Good practice techniques for a beginner

SeniorTom

SeniorTom

Well-known member
I am a decent player for an individual who has only been playing two years, but I am still not happy with aspects of my game. I have had a couple lessons from a local Pro, but still have difficulty getting parts of his instruction included in my play. One thing that is disappointing is how I have a tendency to stand up too quickly after a shot. I have been told over and over again to stay down after the shot and follow through. I use predominantly and open Bridge, and also have a difficult time incorporating a closed bridge when appropriate. I know this is on me, but I need some practice techniques that will force me to shore up my bridge and my stroke to get to the next level. I am a 470 Fargo and climbing. Any advice on how to practice to reinforce proper technique into my stroke?
 
Want to learn how to pocket balls. Miss less. Know the quality drills. Find a certified SPF Instructor. You’ll have a reliable shooting system. Otherwise you will do the same thing over and over.
Just my experience.
As for jumping up… follow through and freeze.
 
As you stroke CB keep your head level and unmoving until the last ball on the table stops moving.
By leaving your head in its original position, you can see if CB rolls down the line you intended, you can see the point of contact, you can see side-spin throw effects, and you can see if OB rolls down the intended line.
If you move your head, you cannot.
 
What causes the head to come up? I struggled with this same problem. What I figured out was when I would started my forward stroke was that I pushing up with my legs. Try shooting and make sure you relax your legs and let me know if it works for you.

Another technique I have used is to concentrate on keeping your belly button still. If it doesn’t move your head won’t move. I tried just keeping my head still and maybe it was just because it had become an unconscious habit but I could never break the habit just concentrating on keeping my head still.
 
Does it happen on every shot?
Long shots?
pressure shots?
When you are unsure you will make the ball or position?
You could video yourself through a few racks to see when it's happening and then try to diagnose/ solve it.
 
Follow through and Freeze until the ball stops rolling. When practicing say to yourself Follow Through and Freeze....until it becomes a habit. Are lifting your shoulder, wrist twisting? STAY DOWN...do not move.
 
Whatever you practice (and you should practice on your own), keep score. To see weaknesses and track improvements.

If drills get to boring and cumbersome to set up, for 9 ball I like x ball, a variation of playing the ghost. In short, try to break and run the table with ball in hand. Start with 5 balls and do it over and over. You run out, you get 1 point. If not, you loose a point. At +5, you add a ball, at -5, you take one away. You can play this for hours and hours.
 
Could be a number of reasons. Maybe your stance is off and your stroking arm can’t come through cause your body’s in the way so you feel like you have to move to make room for it.
Maybe your forearm on your grip hand is not perpendicular to the floor when your tip is at CB so you’re stroke is either overextended causing you to have a Johnny(who’s Johnny) Archer break stroke on every shot or just the opposite whereas your stroke is almost complete before your tip even reaches the CB causing you to push through to complete it. Maybe your bridge hand is too far from CB causing you to feel like you have to reach.
Fix all these problems first, get your bridge hand a comfortable distance from CB, there’s a way to find out exactly where that is, but for now just a comfortable sight picture for you, make sure you’re in a comfortable stance with your body out of the way of your cue so it can come through. Now you need a defined “finish”, mine is on my chest, where your grip hand will hit after you’ve completed your stroke.
Go to table with no balls, close your eyes after everything looks good and just stroke focusing on hitting your chest with your grip hand on each stroke. You won’t stand up because your chest will move and you won’t hit the same spot so you’ll automatically stay down.
Once you’re comfortable with this have someone help you by putting a ball on the spot and shooting it in one of the far corners with your grip hand going to finish, don’t move until your helper puts another ball on the spot and repeat, you’re building muscle memory fast. Your helper can also correct your grip hand to perpendicular without you having to move. Shoot the ball in corner varying your speed but always hitting finish.
Later on even if you decide to drop your elbow, which is ok after you’ve learned to stay down you will still have a solid base and you won’t move.
When you get in a match leave all of this on the practice table and only concentrate on making the ball and getting to the next one
 
You'll get some decent advice from this thread, but interpreting the posters' words vs their thoughts very likely will lead you to some other place.

Hit a Million Balls seems to be a fav mantra.

Find and invest in a Certified or Highly Credentialed Instructor. They can reduce your table time $$ by 75%? If you take their advice.
Stick with one Instructor (if you like what's going on) till you have their teaching ingrained. Then you can search for others for different ideas.

