.
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There is a VERY strong player here in AZ that doesn't take warm up strokes.

BVal
 
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Stroke it, don't poke it.

On my APA team I have a 3 almost 4 who I use to illustrate the difference between warm up strokes and no warm up strokes. I will sit next to another player on the team who has a tendency to forget warmup strokes and tell them to watch him. I say "Normally when he does his warmup strokes it goes in and when he does not do them he misses." This helps to reinforce the lesson to the person I tell to watch for it as well as to help the original to remember it better.

You may have been in the groove and could have used a broom handle and everything would have gone in. That does not mean you should give up on good machanics.

Just my $0.02 worth. Flettir
 
i started a thread about this a long time ago and like i said then, there is definitely something to it. sometimes if i just play really fast, literally just get down and shoot it straight away i play really well and it's amazing. i even mess around with it sometimes with my head - i actually think negatively on the shoot, telling myself i'm gonna miss, and most of the time i just can't.

i think what it is is that you're playing 100% on intuition and instinct, subconsciously. it just goes to show that a good many of us do indeed know the game in our heads (aiming i'm on about here), yet when we start trying to think about it consciously, looking for that aiming point on the object ball, we struggle, and we miss.

i like you seriously thought of just sticking with it too. In my case, i figured i'd work on developing my stroke though, mainly cus i felt a lot of pressure taking this new technique i had into a match. you start looking like an idiot if you miss a couple, people think you are just fooling around not taking it seriously, then everyne starts giving me advice about how i need to take my time etc lol.

also another point is i think what this all comes down to is aiming. sometimes on a long tough cut i will just get down and hit it straight away. i know if i play it like that and leave it up to instinct i stand a lot better chance than cueing backwards and forward half an hour trying to find the contact point.

a lot of people are dismissive about aiming systems and the like and they say the hardest part is having a consistent stroke to actually send the cue ball where you want it. i see the point, but as somebody once posted on this site ages ago said, there just aren't that many bad strokes out there. most of the time when we miss a long tough cutshot, it's because we aimed it wrong, not because of our stroke. that's why if i have a long straight in shot, corner pocket to corner pocket, i can use practice strokes no problem. however if it's a tough cut, cueing only serves to make me try and consciously look for that contact point which i then miss. so sometimes i just get down and fire em in, and they split the pocket.

so what i've concluded from these ramblings is that no practice strokes = better for aim, and practice strokes and a nice stroke = better for power and spin.

there is definitely something in it.
 
Does anybody shoot without taking warmup strokes?

... Only thing i can figure is maybe its helping me fine tune my aiming by sighting down the cue and not moving it as much.
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I practice sometimes with no warmup strokes. It forces me to be extra careful about my stance and alignment (because the first stroke has to be perfect) and also forces me to lock onto my target and get my stick and CB perfectly in line with it before doing any stroking.

I think all of these things should be done on every shot as part of the pre-shot routine, and warmup strokes should be for finetuning and speed control rehearsal. This practice technique helps remind me of that, and also helps focus me more quickly so that I'm not "wasting" the first stroke(s) just waiting for my brain to get in gear.

pj
chgo
 
Andrew...That's only because Grady is much older, and has the "shakes". Shooting with no warm up strokes, is not a beneficial way to deliver your most efficient and and accurate preshot routine, imo.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Andrew Manning said:
Grady shoots without warm-up strokes sometimes.

-Andrew
Click to expand...
 
worriedbeef said:
so what i've concluded from these ramblings is that no practice strokes = better for aim, and practice strokes and a nice stroke = better for power and spin.

there is definitely something in it.
Click to expand...

excellent point!!!

i have noticed the exact same thing on the practice strokes. I started taking alot of faster practice strokes, like when i need alot of power....maybe 5 or 6 in a row at a relatively fast pace and i noticed i could get a ton of action on the ball. I also was never able to jump a full ball with a regular cue until i started doing the 5 or 6 practice strokes routine and now i can. I guess i will try a hodge podge effect.....strokes when i need alot of power and fewer/none the rest of the time. Maybe i tinker with my game too much...
 
There was a player named John dixon in Sacramento who passed away in the late 80's unexpectidally. I called him "Point and shoot". John Hendry will verify this. John just put his hand on the table and looked for a while and fired them in, he was a good player. I couldnt remember his name and was talking to kim davenport about him and kim reminded me. He was a nice guy and well respected in the Sacramento area.
 
