finding the degree of your eye dominance

[Bob Jewett]

watch neil robertson stance
very cross eyed dominant
watch his stance and trumps not as severely cross eyed dominant but it seems the cue is to the right of his nose(trump)
........................

Trump is a very, very bad example to work from for technique. On every shot he lines up on the right side of the ball and swerves the cue stick to the left -- we see left to right. For example, see a front view of Judd at 2:28. I think that comes from having his head in the wrong place.

The good news is that you can be lined up with that much error and swoop across the ball on every shot and still win the World Snooker Championship. I think it's easier to improve without the swoop, though.

One thing to notice about both Robertson and Trump is essentially no elbow movement.

 

[snookered_again]

one thing Ive been trying is just to put a ball on the table , anywhere near the middle and my cue ball in line with the object ball and pocket, then try to sink the ball with a straight shot, and follow it in with the CB. A scratch in normal play but harder than one may think to actually do! I think that to do that on any consistent basis requires a good straight stroke., which I'm still striving towards.. any offset of the stroke pattern and both balls will not sink, it also shows a bit about top or bottom as it affects how closely it follows or if it stops or catches up to the other ball.

the other one that's harder than I thought, is to actually stop and freeze the ball, I find it much easier, if I accept some variation ,but much harder to actually freeze it right at the point of impact without it bouncing to the right or left, or forward of back at least a little. for some reason I'm prone to really making a ball to try to plant it in place, why the harder stroke seems to be required , or why it helps I can't understand. It seems common to do that when you have a duck right over a corner pocket, but it's not really necessary to smack a ball hard to make it stop. It might just be because that way I wont loose the backspin spin due to traction across the table which I can avoid completely with a harder shot.

maybe I need to discover how softly I can hit a ball, and stop it with varying distance.. because if it's a longer distance I need a certain amount of bottom, but distance between OB and CB affects all that.. Finding that threshold may help me make more successful hooks. with improved control I can hit a ball and control where the cue ball stops and doing that well gives a great advantage. Often I'm attempting to go stick to some other nearby ball, but any slight failure and it's usually not resulting in a hook but just a rather dumb looking shot..

 

[bbb]

Trump is a very, very bad example to work from for technique. On every shot he lines up on the right side of the ball and swerves the cue stick to the left -- we see left to right. For example, see a front view of Judd at 2:28. I think that comes from having his head in the wrong place.

The good news is that you can be lined up with that much error and swoop across the ball on every shot and still win the World Snooker Championship. I think it's easier to improve without the swoop, though.

One thing to notice about both Robertson and Trump is essentially no elbow movement.

bob
first of all i was focusing on stance as the op was concerned about his foot placement
and i was focusing on neil robertson with his extreme cross dominance
i respectfully disagree that trump is a bad example
he does so many technical things well
yes he does not drop from vertical
but many top pros also come across their body
its not the simplest way i agree
why do you always seem to nitpick many of my posts?

 

[bbb]

one thing Ive been trying is just to put a ball on the table , anywhere near the middle and my cue ball in line with the object ball and pocket, then try to sink the ball with a straight shot, and follow it in with the CB. A scratch in normal play but harder than one may think to actually do! I think that to do that on any consistent basis requires a good straight stroke., which I'm still striving towards.. any offset of the stroke pattern and both balls will not sink, it also shows a bit about top or bottom as it affects how closely it follows or if it stops or catches up to the other ball.

the other one that's harder than I thought, is to actually stop and freeze the ball, I find it much easier, if I accept some variation ,but much harder to actually freeze it right at the point of impact without it bouncing to the right or left, or forward of back at least a little. for some reason I'm prone to really making a ball to try to plant it in place, why the harder stroke seems to be required , or why it helps I can't understand. It seems common to do that when you have a duck right over a corner pocket, but it's not really necessary to smack a ball hard to make it stop. It might just be because that way I wont loose the backspin spin due to traction across the table which I can avoid completely with a harder shot.

maybe I need to discover how softly I can hit a ball, and stop it with varying distance.. because if it's a longer distance I need a certain amount of bottom, but distance between OB and CB affects all that.. Finding that threshold may help me make more successful hooks. with improved control I can hit a ball and control where the cue ball stops and doing that well gives a great advantage. Often I'm attempting to go stick to some other nearby ball, but any slight failure and it's usually not resulting in a hook but just a rather dumb looking shot..

hit lower and softer

 

[Bob Jewett]

.... why do you always seem to nitpick many of my posts?

