Getting down perfectly straight on the ball?

I do the same as far as looking at the object ball on the way down. I was running into problems because I was swaying at the same time, throwing off my alignment. I guess I don't always do it. When I do it's ugly.
Between that and my eyesight being screwed up, I had no chance.
Now at least I feel like I have a chance. :)
 
Shaky1 said:
I do the same as far as looking at the object ball on the way down. I was running into problems because I was swaying at the same time, throwing off my alignment. I guess I don't always do it. When I do it's ugly.
Between that and my eyesight being screwed up, I had no chance.
Now at least I feel like I have a chance. :)
Click to expand...


08-14-2012, 01:22 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by mindtriplx
Hi,

I asked a lot of good players about shotmaking/firepower, and where it came from, and almost every player gave me a different answer. One said it was natural ability, one said it was practice, another said it perception of the angles, someone said it was rhythm, and someone else said it was the stroke.

I'm a good well-rounded player, but I feel that my shotmaking may be one of the things that holds me back the most from breaking into the next level. What do I need to do to improve my pocketing ability?

I can practice tough shots over and over, and it helps, but if I stop doing it, I can feel my shot making falling back. Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks!


Posted by Fran Crimi on 8/14

Looking back on some of your older posts, you've had some issues with your fundamentals, such as crooking your arm under your body (as you call it, a 'chicken wing' problem). You also posted about head movement and jumping up on your shots.

Good shot-making comes from good fundamentals. Players arrive at good fundamentals differently. Some just get there naturally so they will tell you it's natural ability. Others work hard on their stroke, so they will tell you it's about stroke. It depends on the player and their experience.

I can tell you what it means to me: For me it starts with stance. If your stance is off, then you will always have trouble with ball pocketing. If you are standing in a way where you have to force your arm in a particular direction, you will have to practice constantly to keep that feel, because you are fighting your body. I suspect this is one of the things that may be happening to you.

I've seen top players fall out of their stances, and immediately their ball-pocketing suffers. I've watched them turn to aiming systems and other things to try to get back their ball pocketing skills, but eventually, those systems fail them because it wasn't the cause of their problem in the first place.

Start with your stance.

End Post.

The response in bold type is probably the best piece of information anyone could ever read and apply.

I have read this post many times and have applied it. Its bullet proof. Bottom line is Dont fight your body keep it natural.

Thanks again Fran. :)

John
 
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I read that when she posted it. :wink:
She is a smart lady! I never said she wasn't!
I read everything around here. :wink:
Sometimes you don't always do things the same, even if you think you do.
 
Heck, I even have about 8 hours of video thanks to Scott Lee where I didn't do it! If I didn't do it, he wouldn't see it.
I would recomend Scott to anyone, don't get me wrong!
He fixed what he saw that was broke! :)
 
I'm like a car with 500,000 miles on the odometer.
You fix one thing and something else breaks. :wink:
 
i am cross eye dominant, right handed left eye dominant. When i played baseball i hit much better with a closed stance because it allowed my left eye to pick up the ball more. However when i started playing pool i was using a more open stance. I recently realized ive had my right foot outside the aiming line, to the right of the aiming line, so that i was stroking into my body a little bit, or chicken winging my stroke. I corrected this and moved my right foot more inside, which closed my stance up a bit, but i seem to be seeing shots much better. I was watching mike sigel play and noticed his right foot is very far over, more inside the line, i wonder if he is cross eye dominant. Right now i think my toes are on the aiming line. But it doesnt seem to hurt my game if i even put my foot more inside, however putting my foot more outside like my heel on the aiming line screws me up, i think this is because of being cross eye dominant
 
Hi all,

without wanting to offend here perhaps someone-
If you really have the bad luck to have really trouble with *seeing the straight line*, this is something what is almost not to fix by yourself.

You yourself then will not know if you have an alignment problem (stance, setup-position wrong, strokearm crooked or whatever..just to name examples), or if you really have problem with your eyes- furthermore it could be both.
so how would you be able to fix it yourself? To try to fix something like that via phone, or per reading advices in a forum can be in most cases a dead-end-street.

There are also superexpensive trainings-aids that promise here help- some are nice of course-but without a knowledged person in my opinion again not to recommend.

The key is at least to put it all together- to go down perfect aligned down to/into the shot. And here you have to put your puzzle together :-)
Your body and your vision-center.
Once one of these are off the line....you will start to make it a habit-and then you have a real problem.

my opinion from my expirience.
 
