Great mechanics but horrible shot making, can it happen?

When I ran my first poolroom in Houston in the early 80's, one of my regular customers named Mike had a picture perfect stroke. I would watch this guy and be amazed by how pure it was. On top of that, he had an extensive knowledge of the game and its history.

Problem was, he couldn't run four balls. All he ever said was it had something to do with his eyes.

At the time, I was giving free group lessons in the early evenings a couple of days a week to get business in the place. I ran an ad in a small regional paper saying "Ladies-- tired of watching your boyfriend/husband go out to play pool. Well, learn to play and go with him! FREE LESSONS! " Since it was free, people came out of the woodwork. The classes eventually became larger than I could handle.

Mike volunteered to help instruct along with me. It was like a duck takes to water. This guy could teach.

Eventually, I let him take over the classes. He ended up charging for private lessons and built it into a great side business.
 
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Sounds good............

Sloppy Pockets said:
Gene, I just got called up from the table by the boss. I promised her we'd watch a movie tonight, otherwise I'd take you up on your offer right now.

Would late tomorrow afternoon work for you? I can't tell you how much I appreciate your offer. You must really love the game to be so generous with your time. :)
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I got one player calling at 2:00 PM central time.

Should be done by 3:00Pm.

Can't wait. I'm excited to help.

And make the game a little more fun for some fellow AZers.

Looking forward to it.
 
Wish I could and hope I can......................

ipoppa33 said:
Gene please gas up your RV and make a trip to Mass or Rhode Island so we could get lessons. I'll book a lesson right now if you come tour New England.

Stan
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Getting my neck fixed soon. Car accident in Peoria 11 months ago has taken it's toll.

I have stenosis for sure and something else in there that they will probably find once they go in.

Losing all the strength in my hands and arms and can't hardly play 2 days in a row. without allot of pain.

The surgery should fix the problem and the strength will come back.

Then I can start traveling again.

MA is up there but you never know.

Thanks for your interest.........
 
Sure, it's actually kind of common. Find a relative amateur who got good coaching early on.

They have good form, they know to avoid steering and dipping and other bad habits.
But they're going to miss routine shots because they just don't know where to aim.
They haven't hit that shot a million times yet so when they're lining up,
they don't have that little voice in their head that says "ok, stop adjusting, that's perfect."

It could be the head position as Geno says.

Another common flaw is someone perceiving center ball incorrectly.
They put a hair of left on every single shot that they think is centerball, or a hair of right.
 
CreeDo said:
Another common flaw is someone perceiving center ball incorrectly.
They put a hair of left on every single shot that they think is centerball, or a hair of right.
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This is what my wife does...and she never realizes it. I have worked with her countless times to remedy the situation...but to no avail. She just cannot seem to find the true center of the ball.

The good news is....it's just not THAT important to her.

Maniac
 
That thing with the wife and hitting with left English all the time....

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I can fix this in a quick hurry.......it's simple......

Maniac said:
This is what my wife does...and she never realizes it. I have worked with her countless times to remedy the situation...but to no avail. She just cannot seem to find the true center of the ball.

The good news is....it's just not THAT important to her.

Maniac
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If she has the dominant eye in the most dominant position she will be able to get to the middle of the ball.

Do this for yourself Maniac. Get down on a shot and then move your head over so your non dominant eye is doing the aiming. You will see that you can't even line up in the middle of the ball now.

I see it all the time.

Once the dominant eye is in the most dominant position the player can envision the shot correctly and actually see if the cue is in the middle of the cue ball.

Hit a million balls and you will naturally get there from repetition. If you got time.

Or you can just learn how to get the manually. it's call perfect aim as you already have heard..............

maniac, have her call me for the free phone lesson and I'll show you that it is all the eyes. She'ld have allot more fun playing with the eyes in the right position also. It suck to not be able to see what's going on. Give me a call and have her by the table.

715-563-8712 Got a phone lesson at 2:00 today. Got one at 10:00 PM. I'm available between 3:00 PM to 8:00 PM.

it would be fun to show her............she might even get more excited about the game of pool................
 
Gene...thanks for the tip....but it is not me that has the problem. I don't have a problem hitting center cue ball...and I have been experimenting with eye placement for some time now. My problem is with the vertebrae in my neck...coupled with the 2 shoulder surgeries I've had (and some other physical impairments) causing me to have what seems like a non-repairable wobbly stroke.

OTOH...I have determined which eye is my wife's dominant one....have worked countless times with her eye placement...and she is just tired of trying. Pool just doesn't mean as much to her as it does to a lot of us...and I'm just glad she plays it with me...so, I don't want to run her off from over-teaching her.

But...thanks again for doing all that you do for people. You're a good man, IMO!!!

Maniac
 
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Maniac, for your wife, have you tried Joe Tuckers 3rd Eye Stroke Trainer? It's a dohickey you put on the end of you cue to teach you center ball. It works really well, Joe has a bunch of video's on his website or youtube that will show you how it works.