I usually comment on posts either to add to the ideas or to point out things I disagree with. I don't think I single you out, Larry.

 

[bbb]

I usually comment on posts either to add to the ideas or to point out things I disagree with. I don't think I single you out, Larry.

maybe i am over sensitive...

 

[snookered_again]

maybe, or just more practice. Yesterday I made a short shot between OB and CB with a long travel to a corner pocket. I didn]t hit it hard , just gave it a tap, but pretty much stopped the CB.. I missed the shot. a more experienced player watching from the opposite end said If I put "too much junk on my CB it will mess up my accuracy" .
Ill often see him make a shot and draw the CB back half way across the table to get shape. I can make them draw sometimes but finding consistency in that takes more practice so I just have to try and fail till I get better at draw shots. at first I found them really hard, I needed to get my cue closer to the table.

weve been practicing in our kitchen with half our 3/4 snooker cues, and all sorts of stuff in our way so its often hard to get the back end of the cue down near to the table because of some pot or something being in the way ! all the same it is practice at least.. Ive probably had a bit of difficulty getting my head down so low because I have stuff behind me so then I get better at shooting more upright and that's probably not a great habit.. getting my chin to touch the cue seems awkward but It would probably be the best for me to practice imoroving that stance.. so much to learn !

i think I cam to the table wiht bad habits from that and it was pointed out to me that if I dont keep the back end lower what I'm doing is scrubbing the CB on the felt and loosing my accuuracy by not being low enough..

one guy said I was in the habit of getting my finger behind the cue and messing up the very end of the stroke by maybe it being affected, he suggested I try holding the cue with 3 fingers, maybe I was holding it too tight or something..

so much to focus on..

I'm in the process of setting up a better table in a bit better location now. Im still a bit tight to the sides but shoudl be able to at least use my full cue for most shots.
I was shown to put my right foot basically across my cue line when approaching the shot, sometimes Ill take a step back to plant myself a second time if I feel Im standing off position.

a lot of them will go and look at the OB from the pocket , then go take their shot without lifting their eyes off the OB, to do that alone without breaking eye contact with the CB seems to take practice.. I think Im often still planning and changing aim when down, and maybe I shoudl try to make that whole thing more consistent.. as soon as I take my eye off the OB and look back Ive basically undone the reason to go run and look from the pocket.. because then I'm finding my aiming point or my "ghost ball" a second time..

its easy to get messed up by thinking about 47 different things. Too much at once can just make one very uptight.

 

[FranCrimi]

maybe, or just more practice. Yesterday I made a short shot between OB and CB with a long travel to a corner pocket. I didn]t hit it hard , just gave it a tap, but pretty much stopped the CB.. I missed the shot. a more experienced player watching from the opposite end said If I put "too much junk on my CB it will mess up my accuracy" .
Ill often see him make a shot and draw the CB back half way across the table to get shape. I can make them draw sometimes but finding consistency in that takes more practice so I just have to try and fail till I get better at draw shots. at first I found them really hard, I needed to get my cue closer to the table.

weve been practicing in our kitchen with half our 3/4 snooker cues, and all sorts of stuff in our way so its often hard to get the back end of the cue down near to the table because of some pot or something being in the way ! all the same it is practice at least.. Ive probably had a bit of difficulty getting my head down so low because I have stuff behind me so then I get better at shooting more upright and that's probably not a great habit.. getting my chin to touch the cue seems awkward but It would probably be the best for me to practice imoroving that stance.. so much to learn !

i think I cam to the table wiht bad habits from that and it was pointed out to me that if I dont keep the back end lower what I'm doing is scrubbing the CB on the felt and loosing my accuuracy by not being low enough..

one guy said I was in the habit of getting my finger behind the cue and messing up the very end of the stroke by maybe it being affected, he suggested I try holding the cue with 3 fingers, maybe I was holding it too tight or something..

so much to focus on..

