Draw by bending your shaft

You don't need to stroke down to draw the rock. Most of the time you can get where ever you need to go using follow bridge any ways.:scratchhead:
My position play is average at best so I don't know if my draw needs work. But for the most part, I've seen draw shots with simple execution travel long distance and with speed.
 
Don't you guys remember????

Don't you guys remember the power draw video of mike massey?? Look at his cue bend into the cloth...that's what the op is talking about.....just a different technique that's all.
 
zpele said:
No one? Come on where is Bob Jewett when you need him.
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In Mike Page's video on draw he makes a very good point about why chalking properly is important to learning to draw. Chalking wrong in the early stages of your learning process can lead to the wrong thing being learned. Later, when your stroke becomes more accurate and your chalking a lot better too, it may be that you still remember the early lesson. More accurately, your arm remembers. In situations like that it is possible and I think fairly common that some apparently unrelated change -- such as putting more weight on your back foot, as Lassiter suggested -- could cause you to get more draw.

I think any good test of the proposed technique is really, really hard to do.
 
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Keep money on hand....

I'd imagine you'll be buying a new shaft in no time, unless you like your cue shafts warped.
 
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As others said, the cue ball doesn't "know" what your shaft is doing once it's left the tip.

So you're basically just following through with no fear. Where other people might allow their stroke to get a little timid towards the end of the swing, you're saying "F*ck it, I'm following right through this bad boy and I don't care if it rips the cloth or bends my shaft." That lack of fear definitely is also evident when you see many players break hard -->
http://www.flickr.com/photos/billiardphotos/4636772264/

However for a power draw shot, it's not only unnecessary, it may actually decrease the amount of draw you get a little. On a break shot, your stick has to be angled a tiny bit (the butt end is higher than the tip because the rail's in the way, and you're also standing up a little to swing your arm freely). But on a draw shot, you should keep the tip and butt end totally level with each other if possible. Otherwise, you're driving the cue ball a tiny bit downward into the cloth, and that digging action can cause extra friction that eats away some of the backspin you just put on it.

In theory you could really jack up and actually jump the ball. Then the ball doesn't lose its backspin because it's airborne and doesn't have to fight against the friction caused by the cloth. You get amazing draw this way. But it's not necessary for typical pool draw shots, it's more of a trick shot... as seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWtyPrgn2VA&feature=player_detailpage#t=156s

I'd say keep the cue as level as possible, and just give the same firm stroke and follow through you're already doing, just don't bother digging into the table. Your room owner will thank you.
 
No not non sense , its called common sense,, bending a shaft like that will put stress on the wood as well as the joint.. Impact from striking the cue ball is one thing, applying weight to the shaft from one end to the next is another.

If he's just laying the shaft on the table with slight pressure, it wont effect it , but if he applies enough pressure it effects the woods structure,and eventually will cause the shaft to have a taper roll ..
 
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So no one has answered my question yet. Would this be useful for power draw off the rail where you are aiming down as in a break shot? Like I said I know the mechanics of a draw shot I can draw 2 table lengths when doing it "properly."

I'm also not sure if I agree that this will warp the shaft seeing as out its a specialized shot that isn't used that often.

Like I said I originally tried it cause it looks cool. Now I am wondering puff it is ask actual technique for power draw off a rail. And yes I understand there are other ways to accomplish this sort of positioning depending on the shot.
 
In 40 years, I've never seen any evidence to believe a simple momentary flexing of the shaft will warp it.

If that were true then all you would have to do would be to flex it back to straighten it. Its just not the reality.

To answer your question, there is no purpose at all to intentionally bend the shaft after the shot. Nothing to gain. Zero. None.
 
zpele said:
So just recently I started bending my shaft against the table when applying force english. I have found that it helps add more spin to the cueball and can help to break apart clusters while still spinning straight through them without changing the original course of the cueball that much.


Is this type of technique generally well accepted or well used? I find it harder to control the speed of the draw using this technique and I wanted to know how badly this will damage my shaft over time.
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As im sure someone has already commented or id hope by now..
Its nothing to do with the stick.. Its because youre not poking at it and youre focused at making the cue lay against the table to bend it which means you are following through the cue ball with your stroke which is what you want if you want an extreme draw.