I wouldn't worry about not having a decent Closed Bridge. I can't think of a single World Class Snooker player that uses a closed bridge.
I don't remember ever seeing a Snooker Player ever going there. There's no reason for a closed bridge, except to mitigate for faulty stroke mechanics.

An Open Bridge will readily disclose delivery faults, if any.
 
SeniorTom said:
I know this is on me, but I need some practice techniques that will force me to shore up my bridge and my stroke to get to the next level. I am a 470 Fargo and climbing. Any advice on how to practice to reinforce proper technique into my stroke?
Click to expand...
While practicing you might just have to add it as a PSR step, something like thinking "pro level stroke" or "take your time" or whatever you need to do. While burning the habit in you might have to be very deliberate with that part that is giving you trouble. Once it's a habit you won't have to be as deliberate.
 
3kushn said:
You'll get some decent advice from this thread, but interpreting the posters' words vs their thoughts very likely will lead you to some other place.

Hit a Million Balls seems to be a fav mantra.

Find and invest in a Certified or Highly Credentialed Instructor. They can reduce your table time $$ by 75%? If you take their advice.
Stick with one Instructor (if you like what's going on) till you have their teaching ingrained. Then you can search for others for different ideas.

I wouldn't worry about not having a decent Closed Bridge. I can't think of a single World Class Snooker player that uses a closed bridge.
I don't remember ever seeing a Snooker Player ever going there. There's no reason for a closed bridge, except to mitigate for faulty stroke mechanics.

An Open Bridge will readily disclose delivery faults, if any.
Click to expand...
Had to do the like reply thing. 😉
Now for the old fart story. 😉
Well first my credentials are available. I post under my name. I have achieved a master level of success on the pool table. Well according to BCAPL. Probably fell out if that class by now as that was a while ago. 🤷‍♂️
My background in sports training is huge.
My pocket billiards training started with a book. Willie Mosconi seemed like a good place to start. 😉 My earliest education was a Little House on the Prairie school. 2 rooms for 1st through 4th in one and 5 to 8 in the other. The book Mobil was my source for stories of the baseball greats. I read 'em all. Yogi Berra was my favorite.
I had the good fortune of encountering Backward Jan at a time when I had plateaued plat o Ed on the pool table. Any way I was stuck at B+. My first inquiry to lessons was met with a interesting response. It was yes, under certain conditions. ..the requirement was, back to the basics. Start over from ground one when I was 10 years into the game. Best OK I ever said.
Building from the ground up. Start with the other hand. No Really!
Martial Art goes hand in hand with pool. Interlocking fingers comes to mind.
 
Zerksies said:
I use to get up alot. Then i did one drill and it fixed it perminately. Shoot the ball and stay down till the balls stop moving. About two weeks of daily practice and it's never happened since.
Click to expand...
Yes this is a simple fix. Stay down until the ball (A) stops moving or (B) drops in the pocket.
 
couldnthinkof01 said:
Does it happen on every shot?
Long shots?
pressure shots?
When you are unsure you will make the ball or position?
You could video yourself through a few racks to see when it's happening and then try to diagnose/ solve it.
Click to expand...
It happens more on longer shots that are struck a bit harder than normal, and also when I try to put follow on the ball. I can draw the ball better than I can follow, and I think when I try to put topspin on the ball I lift up in that attempt. I am going to videotape some solo sessions on my table downstairs and see what I come up with. I usually don't like what I see when I videotape myself, but I think that is the best way to see what's going on.
 
stewie said:
Start with 5 balls and do it over and over. You run out, you get 1 point. If not, you loose a point. At +5, you add a ball, at -5, you take one away. You can play this for hours and hours.
Click to expand...
I have tried this technique starting with five balls of the same suit and the eight ball, then try to run out. I just throw them on the table randomly and play the cue ball where it lies. I made it through the 5+8ball run out, getting to plus five. Then I threw an extra ball out there and went back and forth for a while before I ended my session, but was at -1. I will pick up on that session next time and see if I can run out six balls plus the 8 ball and make it to plus five. That is a good exercise to attempt. I expect myself to get through all seven balls plus the eight ball eventually.
 
