Drill to stop elbow drop
- Thread starter mantis99
- Start date
elbow drop
I concentrate on closing my elbow to the max extent the shot and my body allow.
Doing this automagically minimizes the elbow drop issue.
Focusing on what I don't want to happen, facilitates its happening.
pete
I concentrate on closing my elbow to the max extent the shot and my body allow.
Doing this automagically minimizes the elbow drop issue.
Focusing on what I don't want to happen, facilitates its happening.
pete
Is the elbow drop happening before or after the hit? I was taught that the elbow drop is a symptom, which occurs when you engage the shoulder in the shot, which may be traced to awkward stance and alignment.
Have you tried balancing a water bottle on the back of your elbow?
Have you tried balancing a water bottle on the back of your elbow?
I've never tried that, but will have to give it a go. I do believe that it has a tendency to coincide with hiking my shoulder up when gearing up for hard draw shots. I just notice also that really trying to control my elbow improves my outcomes. When video taping, I see the elbow coming down coorelating with missed shots.
I have also developed some difficulty with my draw shot over the past few months where I have been jumping the CB off the table which never really happened to me before. I think it has a lot to do with elbow drop and shoulder hiking.
Tom Simpson sells the stroke grover. See the video http://strokegroover.com/groove_video_14MB.mov
I have not used it but I think it would do what you want.
Mark
I have not used it but I think it would do what you want.
Mark
Elbow drop pre-contact can be a detrimental flaw.... After contact I don't think it is anything to worry about.... With that said I saw what might be the best fix for it several years ago...
Get a friend to grab a house cue and when you are down to shoot have them hold the cue to where if you drop your arm you will hit the cue..
This will force you to get into the proper position/distance from the cueball because you will not be able to drop the elbow to hit the cueball if you setup too far from it...
On some shots where you are really reaching you have almost no option but to use the bridge or drop the elbow... Its just on SOP shots that you have 100% ability to remove it from your stroke.....
Get a friend to grab a house cue and when you are down to shoot have them hold the cue to where if you drop your arm you will hit the cue..
This will force you to get into the proper position/distance from the cueball because you will not be able to drop the elbow to hit the cueball if you setup too far from it...
On some shots where you are really reaching you have almost no option but to use the bridge or drop the elbow... Its just on SOP shots that you have 100% ability to remove it from your stroke.....
I believe it's Pool School with Jim Rempe and Loree John Jones where Rempe advocates dropping your elbow for a shot that requires maximum stroke.
On the other hand, Nick Varner's old coach, Hal Nix, used to say that you should not follow through very far.
Makes it hard to figure out whose right and who isn't. I guess in the final analysis, you just have to try different things and pick those that work best for you.
On the other hand, Nick Varner's old coach, Hal Nix, used to say that you should not follow through very far.
Makes it hard to figure out whose right and who isn't. I guess in the final analysis, you just have to try different things and pick those that work best for you.
Try loosening your grip and finishing your stroke with your grip hand at your chest.
Mosconi says in The Little Red Book to use a short stroke. He was referring to Straight Pool, of course, but look at Allan Hopkins who uses about the shortest stroke I've seen.
I've watched Hopkins a lot. I don't care for his jerky style but I can appreciate the shortness of the stroke.
For me, when I stroke through too far I tend to steer too much. Also, I find that a shorter follow-through with more speed gets me a lot of action on the cue ball.
I agree with a lot of what has been said so far. For me it isn't really a question of whether or not to drop, because I know my shots suffer if my elbow drops. Grip strength and shoulder movement certainly have an adverse affect on it, and of course it occurs more when I ramp my stroke up. I would like to find some ways to work on this with all levels of stroke from soft to hard so it can become more automatic with all shots. The challenge is being able to tell if it dropped, and having some sort of specific feedback or technique that helps you work on keeping it still through contact.
Practice draw shots with a long open bridge. If you drop your elbow, the tip will go higher and have a poor yield for draw. If you are getting good draw, you probably are not dropping your elbow enough to matter.
am just wondering, why should people learn not to drop elbow instead learn to make a better follow through with elbow drop? Players such as Efren Reyes drop their elbow as well(but not all shots). Am just a learning player and I was taught to drop my elbow for certain shots so would like to hear about what others think).