Good luck. Stan
 
ipoppa33 said:
Maniac, for your wife, have you tried Joe Tuckers 3rd Eye Stroke Trainer? It's a dohickey you put on the end of you cue to teach you center ball. It works really well, Joe has a bunch of video's on his website or youtube that will show you how it works.

Good luck. Stan
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I'll second this, I had an ex that did the same thing.
Got her the stroke trainer, really opened her eyes.

You could say she "real eyes"ed that her "real eyes" weren't where she...
ahhh f*ck it.
 
CreeDo said:
I'll second this, I had an ex that did the same thing.
Got her the stroke trainer, really opened her eyes.

You could say she "real eyes"ed that her "real eyes" weren't where she...
ahhh f*ck it.
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You could also say, "The 3rd eye is the teacher." Even has a strangely familiar fortune cookie flavor to it.
 
The eyes have it

I agree with the gent up there who offered the free phone lesson. In my humble opinion it could be one of two things: His dominant eye is not over the cue and he's seeing a false picture, or he may have an astigmatism in one or both eyes which could cause a "ghost" image to appear around the ball. In fact...I have astigmatism in both eyes but over the years I've learned to aim at the image in the center......sort of. I'm almost willing to bet if you had him put his "OTHER" eye over the cue you'd see a world of difference almost immediately.
 
Vince_Former_BB said:
I agree with the gent up there who offered the free phone lesson. In my humble opinion it could be one of two things: His dominant eye is not over the cue and he's seeing a false picture, or he may have an astigmatism in one or both eyes which could cause a "ghost" image to appear around the ball. In fact...I have astigmatism in both eyes but over the years I've learned to aim at the image in the center......sort of. I'm almost willing to bet if you had him put his "OTHER" eye over the cue you'd see a world of difference almost immediately.
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Gene was great when I called him. He made me see without doubt which eye was dominant, and that I was not consistently getting my dominant eye over the cue.

I had a very interesting day working on several things that he made me aware of, and I came to a rather startling conclusion. Too soon to declare it as a major breakthrough for me, but there is no doubt that I am shooting better after our conversation than I was before it.
 
I wasn't surprised by the eye,,,,,

Sloppy Pockets said:
Gene was great when I called him. He made me see without doubt which eye was dominant, and that I was not consistently getting my dominant eye over the cue.

I had a very interesting day working on several things that he made me aware of, and I came to a rather startling conclusion. Too soon to declare it as a major breakthrough for me, but there is no doubt that I am shooting better after our conversation than I was before it.
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This happens allot when a player having trouble with one eye and it turns out to be the dominant one.

The dominant eye seems to keep working like the dominant eye until the player loses at least 80 to 90% percent of the vision.

The main thing is your game will improve now because you can actually see what's going on literally.

I enjoyed working with you and good luck...........
 
It is super simple. If your mechanics are perfect and and the equipment is fine and you miss then you are lined up wrong.

People get down on shots thinking they are correct when they are not. Everything looks right to them.




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John is right. There are only two ways to miss a shot...line up poorly or stroke poorly. I've had many students who did not "perceive" the shot line correctly. It's not always about the dominant eye, as some would suggest.

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

JB Cases said:
It is super simple. If your mechanics are perfect and and the equipment is fine and you miss then you are lined up wrong.

People get down on shots thinking they are correct when they are not. Everything looks right to them.




Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk
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Scott Lee said:
John is right. There are only two ways to miss a shot...line up poorly or stroke poorly.
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You're both wrong....there are three ways (and probably more if I wanted to spend more time investigating it).

You can also miss a shot due to the pocket simply not accepting the ball. I looked for but couldn't locate a Youtube video where Efren Reyes was playing someone and he shot a ball into a pocket and the ball came right back out onto the table. Then, his opponent attempted to pocket the same ball into the same pocket with the very same result. Both shots went cleanly into the pocket, but.............

I hope somebody finds that link and posts it.

Maniac
 
Maniac said:
You're both wrong....there are three ways (and probably more if I wanted to spend more time investigating it).

You can also miss a shot due to the pocket simply not accepting the ball. I looked for but couldn't locate a Youtube video where Efren Reyes was playing someone and he shot a ball into a pocket and the ball came right back out onto the table. Then, his opponent attempted to pocket the same ball into the same pocket with the very same result. Both shots went cleanly into the pocket, but.............

I hope somebody finds that link and posts it.

Maniac
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Actually I posted above that as long as the equipment is in order AND the stroke is true then only way to miss is alignment.

A ball that is spit out of a pocket, as in it went INTO the pocket and came back out is counted as a miss per the rules but is not really a miss. When I play I will almost always give such shots back to the shooter because I don't count them as a miss. The only time I don't give them back is if the ball comes out and disturbs the layout.

We are talking about situations where it's user error though and not equipment issues such as the balls rolls over a piece of chalk.
 
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