Golf and pool are noticeably different, yet share many common denominators.

jordan23042000 said:
i am cross eye dominant, right handed left eye dominant. When i played baseball i hit much better with a closed stance because it allowed my left eye to pick up the ball more. However when i started playing pool i was using a more open stance. I recently realized ive had my right foot outside the aiming line, to the right of the aiming line, so that i was stroking into my body a little bit, or chicken winging my stroke. I corrected this and moved my right foot more inside, which closed my stance up a bit, but i seem to be seeing shots much better. I was watching mike sigel play and noticed his right foot is very far over, more inside the line, i wonder if he is cross eye dominant. Right now i think my toes are on the aiming line. But it doesnt seem to hurt my game if i even put my foot more inside, however putting my foot more outside like my heel on the aiming line screws me up, i think this is because of being cross eye dominant
Click to expand...

Golf and pool are noticeably different, yet share many common denominators. imho

"I've never given the matter of master eye (dominant eye) much thought, all I know is I play better with two, than I do with one." - Bobby Jones

Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening - and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.
- Arnold Palmer
common%20denominators%20for%20success_0.jpg
 
Some people have a closed stance, some an open stance. As far as I can see most top players use a stance approx. 45% to the shot. I use this posture. I believe it to offer the best in balance as well as maximum clearance for the cue past my hip. There are two aiming points on every shot. The first is where the tip of the cue stick is intended to meet the cue ball. The second is obviously the striking point on the object ball. I use a preshot routine where I line up the shot and take one step in and pivot my back foot while keeping my head focused on the cue ball. Get in the habit of never having to take two steps to get into position.

First things first. Like an animal stalking its prey. Ever seen those National Geographic shows where the lion charges after the water buffalo? The lion never takes its eyes off the prey. When setting up, the cue ball is the prey. The initial placement of my feet dictate the path of the shot. I'm not a golfer but I believe that this is how they choose the direction for the flight of the ball. Once down, If I need to tweek my position slightlly I never do it by shifting my hips. I might shuffle my feet one way or the other until I've reached the proper position to assure an accurate path for the cue ball. If I'm way off line I get up and start over. This is rare but it does happen. The feet are the key and foundation to every shot. Whatever body placement you use on standard shots you should use that same placement each and every time. (A standard shot being one in which the table doesn't obstruct your stance in any way.) I think of my body posture as though I were a statue moved into position for each shot. Every muscle juxtapositoned the same, time after time with one possible variable. I want to see clearly both the cue ball and the object ball without having to use peripheral vision, so I will get my head down lower for shots with greater space between cue ball and object ball. In these cases I will spread my feet wider apart so I don't have to bend at the waist quite as much. I don't squat with both knees bent! Some people get very low on all shots but I don't see that as all that necessary as long as I can see the two balls clearly at the same time.

Tom
 
While I agree that a stance and foot position can help or hurt a players alignment significantly, players come in all shapes and sizes, and some have physical limitations. I don't agree that there is a one size fits all approach that would work for everyone.

Getting properly aligned is really what matters. There are times that we have to stretch over the table for the shot, and our feet are no where near where many say they must be, and we can still get aligned properly and make the shot. Even when the table isn't in the way, players with unorthodox stances can still align well.

My focus is getting the player aligned and finding their proper foot position that is stable and comfortable. Once they can do this, their learning accelerates.

Do any of you who strongly stress foot position come across players who then can't align very well or are uncomfortable when the do? How do you resolve this?

pool+player.jpg
 
Mark Avlon said:
While I agree that a stance and foot position can help or hurt a players alignment significantly, players come in all shapes and sizes, and some have physical limitations. I don't agree that there is a one size fits all approach that would work for everyone.

Getting properly aligned is really what matters. There are times that we have to stretch over the table for the shot, and our feet are no where near where many say they must be, and we can still get aligned properly and make the shot. Even when the table isn't in the way, players with unorthodox stances can still align well.

My focus is getting the player aligned and finding their proper foot position that is stable and comfortable. Once they can do this, their learning accelerates.

Do any of you who strongly stress foot position come across players who then can't align very well or are uncomfortable when the do? How do you resolve this?
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe it's possible to pocket any given shot while standing off-balance. However, the chances of total success, which includes getting desired cb position, diminish with the difficulty of the shot.

