Drill to stop elbow drop

Neil said:
I can do anything with no drop that I can do with drop. It's all in the stroke before contact.
Click to expand...
Agreed. To me, the follow through with a pendulum stroke is quite "natural." The way I see it, the "piston" or "J" or "elbow drop" stroke has an "exaggerated" follow through.

Having said that, follow through is an important "indicator," regardless of stroke type.

Regards,
Dave
 
Neil said:
I can do anything with no drop that I can do with drop. It's all in the stroke before contact.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you personally, but I would bet that the professional players with the biggest strokes in the game can do things with their elbow drop that noone in the world can do without elbow drop. Larry Nevel, Earl, Busta, take any of the pros who are known to have a ton of power and when they are really putting a stroke on a ball they are doing it with elbow drop. I have even seen the pro snooker players when putting huge strokes on the ball adopt some elbow drop because it helps to get that extra power to allow that type of followthrough instead of the more restrictive non-elbow drop stroke.

Forcing the elbow to stay up after contact affects the stroke prior and during contact just the same as the stroke would be affected prior to and during contact if one were to attempt to stop the cue instantly after contact.
 
Celtic said:
Perhaps you personally, but I would bet that the professional players with the biggest strokes in the game can do things with their elbow drop that noone in the world can do without elbow drop. Larry Nevel, Earl, Busta, take any of the pros who are known to have a ton of power and when they are really putting a stroke on a ball they are doing it with elbow drop.
Click to expand...
Have you seen the video of Mike Massey's power draw shot with elbow drop? IMO, the results might be are a little surprising to some people.

Regards,
Dave
 
Last edited:
Lee Brett has this move where he cues the ball and ONLY drops his elbow and arm through the ball (no backstroke). Dude makes everything. Let's gravity take over the shot. That really has zero moving parts--- just a release and the force of gravity.

Mike Davis uses gravity similarly in his technique.

People shouldn't have their panties in such a bunch of pendulum vs. "whatever" thinking pendulum is "THE BEST." It's NOT. It's a valid option for playing, as is the piston as are others. NONE are the BEST--- since everyone is different and have different styles of play.

I think people should stop ramming pendulum vs dropping vs whatever. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Nick Mannino throws his cue like frickin' spear through the ball and runs out from everywhere--- what is that called? Who knows, it works though!
 
Neil said:
I can do anything with no drop that I can do with drop. It's all in the stroke before contact.
Click to expand...

Whoa there cowboy... I'll try and trap you into shooting without a bridge using a normal length cue and have you stretched so far over the table that you have ran out of pendulum just trying to reach the cue ball...

Point taken tho... In most instances beside the super stretch you do not need drop.... In the super stretch you don't even need elbow drop if you have Earl's cue.....

I tend to mix up my stroke between the pendulum and piston on a ROTE basis... Some shots I just prefer one or the other not consciously just from hitting them and maybe even learning them at different points in my development.... I am not going to say anything in regards to which is superior.... I will say to not be intimate with both is likely a mistake for anyone... Knowing both you can then make your decisions of when to apply them from a position of strength and knowledge.. Or you determine that one road is just not for you......

Using both may indeed cause me some consistency issues which I why I work on the neutral pendulum when I can... I have had the piston since day 1.... It has timing variables and more parts than the pendulum... It is also for me more powerful and able to create complex cueball paths that match the images in my head..... It also breaks down from time to time....

I think of my piston stroke like it's my hotrod and the pendulum is my daily driver..... If I am going to the corner store to grab some milk I'd be nuts to take the hotrod and run the risk of it breaking down on such a simple task.... The hotrod however will always be my choice when I need horsepower.... I drove the hotrod everywhere for years and got left on the side of the road on many short simple trips... Now I just get it out of the garage as needed... I am finding out proper planning seems to make for more short trips so the daily driver is getting more miles on it all the time........
 
dr_dave said:
Have you seen the video of Mike Masse's power draw shot with elbow drop? IMO, the results might be are a little surprising to some people.

Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...

If you "raise" the elbow on the backswing and then drop the elbow while on the followthrough back to the set position then the elbow is dropping through the shot. I cannot believe someone went through all the effort to make that video in an effort to support "non" elbow dropping TBH. Plus Mike there is standing nearly verticle, if you think about the mechanics of a stroke when your body position is nearly straight up and down the whole idea of normal stroke mechanics go out the window along with most of the shot accuracy.
 
Neil said:
[...] Just toss the cue at the cb, and learn to do it in a straight line and you are fine? I can't believe you would even mention that after all your other posts on various aspects of the game!
Click to expand...

Neil:

Be careful with that one -- Spidey has a video on precisely how to let go of and throw the cue in a straight line on all-important shots. :p

J/K; there's some good banter going on here, and I'm enjoying and absorbing.

-Sean
 
dave thanks for kind words, all my power is generated with the grip and follow through. I can play without any backstroke if neccesary. and draw a ball full length with no backstroke. cant do that with a pendulum :smile:

Neil, there is more than 1 way to skin a cat as they say, imo i found to have more control, feel, power and touch dropping the elbow was natrual for me. I had a century at snooker within 6 months of picking up a cue, i naturally hit the ball with an elbow drop. We used to call people with a pendulum stroke, punchers because they punched at the ball, they where good in the balls, but for a tough shot or power shot, you knew they was going to miss.