Instead of worrying about the shaft (after contact), focus on just keeping your shaft flat (before contact) and following through after contact.
 
Well, if you think nobody answered your question yet, maybe it's cuz you forgot to ask it clearly... when you say "off the rail" do you mean the cue ball is like a foot from the rail, and you just make your bridge on the rail? Or do you mean the cue ball is stuck to the rail?

It actually doesn't matter... if you're in a situation where you can't level out your cue, you're striking downward, so your tip might hit the table when you follow through. But that's more like an unfortunate side effect, not something you actually want to try for. Massé looks cool too but that doesn't mean you should make balls curve for no reason.

I don't think it will hurt your cue if you insist on doing it. Lots of players hit the table and bend the crap out of their cue on the break, and they might break twenty times a day for years using the same break cue. If doing that warped it, we'd have heard complaints by now and they'd be replacing the cues constantly.
 
SKILLZELITE said:
No not non sense , its called common sense,, bending a shaft like that will put stress on the wood as well as the joint..

...effects the woods structure,and eventually will cause the shaft to have a taper roll ..
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An ironic use of common sense!

It is wood, not metal.
 
skillzlite

If he's just laying the shaft on the table with slight pressure, it wont effect it , but if he applies enough pressure it effects the woods structure,and eventually will cause the shaft to have a taper roll ..



you do not know " taper roll "

now to the poster of this thread, if you are digging the shaft into the cloth on your draw stroke, QUIT that is not the correct way to draw the ball. stop this as it will destory the cloth. hire an instructor to show you how to stroke the ball.
 
SKILLZELITE said:
No not non sense , its called common sense,, bending a shaft like that will put stress on the wood as well as the joint.. Impact from striking the cue ball is one thing, applying weight to the shaft from one end to the next is another.

If he's just laying the shaft on the table with slight pressure, it wont effect it , but if he applies enough pressure it effects the woods structure,and eventually will cause the shaft to have a taper roll ..
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I have to agree with you 100%.I used to see a guy in the poolroom break, and everytime he did he flexed the snot out of the shaft.His shaft got warped
like a wet noodle and he had a issue with the joint.It makes sense to me
that wood can break down over time if bent over and over.If temperature conditions can warp a shaft it doesn't seem inconceivable that this could happen,cause I've seen it.
 
To bend permanently with this unnecessary bending can OF COURSE damage the shaft or have effect on it: the joint/pin/and the wood structure can definitley be damaged.

And i ve seen personally more than 1 time that a shaft broke during this *hollywood-wanna-look-great* breaks.

Just because some more known guys perhaps do this, it does not mean that it is a good thing.

lg from overseas,

ingo
 
zpele said:
So no one has answered my question yet. Would this be useful for power draw off the rail where you are aiming down as in a break shot? Like I said I know the mechanics of a draw shot I can draw 2 table lengths when doing it "properly."

I'm also not sure if I agree that this will warp the shaft seeing as out its a specialized shot that isn't used that often.

Like I said I originally tried it cause it looks cool. Now I am wondering puff it is ask actual technique for power draw off a rail. And yes I understand there are other ways to accomplish this sort of positioning depending on the shot.
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You are mistaken in thinking that the act of bending the shaft on the table is what causes the draw to be better. It's the natural way the shaft will react after you hit a low and hard draw shot. Does not matter from where you are shooting at, close to the rail or not. If you are holding the butt elevated a bit, you are of course pointing more down on the cue ball, which means it will go more into the table bed when you follow-through. You are taking the end result of the shot and trying to make it into the way to execute the shot.

So the plan is to hit low on the ball with a straight stroke and to follow though straight on the shot and hit it hard. Not to try to bend the shaft, that will happen on that type of shot naturally.

It would be like someone hitting a baseball, getting a home run and breaking their bat on the swing, so they ask "how can I break my bat each time because I get a home run that way". The broken bat came about due to the hard hit on the ball to get the distance for a home run (and of course other factors like the wood stress, angle of the hit on the bat, etc...), the guy did not get a home run because the bat broke.
 
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