Are you moving your bridge hand up and down when following and drawing? Some players, they don't realize it, keep their bridge the same and move their arm to go up or down for follow and draw. You might want to look at your bridge hand while you're shooting just to check.
Drill to stop elbow drop
- Thread starter mantis99
- Start date
Are you moving your bridge hand up and down when following and drawing? Some players, they don't realize it, keep their bridge the same and move their arm to go up or down for follow and draw. You might want to look at your bridge hand while you're shooting just to check.
I need to comment on the balancing act... Physiology plays a key roll in the height of the elbow and the angle formed between the elbow and shoulder. I have a very long forearm and to balance anything on it would require a magician's trick because the pointy part is the high part.. Not the flat part where it joins the bicep.....
Due to these physiological differences the angle formed by the forearm and the biceps is usually not 90 degrees what you are trying to accomplish is a 90 degree angle between the cue and forearm at impact.... Note I said 90 degree between the cue and forearm... not between the forearm and table bed.... Attack angle does vary and if you are slightly jacking up and not paying attention to the angle between the forearm and cue and instead are trying to maintain the angle in relation to the table you are going to have issues coming thru the cueball on plane.....
Being slightly jacked up with a 90 degree angle to the slate almost forces you to drop the elbow to stroke straight otherwise the tip will be darting towards the cloth thru impact.....
Just more food for thought......
On a properly executed pendulum stroke the cue is level at the moment of impact and often points down towards the cloth at the finish point of the forward stroke.
dizAndyVan
Registered
Really its just a loop tied to a stick thats attached to your bicep that prevents you from dropping your arm on your follow through. Yeah it feels awkward at first, but after a week or so the muscle memory should be solid and you should be able to have a solid pendulum stroke after.
you missed the jacked up part... With a pendulum it should be level, ie on plane, to the angle of attack... Most people think of level in relation to the table bed.... That single thought alone can wreck havoc with someone trying to use the pendulum.... It's pure physiology...
Old remedy
There is a simple way to see if you arer dipping your arm. You put a nickel
right above your elbow on your upper arm when you are down in a shot. Then you go ahead and shoot. If the nickel drops off your arm, you are not stroking right.
There is a simple way to see if you arer dipping your arm. You put a nickel
right above your elbow on your upper arm when you are down in a shot. Then you go ahead and shoot. If the nickel drops off your arm, you are not stroking right.
Perhaps I'm not visualizing what you mean by being jacked up. Are you suggesting the elbow must be flat in the set position? http://www.insidepool.com/images/upload/Allison-Fisher.jpg
A quick look at Allison will show you that isn't required, but I may be misunderstanding what you mean by "jacked up"
The table and the layout of the balls in many instances make us alter our attack angle.... If we use a true pendulum when we have to elevate the butt to clear interference we have to adjust our perpendicular setup to be based on the cue and not the table bed.... What I am saying is that the grip has to alter based on elevation... The perfect grip for a level attack will be too far forward for any attack angle where the butt is elevated
And based on the photo of Allison... The high elbow and forward grip tells me we are about to see a piston stroke... not a pendulum.....
You can tell if your shoulder dropped by the length of your follow through.
Lets say on a shot, without shoulder drop you follow through 6 inches. If you drop your shoulder, your follow through will be longer then that.
Lets say on a shot, without shoulder drop you follow through 6 inches. If you drop your shoulder, your follow through will be longer then that.
When my shoulder comes into the stroke it happens when I am trying to stroke hard and I grip the cue too hard and hike my shoulder. This does of course create a downward plane that I am hitting on, and my elbow certainly comes out of position. I think that I also have some basic elbow drop with other more routine shots that is affecting my accuracy regarding where I strike the CB. I will have to use a mirror and maybe video tape myself too see if my initial shoulder positioning is also affecting on those shots. Thanks.
I definitely find that cradling the cue lighter helps on those shots. Now I just have to get to where I can do it on hard draw shots without that strong grip coming in. Sometimes I do it so hard that I feel my finish coming into the side of my ribs instead of right under or at my nipple.
I guess this is the type of stuff that happens when you just bang balls around all the time instead of performing specific practice. My stroke has definitely regressed over the past year, but that has just been life with 3 young active kids and work.
I love to play pool, but have grown frustrated with a lack of forward movement in my game, and a noticeable regression in my stroke quality. I know I don't have the time to become a world beater, but I am trying to organize my play time better to allow consistent forward movement in skills and to improve on my weaknesses. Without a good practice plan set up, I am doomed from the start. I think I need to get this stroke fault fixed before really moving forward though.
No, i try to keep the stroke motion the same for al shots with my bridge being the only thing that varies my shots from center to follow to draw.
See the video link I posted earlier
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+1 for this. Looks like a gimmick, but it's not. A league friend with a bad elbow drop (even before the tip touched the cue ball) purchased one of these, and after a few weeks of constantly practicing with it (in his home), he was able to nearly completely get rid of the elbow drop. He has a pure pendulum stroke now.
Again, looks "gimmicky" but it's not!
-Sean
That's good. It's surprising how many players make that mistake.
If you don't drop your elbow and you follow through as far as you can, you will see that your cue tip will naturally curve downward into the cloth. Perhaps you're trying to follow through too much then. This was the lesson in Pool School by Rempe. That is why he advocated dropping the elbow because you can eliminate the drop of the tip while using maximum follow through.