Its all difference of opinion, and as technology and times change techniques change. what works best for one person, wont work for someone else. I know 1 thing id take a top pro elbow dropper against any pendulum stroke. i know which will hold up best under pressure
 
Celtic said:
If you "raise" the elbow on the backswing and then drop the elbow while on the followthrough back to the set position then the elbow is dropping through the shot.
Click to expand...
Most people (both "pendulum stroke" and "elbow drop" proponents) recommend not dropping the elbow into the cue ball. Also, IMO, this slight motion is not adding much to the shot.

Celtic said:
I cannot believe someone went through all the effort to make that video in an effort to support "non" elbow dropping
Click to expand...
The video certainly wasn't filmed to prove anything (other than the fact that Mike is good at this sort of shot). It was just part of an exhibition I filmed with the high-speed camera. However, honestly, both Mike and I were a little surprised by what we saw.

Another important point to make with the shot in the video is if he would have dropped his elbow below the set position when coming into the ball, he probably would have hurt his hand on the rail. Maybe that's why he dropped it so late (for the "exaggerated" follow through).

Regards,
Dave

PS: Check out the finger pool video. That one came out really good in super slow motion.
 
Neil said:
Forgive me for linking to who I did, but it shows the Massey video, and then done with no elbow drop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GsRIPSTWfo&feature=related
Click to expand...

Uh oh, Neil -- you did the unforgivable in AZB's eyes! Noooooo, not "he who shall not be named" -- the australian tool! :eek:

dr_dave said:
Sorry, but that's unforgivable. :mad:

Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...

I just felt another <whiff!>, a puff of wind from the west. Are you still swinging about that parasitic linking thing? :p

-Sean
 
Maybe I'm just confused again.

The impression I'm getting is that people view the pendulum as a gravity-only stroke, and the piston as an arm-only stroke.

The pendulum and piston terms, i thought, were just descriptions of the path the hand takes and the corresponding effect on the cue. You can power through a pendulum just as easily as you can let gravity drop you into a piston. The pendulum is more a case of allowing the cue to go where it will in a soft grip, and the piston tends towards guiding the cue in a straight line into the shot.

Am I crazy or am I just misreading people?
 
Neil said:
I can do the same thing with the pendulum, it just won't have the same amount of power because there is less mass with just the forearm than with the whole arm.;)

Now, to your "panties" comments..... if you re-read all the posts, you will find that Lee and I both agree that the elbow should not drop before contact. The main place we disagree with is after contact. I have repeatedly said both work, but the pendulum has less that can go wrong. Lee adamantly states that no drop after contact is wrong and detrimental to the shot. Now, which one of us has their panties in a bunch?? Also, by mentioning Nick and his style, are you actually saying that it really doesn't matter how any one teaches how to stroke the ball? Just toss the cue at the cb, and learn to do it in a straight line and you are fine? I can't believe you would even mention that after all your other posts on various aspects of the game!
Click to expand...

Neil, I love ya -- my comment was a generality -- not directed at you!
 
I do notice Massey drops his elbow but his head stays still... The oyster's head jerks like he was stun gunned and he ends up raising up thru the shot changing the attack angle possibly..... It just appears that to generate that much power with the pendulum that the stroke is a lot more violent when comparing just these 2 videos....... It does show it can be done either way... I know for me which one will get it done more often than not because I don't get to edit ;)

Actually I grabbed this video of Mike to check head movement.. shows that shot at the end http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI1Q-8nfiBk
 
Last edited:
The Renfro said:
I do notice Massey drops his elbow but his head stays still... The oyster's head jerks like he was stun gunned and he ends up raising up thru the shot changing the attack angle possibly..... It just appears that to generate that much power with the pendulum that the stroke is a lot more violent when comparing just these 2 videos....... It does show it can be done either way... I know for me which one will get it done more often than not because I don't get to edit ;)
Click to expand...

Besides "he who shall not be named" trying to show that he can do everything Mike can, one of the things he-who-shall-not-be-named was trying to do was to poke holes in Mike's video -- highlighting where the cue ball was located, and trying to give the viewer the impression that "it took many takes for Mike to get the shot right." Which isn't true, of course, because Mike will do that shot, on demand, in the first take, all night long. The editing in Mike's video (showing the different final resting spots of the cue ball) was an afterthought obvious to everyone who views it, because Mike was explaining after-shot arm positions. But it was a window for he-who-shall-not-be-named to exploit for his own purposes.

I personally believe that as long as your technique is sound -- i.e. your arm is traveling dead nuts straight -- it doesn't matter whether you drop your elbow post-cueball-contact or not. Yes, it's a more simple motion to not drop it, but if the act of pinning the elbow drains muscles that could be used for accelerating the cue, it's a detriment. A shot like this is something to practice -- one can't make generalities about "to drop or not to drop" based on walking up to the table and shooting this shot cold, without practice.

-Sean <-- shoots majority of shots with pinned elbow, but is known to "let his hair down"... er, let his elbow down on occasion
 
SpiderWebComm said:
Not sure what you're referring to. 95% of all pool-playing pros drop their elbow and that's a fact. Watching youtube videos, it's REALLY hard to find a pro who plays with a pinned elbow. Pinned elbows are the exception, not the rule.

That said, there are good arguments to having a pinned elbow. Nevertheless, it doesn't change the fact that nearly all the pros drop their elbow after contact.
Click to expand...


I was thinking his 95% was made up of snooker players. Certainly, if he were more familiar with pool players, he'd know what you say is true.

Lou Figueroa
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top