Eye Training

This time of year I try to remember to stop what I'm doing at about 4 pm on league day and go to the livingroom to "sun" my eyes.

I look at the winter sun and if too bright, close my eyes and rotate my head so the light bathes my retina completely. I may also rub my brow bones to relieve muscle tension. I do this for about 5 to 10 minutes or so. The longer the better in the wintertime. In Summer, this ritual happens more naturally.

I also stare out at the farthest object I can see to get my focusing (lack of) ability on target. This seems to help on those shots where the cb is far from me.

I also take supplements to help my eyes on league day: caratanoids, Omegas, lecithin, vita e, etc.

At the table, I have to raise my hand, place my thumb up and move it so it blocks the side rail from my view as I'm aiming a shot. The rail was sending a bad message to my brain or my brain was interpreting it badly. This is a result of prebiopia and lasik surgery 5 or 6 years ago combined, I think.

If my dominat eye is acting up, thus shifting focus to the non-dom, I place my palm over my non-dom eye and force my dominate eye to aim a shot. I'm thinking my opponents must think me crazy, but maybe that's a psychological advantage?

Jeff Livingston
 
Get a styrofoam ball and hang it from ceiling with fishing wire so that it is level with your eyes. Use standing position, make ball swing back/ forth and follow it with your eyes for 3hr/ day.

Less effective/ more comfortable: place ball on table and look at it for 3hr/ day.
 
I am gonna go out on a limb here and say that your brain would have a total meltdown if you stared at anything for more than a minute or two! JMO!!!!
 
I like to watch videos of solar eclipses on youtube. At random intervals I will call out the angle of the sun to the pocket. After a few rounds of this I will start over, using my finger to put english on the moon.
As you can imagine my game is outta this world... (insert drumroll)
 
I like to watch videos of solar eclipses on youtube. At random intervals I will call out the angle of the sun to the pocket. After a few rounds of this I will start over, using my finger to put english on the moon.
As you can imagine my game is outta this world... (insert drumroll)

Stop it you're giving me flashbacks. Johnnyt
 
This time of year I try to remember to stop what I'm doing at about 4 pm on league day and go to the livingroom to "sun" my eyes.

I look at the winter sun and if too bright, close my eyes and rotate my head so the light bathes my retina completely. I may also rub my brow bones to relieve muscle tension. I do this for about 5 to 10 minutes or so. The longer the better in the wintertime. In Summer, this ritual happens more naturally.

I also stare out at the farthest object I can see to get my focusing (lack of) ability on target. This seems to help on those shots where the cb is far from me.

I also take supplements to help my eyes on league day: caratanoids, Omegas, lecithin, vita e, etc.

At the table, I have to raise my hand, place my thumb up and move it so it blocks the side rail from my view as I'm aiming a shot. The rail was sending a bad message to my brain or my brain was interpreting it badly. This is a result of prebiopia and lasik surgery 5 or 6 years ago combined, I think.

If my dominat eye is acting up, thus shifting focus to the non-dom, I place my palm over my non-dom eye and force my dominate eye to aim a shot. I'm thinking my opponents must think me crazy, but maybe that's a psychological advantage?

Jeff Livingston

Interesting post Jeff. In the beginning I thought you were being sarcastic, lol. I don't know what to make of "sun bathing" though... Your last paragraph, I may try that. Something periodically happens to my sighting on almost near full ball hits. I get into stretches where I hit the OB too full, over and over. I just can't see the god forsaken proper contact point; it's maddening!:angry:

Maybe, as you reference, my dominant eye is acting up.

KK9 <-- going to the pirate store to get an eye patch
 
Get a styrofoam ball and hang it from ceiling with fishing wire so that it is level with your eyes. Use standing position, make ball swing back/ forth and follow it with your eyes for 3hr/ day.

Less effective/ more comfortable: place ball on table and look at it for 3hr/ day.

Ha, how can I do that, I'd never know when 3hrs is over unless I put a watch on the ball.
 