You would need to have a very tall stance in order for your elbow and shoulder to be on a 90 degree plane...
I try to slow down and exagerate the movement that I want to learn to replace a habit I don't want.
I break my stroke into three components. The back stroke from the cue ball, the forward stroke to the cue ball, the follow through.
Do each of these segments as slow as you can. Pay special attention to how you arm feels. Perform the stroke as perfect as you can. Then, put the whole stroke together a perform it as slow as you can, perfectly.
A few things that helped me is to loosen my arm. I mean, get it as relaxed as you can before you step into the shot. Let the tension flow out of your sholder.
Realy relax your grip. A tight grip will add tension to the arm. If the grip is tighter than what's required to hold the cue, then it's too tight.
Pause at the cue ball and feel how your bicept feels. Try to coast your stroke through this position. Concentrate on how it feels when your practicing loosely, slowly and as fluid as posible. Your mind can repeat the stoke better with feeling.
I hope this helps.
I break my stroke into three components. The back stroke from the cue ball, the forward stroke to the cue ball, the follow through.
Do each of these segments as slow as you can. Pay special attention to how you arm feels. Perform the stroke as perfect as you can. Then, put the whole stroke together a perform it as slow as you can, perfectly.
A few things that helped me is to loosen my arm. I mean, get it as relaxed as you can before you step into the shot. Let the tension flow out of your sholder.
Realy relax your grip. A tight grip will add tension to the arm. If the grip is tighter than what's required to hold the cue, then it's too tight.
Pause at the cue ball and feel how your bicept feels. Try to coast your stroke through this position. Concentrate on how it feels when your practicing loosely, slowly and as fluid as posible. Your mind can repeat the stoke better with feeling.
I hope this helps.
dizAndyVan
Registered
Literally, I had the exact same problem with dropping my elbow.
I was able to fix it by taking an old cloth belt and attaching it to a stick (in my case i used an old broken pool cue) and cradled my arm in it and played like that for a month and it completely changed my stroke to a typical pendulum stroke. yea it's basically a stroke groover. If i ever feel like im starting to drop my elbow again, i just think to myself "hand to the chest" because with a pendulum stroke, my hand swings up into my chest towards my chin.
edit: it also helps by loosening up your stroke. I used to grip firmer, but have since switched to a v style grip.
I was able to fix it by taking an old cloth belt and attaching it to a stick (in my case i used an old broken pool cue) and cradled my arm in it and played like that for a month and it completely changed my stroke to a typical pendulum stroke. yea it's basically a stroke groover. If i ever feel like im starting to drop my elbow again, i just think to myself "hand to the chest" because with a pendulum stroke, my hand swings up into my chest towards my chin.
edit: it also helps by loosening up your stroke. I used to grip firmer, but have since switched to a v style grip.
Interesting! What do you mean by saying you cradled your arm in it?
Sounds to me you are too much in towards your body with your shoulder.
That would happen if you hike up your shoulder.
Than if you drop the shoulder you are off the stroking line.
Shoulder hiking strains the muscles and makes it more difficult to stop on the backstroke.
If that’s the case than short pendulum is the only way you can shoot.
So, I can see why you don’t want to drop the elbow as it puts you off stroking line.
If you would setup right from the get go it probably would not make any difference if you drop the elbow or not.
You seem to be shooting down on the ball and/or dipping, if you are too far away from CB at address and your shoulder is hiked up than making a power shoot would be almost impossible.
Vlado312
Registered
I set up mirror a small mirror so I can see my elbow with a fixed line in the background and looked at the mirror as I practiced just hitting a ball until I got the motion down.
The next step would to be to measure out the distance from bridge to cue ball to where your tip ends at the end of a good stroke and then you don't need the mirror anymore to practice, just a ruler :smile:
That happens to me on an occasional shot too. Usually afterwards when I think about it, my bridge to cue ball was shorter then usual and I probably gripped the cue harder. Or I moved my body forward with the shot and elevated the angle of my cue.
A very light cradle around the cue has shown amazingly better results in getting draw or follow on the cue ball, especially with a powerful shot.
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