The reason I used the term 'off-balance' is because I believe that's mainly what happens when the player's foot position is not complimentary to their cue stick alignment.

In some cases, as with certain stretch shots, it's not possible to get your feet into perfect alignment. I recommend in those circumstances for the player to get their back leg in line with their cue if at all possible. In such cases it may mean putting that leg up on the table. It turns the hips in the correct position to help place the torso in line with the shot and it also decreases balance problems on that shot.

Regarding players who can't seem to get the whole alignment thing, I try to diagnose why they are having problems. The solution depends on the why. Sometimes it's because a bad habit is ingrained very deeply and the player will have to accept a bit of a struggle to make the correction. Some players give up too soon. It took them years to ingrain the bad habit. They can't change it overnight. They will need patience and persistence.
 
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snooker alignment

take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wafKOsa8-M

I first played cue sports (snooker) in Nigeria as teenager almost 50 years ago and have always appreciated the importance of solid fundamentals. Over the last 45 years I have dabbled with pool on and off (military-marriage-divorce-marriage-work and kids) and have now retired and am trying to resurrect my game. My home practice table is a 9’ Lehmacher with 4 ½” pockets and Simonis 760. As I was trying to work through the best approach I saw these dartfish snooker videos and bought a video camera and Pro-v1 video analysis software (dartfish was $1k+ / pro-v1 home $39). I have made a lot of progress most notably in the area of alignment and I have quieted my shoulder and elbow.
I recently saw the Pro one aiming dvd and felt immediately I would not be able to adapt to Stan’s technique because of the different approach he has to alignment. In fact my conclusion was after watching the first part of the dvd his aiming system is really an alignment system. Am I wrong?

Bert
 
Shot Alignment

row21097 said:
take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wafKOsa8-M

I first played cue sports (snooker) in Nigeria as teenager almost 50 years ago and have always appreciated the importance of solid fundamentals. Over the last 45 years I have dabbled with pool on and off (military-marriage-divorce-marriage-work and kids) and have now retired and am trying to resurrect my game. My home practice table is a 9’ Lehmacher with 4 ½” pockets and Simonis 760. As I was trying to work through the best approach I saw these dartfish snooker videos and bought a video camera and Pro-v1 video analysis software (dartfish was $1k+ / pro-v1 home $39). I have made a lot of progress most notably in the area of alignment and I have quieted my shoulder and elbow.
I recently saw the Pro one aiming dvd and felt immediately I would not be able to adapt to Stan’s technique because of the different approach he has to alignment. In fact my conclusion was after watching the first part of the dvd his aiming system is really an alignment system. Am I wrong?

Bert
Click to expand...

Bert,
Thankyou for posting the link, very helpful. I had noticed that I have days where I make shots like a machine and others not as well and I knew that I hadnt unlearned what I knew in such a short period of time. The fellow first displayed in clip would obviously have more reason to find himself missing shots than the second fellow who stayed exactly on the line.

I followed something CJ Wiley said about tossing a coin underhanded at the shot and noticed I felt better about my setup and used that to step straight into the shot and I felt like I had become more consistent immediately. After seeing this I now understand how keeping the head perfectly on the aiming line is very important. I have made a modification of my own that seems to work very well for me. I note the cut of the shot and I make an adjustment and get down on a line that puts me closer to correct so I have smaller adjustments to make.

I dont worry if this line isnt perfect from onset but I do stay with it as I get down so any adjustments are very minor. I imagine that as I do this I will find myself closer to perfection each time. As for dominant eye..I am left eye dominant...per this thread. In my own opinion eye dominance doesnt matter as much as getting setup the same each time, this way the information you are getting to the eye is consistent. Of course if a certain position facilitates better vision....yeah I agree but being left eye dominate and right handed well I shoot with both eyes open and I shoot better if my head is not only in the same place but stays on the aiming line all the way down into setup just as the link suggests is best practices to do. I incidentally shoot a pistol both eyes open, a bow both eyes open, and was really good pitcher in baseball in my youth, a rifle I use my right eye but it is noticeably non dominate. Ive been tempted to wear a patch over the left to increase my strength of the right eye. I will go without my glasses and oddly it seems to help my vision. I have to wonder if glasses can actually make things worse at times.

Thankyou for posting the link, it was very informative.

Just another lovely day in paradise....

336Robin :thumbup:

aimisthegameinpool.com
aimisthegameinpool@yahoo.com
 
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