Interesting post Jeff. In the beginning I thought you were being sarcastic, lol. I don't know what to make of "sun bathing" though... Your last paragraph, I may try that. Something periodically happens to my sighting on almost near full ball hits. I get into stretches where I hit the OB too full, over and over. I just can't see the god forsaken proper contact point; it's maddening!:angry:

Maybe, as you reference, my dominant eye is acting up.

KK9 <-- going to the pirate store to get an eye patch

Shots that are almost straight in can be tough, especially if you are trying to do something with the cue ball other than cinching the shot. Slight cuts are deceiving and I've been guilty of taking them for granted and jarred a few.

I don't trust my eyes most days and find that if I start out with a system, my eyes start to work better on all the other shots, too. It's because I line up better and that seems to retrain my eyes from session to session. I go to automatic or feel after that because I've got my eyes in the right spot. You can see the balls different on some days.

This dramatically speeds up my warm up time and gets me into stroke faster. These methods also are locks for pressure shots when tunnel vision sets in.

After I'm in stroke, in an automatic rhythm, I forget about what I'm doing to get there. If I start testing rails again, I go back and double check things with a system and get back on track. I, too have a dominant eye fight going on from day to day. I call it, "schizovisualphrenia". :indecisive: :indecisive:

Best,
Mike
 
...and here's the essence of that: Get down into your stance. Once you're done aiming, keep your cue still, and focus on the aim point on the CB for 2 seconds (tip close and stopped). Then, without moving your cue, focus on the aim point on the OB for another 2 seconds. Now look only at the CB and do your warmups. Stop your cue at the CB for 1 second, move your eyes up to the OB (and stay there). Smooth backswing, easy transition, and accelerate your cue forward, to your natural finish position. Freeze to evaluate.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Mother Drill #3 would be my choice.....:smile:
randyg
 
Interesting post Jeff. In the beginning I thought you were being sarcastic, lol. I don't know what to make of "sun bathing" though... Your last paragraph, I may try that. Something periodically happens to my sighting on almost near full ball hits. I get into stretches where I hit the OB too full, over and over. I just can't see the god forsaken proper contact point; it's maddening!:angry:

Maybe, as you reference, my dominant eye is acting up.

KK9 <-- going to the pirate store to get an eye patch

I used to have an old book on eye exercises and sunning was the one that worked to calm my eyes and relax them.

The brow rub is nice too, and can be done during matches.

There is also palming. Palming is the opposite of sunning. You place your palms over your eyes, cupped enough so you're not touching the eyeballs but still blocking ALL light. Sit with eyes open and palms over eyes for a few minutes. This removes all light from the retina and seems to have a similar effect as bathing the retina. I think it can be safely compared to a screen saver that makes sure parts of the view aren't burnt out thus a more consistent screen, if that makes sense.

Jeff Livingston
 
Buy a BB Gun from Walmart for less than $20.00. Go to a secluded area and place a dozen or so tin cans in a circle of 20 foot diameter. Stand in the center of the circle and with both eys open, begin plinking the tin cans in succession. Do this until you can hit them all on first attempt with no misses. When you can do this, you can easily shoot a cue ball into an object ball hitting it where you intended with aim.

Great eye training and fun too!
 
Have you tried the cueball "dribble" exercise?

Because my eyesight starts to get fuzzy at about 6 feet, I have problems with cut shots where the ob is beyond that distance. Here's an exercise I do to help that:

I take the cue ball and put it in the kitchen. I stand at the rack end and hold the cue in my stroke hand at about the balance point or just a little behind that, and I poke at the cueball attempting to "dribble" it against the end rail with my cue tip.

This helps two thing: my eyes quickly finding the center of the cb and my stroke arm to become one, so to speak, with my cue and brain. About 2 minutes of this is enough usually to bring it all together.

This one reminds me of how little kids learn the physics of pool by throwing balls all around the table. Another silly thing that works for me....maybe it'll work for you, too?

fwiw,

Jeff Livingston
 
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