Just watch some videos of Tony Drago, he almost always point the tip to the CB and shoot right away.
 
scottycoyote said:
... Kind of like how luc salvas shoots....not fast like him but if you notice he just lines up and aims and shoots, not many practice strokes if any at all.
I realize your practice strokes are to help you get in the groove and set your cue speed and how hard you're going to strike the ball, but this worked so well for me im thinking of just sticking with it. Just wondering who else here shoots like this and your thoughts on it. ...
Click to expand...
I think it is a good variation on the standard pre-shot routine in that it forces you to pay attention as you get into position to being in the correct position. I've played whole matches with no warm up strokes, and usually no one seems to notice that I'm doing anything different. It's not how I usually play, though.
 
BVal said:
There is a VERY strong player here in AZ that doesn't take warm up strokes.

BVal
Click to expand...

I am guessing your talking about SJM, and it is amazing to watch.
 
There was a young girl who never stroked the stick.
I was told she had a vision problem and could not focus for more then a second?
She made balls that way!
 
cuechick said:
I am guessing your talking about SJM, and it is amazing to watch.
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I am actually talking about somebody else. I am guessing you are talking about SJM who posts here on AZ. I am talking about a kid who lives in Arizona who shoots lights out that way. Also very amazing to watch.

BVal
 
scottycoyote said:
its tax season and im an accountant, so this time of year i dont get to play much, if at all. WHen i do play, since its not very often, i find myself kind of forgetting how to play, not doing the things i usually do, etc.

So last night i get home and sneak a few games in, and I was shooting really great, i think i ran 4 or 5 racks and never missed a ball. I noticed i was aiming alot with my cue stick still and up next to the cueball.....then id either shoot or maybe take one practice stroke, and it was working awesome.

Kind of like how luc salvas shoots....not fast like him but if you notice he just lines up and aims and shoots, not many practice strokes if any at all.
I realise your practice strokes are to help you get in the groove and set your cue speed and how hard youre going to strike the ball, but this worked so well for me im thinking of just sticking with it. Just wondering who else here shoots like this and your thoughts on it. Only thing i can figure is maybe its helping me fine tune my aiming by sighting down the cue and not moving it as much.
Click to expand...

I kinow that calibrating the actual stroke speed is one of the reasons often cited for taking warm up strokes. And CERTAINLY, the mind must be making decisions about actual stroke speed.

But I am skeptical as to whether there is much, if any, correlation between the speed of warm up strokes and the final stroke in actual play.

Eyes are admittedly very poor radar guns but it appears to me that the warm up strokes of the champions are at some "default" speed that does not vary considerably from the actual stroke speed.

It would be interesting to see test results on that.

Regards,
Jim
 
dogginda9 said:
Jamie Ferrell (sp) plays awful damn good for not taking any warm up strokes.
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I don't know if Alan Hopkins takes any but you don't know went he will hit the cue ball after he pauses and pokes. Don McCaugh is a very good player that one strokes his apple..
 
scottycoyote said:
its tax season and im an accountant, so this time of year i dont get to play much, if at all. WHen i do play, since its not very often, i find myself kind of forgetting how to play, not doing the things i usually do, etc.

So last night i get home and sneak a few games in, and I was shooting really great, i think i ran 4 or 5 racks and never missed a ball. I noticed i was aiming alot with my cue stick still and up next to the cueball.....then id either shoot or maybe take one practice stroke, and it was working awesome.

Kind of like how luc salvas shoots....not fast like him but if you notice he just lines up and aims and shoots, not many practice strokes if any at all.
I realise your practice strokes are to help you get in the groove and set your cue speed and how hard youre going to strike the ball, but this worked so well for me im thinking of just sticking with it. Just wondering who else here shoots like this and your thoughts on it. Only thing i can figure is maybe its helping me fine tune my aiming by sighting down the cue and not moving it as much.
Click to expand...
What a coincidence! Three days ago I happened on to a similar procedure, and now I'm half a ball better(maybe a ball). I set up, take a backstroke of about1/4 " and shoot. I can't believe my improvement!
 
most of the time when we miss a long tough cutshot said:
so sometimes i just get down and fire em in, and they split the pocket.[/COLOR]
so what i've concluded from these ramblings is that no practice strokes = better for aim, and practice strokes and a nice stroke = better for power and spin.

there is definitely something in it.
Click to expand...

This works really well for me on parallel chop shots close to the rail. I have played my best pool one stroking everything. It only works when I am in dead stroke though.
 
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