I'm in the process of setting up a better table in a bit better location now. Im still a bit tight to the sides but shoudl be able to at least use my full cue for most shots.
I was shown to put my right foot basically across my cue line when approaching the shot, sometimes Ill take a step back to plant myself a second time if I feel Im standing off position.

a lot of them will go and look at the OB from the pocket , then go take their shot without lifting their eyes off the OB, to do that alone without breaking eye contact with the CB seems to take practice.. I think Im often still planning and changing aim when down, and maybe I shoudl try to make that whole thing more consistent.. as soon as I take my eye off the OB and look back Ive basically undone the reason to go run and look from the pocket.. because then I'm finding my aiming point or my "ghost ball" a second time..

its easy to get messed up by thinking about 47 different things. Too much at once can just make one very uptight.

Do you have a question?

 

[Kaine cues]

hi everyone, i know i've made way too many threads on eye alignment but i noticed something recently that has made me reconsider some things about my alignment.
i've done many dominant eye/vision centre tests and some tests were showing that i was right eye dominant while others were showing that i was left eye dominant and some others were showing that i was even-sighted so i was confused, but i recently i found out that i was doing some tests wrong, particularly the one's where you're standing and making a circle or triangle with your hands and you're looking through an object. these tests were showing that i was right-eye dominant but was doing it wrong, i wasn't forming a tight enough circle/triangle around the object (so that there isn't any space visible around the object). as soon as i did that it showed that i'm left eye dominant no matter how many times i did it.
now that i know for sure i'm left eye dominant since most vision tests and ball pocketing results verify it, my question is how do you find the degree of your eye dominance? what tests should you do?

Ya to me it does really matter which eye is dominate like Albin Ocean is right eye dominate but shoots with the stick way out on the left side of his face , I am a right handed shooter and recently broke my right arm so i have had to shoot left handed , I noticed my vision center is way more on the left side than i realized, you would think it would be the same left or right handed but your body is at different angles , Dr Dasve has some good exercises for finding vision center , but if your stance or head angle changes so will your vision center

 

[FranCrimi]

Ya to me it does really matter which eye is dominate like Albin Ocean is right eye dominate but shoots with the stick way out on the left side of his face , I am a right handed shooter and recently broke my right arm so i have had to shoot left handed , I noticed my vision center is way more on the left side than i realized, you would think it would be the same left or right handed but your body is at different angles , Dr Dasve has some good exercises for finding vision center , but if your stance or head angle changes so will your vision center

How do you know he's right-eye dominant?

 

[z0nt0n3r]

one thing Ive been trying is just to put a ball on the table , anywhere near the middle and my cue ball in line with the object ball and pocket, then try to sink the ball with a straight shot, and follow it in with the CB. A scratch in normal play but harder than one may think to actually do! I think that to do that on any consistent basis requires a good straight stroke., which I'm still striving towards.. any offset of the stroke pattern and both balls will not sink, it also shows a bit about top or bottom as it affects how closely it follows or if it stops or catches up to the other ball.

the other one that's harder than I thought, is to actually stop and freeze the ball, I find it much easier, if I accept some variation ,but much harder to actually freeze it right at the point of impact without it bouncing to the right or left, or forward of back at least a little. for some reason I'm prone to really making a ball to try to plant it in place, why the harder stroke seems to be required , or why it helps I can't understand. It seems common to do that when you have a duck right over a corner pocket, but it's not really necessary to smack a ball hard to make it stop. It might just be because that way I wont loose the backspin spin due to traction across the table which I can avoid completely with a harder shot.

maybe I need to discover how softly I can hit a ball, and stop it with varying distance.. because if it's a longer distance I need a certain amount of bottom, but distance between OB and CB affects all that.. Finding that threshold may help me make more successful hooks. with improved control I can hit a ball and control where the cue ball stops and doing that well gives a great advantage. Often I'm attempting to go stick to some other nearby ball, but any slight failure and it's usually not resulting in a hook but just a rather dumb looking shot..

dr dave says in one of his videos that you should be able to follow the CB in the same pocket 5 times in a row..i don't know what others think of this but to me even with very good fundamentals this seems extremely difficult to do if you have medium/long distance between the two balls. it would be easier only if you shorten the distance between the two balls.