Zerksies said:
I use to get up alot. Then i did one drill and it fixed it perminately. Shoot the ball and stay down till the balls stop moving. About two weeks of daily practice and it's never happened since.
Click to expand...
I seem to fall out of the habit of staying down, and have to make that my main focus for the next couple weeks. I stay down for a period of time and then seem to slip out of that process, never able to make a habit out of it. It sounds like it's easy to do, and should be, but I have to be more persistent in my mindset. I will get this done eventually, because that's how I make demands of myself, to get better.
 
tim913 said:
Could be a number of reasons. Maybe your stance is off and your stroking arm can’t come through cause your body’s in the way so you feel like you have to move to make room for it.
Maybe your forearm on your grip hand is not perpendicular to the floor when your tip is at CB so you’re stroke is either overextended causing you to have a Johnny(who’s Johnny) Archer break stroke on every shot or just the opposite whereas your stroke is almost complete before your tip even reaches the CB causing you to push through to complete it. Maybe your bridge hand is too far from CB causing you to feel like you have to reach.
Fix all these problems first, get your bridge hand a comfortable distance from CB, there’s a way to find out exactly where that is, but for now just a comfortable sight picture for you, make sure you’re in a comfortable stance with your body out of the way of your cue so it can come through. Now you need a defined “finish”, mine is on my chest, where your grip hand will hit after you’ve completed your stroke.
Go to table with no balls, close your eyes after everything looks good and just stroke focusing on hitting your chest with your grip hand on each stroke. You won’t stand up because your chest will move and you won’t hit the same spot so you’ll automatically stay down.
Once you’re comfortable with this have someone help you by putting a ball on the spot and shooting it in one of the far corners with your grip hand going to finish, don’t move until your helper puts another ball on the spot and repeat, you’re building muscle memory fast. Your helper can also correct your grip hand to perpendicular without you having to move. Shoot the ball in corner varying your speed but always hitting finish.
Later on even if you decide to drop your elbow, which is ok after you’ve learned to stay down you will still have a solid base and you won’t move.
When you get in a match leave all of this on the practice table and only concentrate on making the ball and getting to the next one
Click to expand...
I went down and hit a few racks in, and it seems to help staying down. I make a point of staying down a priority in my shot whether I make the shot or not, my goal is just to stay down. My biggest issue is being like-minded for a while to make it a habit. This is going to be my goal now until it becomes a part of my shot. I am tired of jumping up and not staying up. I use predominantly an open Bridge and am incorporating more a clothes Bridge when the shot allows for it. One issue my instructor told me a while back is that sometimes I grip too hard with my backhand and that forces the cue upwards .
 
SeniorTom said:
I seem to fall out of the habit of staying down, and have to make that my main focus for the next couple weeks.
Click to expand...
Yeah. Everything is easier if stay still.
My suggestion is isolation of skill.
Staying down on pool stroke is a skill.

Try first shoot shots directly to pocket without object ball and just focus staying still. Shoot fast and slow speed shots. You will notice it will come easy very fast.
Then just spread all 15 balls and shoot them in with cueball. Idea is to get used staying still while more game like situation.
Dont care anything else than staying down. Missing or position dont matter. Success = staying down
You will notice how staying down while aiming cuts is a lot harder than without object ball. It is natural, because some of our focus goes into that.

I made video to my little sister about this subject years ago when she did have problems with staying down.
I do example half hour practice. You can notice i stay better still on my shots than normally because im focusing it.
I recommend doing this routine 2 weeks daily and you will improve faster than you could imagine.
 
SeniorTom said:
It happens more on longer shots that are struck a bit harder than normal, and also when I try to put follow on the ball. I can draw the ball better than I can follow, and I think when I try to put topspin on the ball I lift up in that attempt. I am going to videotape some solo sessions on my table downstairs and see what I come up with. I usually don't like what I see when I videotape myself, but I think that is the best way to see what's going on.
Click to expand...
Watching yourself on video exposes all the faults. Don't feel bad, I think most people feel that way, I know I do.
I noticed sometimes my body would get in the way on longer draw shots and I was popping up from it. Too low over the cue. Had to make some space. Shots I had to hit harder were also a struggle. Staying down and trusting the stroke feels weird at first. So good when you learn to trust it. It even sounds better.
Like others have said, practicing drills/ racks with the sole focus of staying down for a few weeks. It's challenging but you can do it.

Sometimes it's mental, sometimes it's physical. Sometimes both. Finding out which shots give you the most trouble will give you drills to work on it.
 
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