will14.1 said:
I'm pretty sure this is a dumb question, but I've looked through azb for a little bit and can't really find this so here goes...
I know that most teachers and almost if not everyone advocates for a loose grip. When i go to grip the cue loosely there is space between the cue and webbing of my thumb and forefinger. With some exceptions, Deuel and Feijen come to mind first, I don't see any (or very very little) space between the cue and their grip hand. When I try to emulate this is feels as though i am gripping the cue too tight. Can someone please explain this to me. Is this an illusion on TV and DVDs? Are they gripping tighter than i might think is ok? sometimes when i tighten my grip a little bit it seems like i have better control of the cue ball.
I invite comments from anyone and everyone, but would really love some feedback from Scott and Randy G and other instructors. Sorry for the long post. If it's not clear let me know and I'll try to explain what I'm saying better.
Thanks advance,
will14.1
Will:
Observing other [great] players' grip is a very open-minded thing to do, and quite commendable on your part! Many folks pay far too much attention to bridges, bridge length/height, whether the bridging arm's elbow is locked or slightly bent, etc., yet, it is the grip that delivers the cue to the cue ball, not those other [albeit still important] body part/position factors. A loose grip is good, a wobbly or "dainty" grip is not. The key here is control; you want the cue to swing freely from the elbow, something a tight grip would prohibit. But you certainly don't want a wobbly or dainty grip to offer sideways "skew" or "yaw" to the cue as you stroke through the cue ball. Don't forget that your hand, with fingers locked in their natural grip position, is shaped like a tube. A natural pendulum stroke -- your arm swinging freely from the elbow -- imparts a natural arc that your gripping hand follows. So if we think about the sequential positioning of this "tube" as it follows this pendulum arc, at the beginning of the stroke (i.e. your gripping hand is furthest back behind you), the "tube" is pointing slightly downwards to the floor. Midway through your stroke (i.e. your arm is now perpendicular to the floor), the "tube" is parallel to the floor. And, at the end of the stroke (i.e. your gripping hand is closest to your chest or wherever on your body your particular stroke reaches its logical conclusion), the "tube" is pointed slightly upwards towards the ceiling.
This is a description of what happens with this "tube" when your fingers in your grip hand do not move, as if frozen to retain this tube shape. Naturally, a pool stroke should involve some movement in the fingers to compensate, since they need to maintain contact with the cue, that needs to travel in as straight a line to the cue ball as possible. If you watch, oh, say, Ralf Souquet (who has excellent stance and stroke mechanics), when you watch his grip hand, you can clearly see his fingers opening and closing to maintain contact with the cue. See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGSy85Chc3Q
Yet, if you watch Efren Reyes, he grips the cue on essentially only one finger -- his forefinger -- and the rest of the fingers (including the thumb) rarely make contact with the cue at all! To compensate for the fact that there's no "left-side" contact with the cue, Efren uses a retrograde wrist position (wrist curled inwards towards his body), to get the second knuckle of that index finger directly underneath the cue and the finger tip offering "left-side" stability on the cue. See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDoGDojBzRM
And here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6sKPP9nuis
(One would think Efren's fundamentals are seriously flawed with that retrograde wrist position; certainly, many notable billiards instructors cite specifically Efren [among others, like Keith McCready] as unorthodox examples. Yet, if you watch the travel of Efren's cueing -- either looking down his cue, or, if you watch Accu-Stats videos where they have overhead camera angles, you'll see that his cueing is like a laser -- it travels in a dead-straight line. The same cannot be said of Efren's peers, like, oh, say, Francisco Bustamante, where the cueing is sort of like a windmill.)
Whether the "top surface" of the gripping area of the cue touches the webbing between your thumb and forefinger (as you've no doubt noticed in the grips used by many of the pros) does not really matter. What does matter is that your grip does not offer sideways skew or yaw to the cue in flight as it travels to the cue ball.
Snooker players -- some of the greatest cueists of any cue sport -- have a more regimented grip and stroke. No space between the top surface of that cue and the webbing between the thumb and forefinger, and all four fingers maintaining contact with the cue at all times. One of the few exceptions is the great Ronnie O'Sullivan, who has a very unique grip. Whereas most pool and snooker coaches/instructors will advocate a thumb plus two-finger or three-finger grip (thumb plus index/middle or thumb plus index/middle/ring fingers), Ronnie adopted a middle/ring/pinkie grip, where the thumb and the forefinger are "just along for the ride." If you watch any Ronnie O'Sullivan video on YouTube or elsewhere, and you watch his grip carefully, you can plainly see that through his stroke, the thumb and forefinger are not the main supports for his cue -- instead, the back three fingers of his hand are! This allows his hand to actually follow through further, without the palm of his hand acting as a "brake stop" (i.e. the cue suddenly making contact with the palm forcing the end of the stroke) because the palm of his hand is actually out of the way. With this style of grip, you'll find that you can very nearly bring the cue so far forward that the butt of the cue makes contact with your forearm (i.e.: your forearm is literally "laying" on the butt of the cue). This is very hard to explain, but if you watch Ronnie's stroke closely, you'll see what I'm trying to explain -- a picture is worth a thousand words.
Also, if you watch the first DVD of Freddie The Beard's *excellent* 2-DVD series, "Banks That Don't Go, But Do!" you'll see a great synopsis on grip fundamentals, where Freddie describes the virtues of using the back fingers of the hand to grip the cue, specifically to lengthen the stroke as I attempted to describe above.
I personally adopted a middle/ring/pinkie grip of late, with the thumb and forefinger "along for the ride," offering guidance to the cue as my hand pivots on these latter three fingers, and I find my tracking of the cue (at all stages of my stroke from beginning to end), as well as cue ball control, to be better. Less "jarring" of object balls in pockets, as well. Put it this way -- it added about another rack to my 14.1/straight-pool average run.
In summary, the grip shouldn't be so loose that you lose cue ball control or your pocketing accuracy is compromised (i.e. you're just ever so slightly off that object balls are jarring in pockets), but not so tight that a natural pendulum stroke is compromised either. It's in between -- you'll have to feel this for yourself. A good suggestion would be to take some lessons in stroke fundamentals from a qualified instructor (some names like Scott Lee, Randy G., and Tom Simpson come to mind here).
Anyways, I hope this is helpful!
-Sean