 

[z0nt0n3r]

With a cross dominant eye you need to face your pool cue a little more. This helps you to allow for arm swing room and also to help get the other side of your head over the line of the shot. So it's actually the opposite of what you wrote --- more like the toe on the line of the shot with a cross dominant eye. But it's not just that --- because if you turn a bit more towards your pool cue (just a bit because it's not a strong cross dominant eye), you will also be adjusting your front foot slightly up and towards your cue. So the back foot moves slightly away from the line of the shot and the front foot moves slightly towards it.

So whoever told you the opposite, don't trust them. (If it was you, don't trust yourself. Haha)

i heard it from a user on here (which i don't remember the name) and also by another user who used to post here years ago who went by the name 'Pidge', he told me that in a long PM conversation we had years ago. he was a very knowledgeable poster but i think he was talking about how to align your head/dominant eye if you use a square snooker stance, not an american sideways stance so maybe that's why it's the opposite method but correct me if i'm wrong.

i don't use a square snooker stance anymore so i'm going to stick to middle of back foot or even toe on the line.

 

[Bob Jewett]

dr dave says in one of his videos that you should be able to follow the CB in the same pocket 5 times in a row..i don't know what others think of this but to me even with very good fundamentals this seems extremely difficult to do if you have medium/long distance between the two balls. it would be easier only if you shorten the distance between the two balls.

Here's a suggestion on how to use that idea to improve your game. Set up a short, straight shot that is easy for you to follow the ball into the pocket. (Put the object ball half way between the cue ball and the pocket.) After you do it five times in a row, make the shot a little longer, maybe four to six inches. Shoot that until you do it five in a row. Then make it a little longer.

Some details: You will need to know where the center of the pocket is so you can set the shot up straight. If it is a little crooked, it's much harder. You need to have good follow but not shoot too hard. You will need to see the line of the balls accurately when you set the shot up. Many beginners fail at all of those points, but if they stick with the exercise, I think they will eventually learn them all.

Keep track of your max length of shot. In later sessions, start with a length that you are comfortable with as a warm up.

 

[z0nt0n3r]

Here's a suggestion on how to use that idea to improve your game. Set up a short, straight shot that is easy for you to follow the ball into the pocket. (Put the object ball half way between the cue ball and the pocket.) After you do it five times in a row, make the shot a little longer, maybe four to six inches. Shoot that until you do it five in a row. Then make it a little longer.

Some details: You will need to know where the center of the pocket is so you can set the shot up straight. If it is a little crooked, it's much harder. You need to have good follow but not shoot too hard. You will need to see the line of the balls accurately when you set the shot up. Many beginners fail at all of those points, but if they stick with the exercise, I think they will eventually learn them all.

Keep track of your max length of shot. In later sessions, start with a length that you are comfortable with as a warm up.

i think you need to use some donuts to guarantee that the shot is set up dead-straight.

can you still set it up perfectly without some sort of equipment?

 

[Bob Jewett]

i think you need to use some donuts to guarantee that the shot is set up dead-straight.

can you still set it up perfectly without some sort of equipment?

Get a piece of string or thread as long as you need. Stretch it straight with the donuts all touching one side. Or get a laser if you're into gadgets.

But once you get used to seeing a straight line, you don't need donuts. In fact learning to see a perfectly straight shot unaided is part of the drill.

 

[FranCrimi]

i heard it from a user on here (which i don't remember the name) and also by a user who used to post here years ago who went by the name 'Pidge', he told me that in a long PM conversation we had years ago. he was a very knowledgable poster but i think he was talking about how to align your head/dominant eye if you use a square snooker stance, not an american sideways stance so maybe that's why it's the opposite method but correct me if i'm wrong.

i don't use a square snooker stance anymore so i'm going to stick to middle of back foot or even toe on the line.

Pidge is very knowledgeable, so I'm kind of surprised that he recommended moving your back foot farther over the shot line rather than away from it to get your cross-dominant eye over the cue. Not sure why he said that. I bet he was talking about a usual dominant eye.

At first thought, a player might think something like, okay, I need to get my left eye (cross dominant eye) over the shot line so I'll just move my body more to the right. That's when you get into trouble. You'll crowd the shot line and wind up with a chicken wing elbow position. You can't swing your arm where there's no room to swing it. The adjustment has to accommodate both your inside eye and your arm swing.

My stance is closer to the snooker stance than the American sideways stance, so I'm pretty familiar with it but it doesn't matter which stance you use --- You have turn the angle of your body more towards the shot line to make the adjustment. That pulls your back foot slightly more away.

 

[snookered_again]

If doughnuts will help my shoot better I'm all over that ;-) Yes, kidding !

lasers are good for alignment. I happened upon one that has a green laser that you can see the beam in the air I keep thee thing put away, not really a toy.. probably the laser level ones with red lasers are safer to play with..or the cat's toys... I used to work with invisible lasers, with those you can't see the beam as it's not in the visible spectrum, but they can burn your eye. maybe some with guns have them around , for sights.


the thing about the stance is that it's difficult to see any immediate improvement by changing it consciously. i wonder if we just naturally arrive at the best position for ourselves. Or if we tend to just be sticking to bad habits ? Its hard to tell. sure you will know if your hand is interfered with by your body. maybe it takes an expert to see what one is doing wrong. It might be one of those things easily recognizable to some with more experience, but invisible to the average joe player. maybe recognizing those problems earlier on in the learning curve is easier to correct than trying to teach an old and well trained dog, new tricks. someone said my cue is a bit too short for my height.

 

[dquarasr]

Are the following assertions true or false?

Knowing where your vision center is very important when learning fundamentals like feet, elbow, shoulder and head and eye positions in relation to the shot line.

After enough reps, ensuring your cue is under your vision center is relatively automatic, and even if you’re not aiming cognizant of where your your vision center is and positioned perfectly on the shot line, you’ve shot enough such that you’ll aim and be aligned correctly anyway.

Perhaps focusing on vision center is only required when things have gone off the rails and one needs a tuneup, or is it something to pay continual attention to?

Asking for a friend (the “bad” Doug who sometimes shows up to matches in place of the “good” Doug. )

 

[BilliardsAbout]

Are the following assertions true or false?

Knowing where your vision center is very important when learning fundamentals like feet, elbow, shoulder and head and eye positions in relation to the shot line.

After enough reps, ensuring your cue is under your vision center is relatively automatic, and even if you’re not aiming cognizant of where your your vision center is and positioned perfectly on the shot line, you’ve shot enough such that you’ll aim and be aligned correctly anyway.

Perhaps focusing on vision center is only required when things have gone off the rails and one needs a tuneup, or is it something to pay continual attention to?

Asking for a friend (the “bad” Doug who sometimes shows up to matches in place of the “good” Doug. )

You've made good points--as always. Although I wish it was automated, having a slightly wider or narrower stance day-to-day will bring (unless you force a square head with the neck) one eye closer or further to the shot day-to-day.

Also, the head tends to move laterally based on how low or high you stand to the balls--it tends to move laterally as you move vertically. A highly disciplined PSR helps, but VC being slightly or vastly off is a good check for anyone in a slump.

I know you are personally thorough and disciplined with your PSR, so this is more an issue for other players.

 

[dquarasr]

You've made good points--as always. Although I wish it was automated, having a slightly wider or narrower stance day-to-day will bring (unless you force a square head with the neck) one eye closer or further to the shot day-to-day.

Also, the head tends to move laterally based on how low or high you stand to the balls--it tends to move laterally as you move vertically. A highly disciplined PSR helps, but VC being slightly or vastly off is a good check for anyone in a slump.

I know you are personally thorough and disciplined with your PSR, so this is more an issue for other players.

Thanks for responding. The reason I am asking is because I tend not to pay much attention to it, once I learned where my vision center is. It does not seem to affect me one way or the other any longer. Nowadays it's usually stroke delivery (which I am working on) which is the root cause of misses, not aim or stance alignment (I don't think.)