grip question

[dmgwalsh]

I'm working on a lighter grip, thumb and first two fingers mainly, and trying to add a loose wrist action to my stroke. For those of you who do anything similar, do you keep the action light throughout the stroke? I noticed I was inadvertantly squeezing firmly right at the impact. Now I am trying to keep it loose at impact. Anybody do either? with what results?

 

[timbo.hobo]

I used to grip loosely (cue cradled with 4 fingers, first joint of the thumb touching cue, nothing touching the palm) throughout my whole stroke until the very end right before i throw the cue, that's when I hold on tighter. After a while i found that when i tighten my grip to prevent my cue from being thrown, my wrist will cock inwards and throw my stroke way off line, and I lacked power. I'm now gripping with the cue with my palm completely wrapped around, that kind of automatically increases the grip pressure slightly; which is enough to keep from cocking my wrist, and gives much better control on harder shots. I remind myself to keep my wrist soft when applying english because if i stroke through with a stiff wrist, the cueball squirts a mile. That's my experience, hope it helps!

Tim.

 

[mjantti]

I switched to a more loose grip lately and it works super for me ! But, I have quite unorthodox grip, I have the cue in the palm of my grip hand, touching only the area where the thumb "begins". Then I curl my index finger under the cue in a way that only my fingertip touches the cue. I found out that I get all the unwanted wrist action eliminated with this index fingertip thing. I used to have lots of problems with wrist action when trying to play with the "cradle" grip but now they're all gone. And I try to squeeze the cue as little as possible, less squeeze = less muscle tension = more relaxed and straight stroke. Also I hit the cueball much more consistent with my new loose grip.

Oh, I played with more than 10 years with a normal grip with many alternations, but never had the consistency I have nowadays with my new not-so-common grip. Played with my new grip for 2 years now and never switching back to the text-book grip ! So, what I'm trying to say, don't be afraid to try out different grips. Also, have a mirror and check out your new grip and shooting arm action if your stroke is straight and avoid learning a wrist action to compensate your shooting arm action flaws, which is quite common on new grips or with new players... it leads to a fact that one day you might play great and the next day you totally suck and have no idea why the stroke isn't straight anymore. Consistent arm movement is much easier to learn than consistent wrist action.

 

[bigfoot]

Grip

I'm working on a lighter grip, thumb and first two fingers mainly, and trying to add a loose wrist action to my stroke. For those of you who do anything similar, do you keep the action light throughout the stroke? I noticed I was inadvertantly squeezing firmly right at the impact. Now I am trying to keep it loose at impact. Anybody do either? with what results?

Grip a word meaning, to sieze, hold, grasp. The mind has learned long ago the definition of this word. The "grip" is more aptly applied to the structure of the hand/characteristics on the cue butt, the actual "action" of the rear hand is a side to side "pinch". Nick Varner said long ago, you don't grip/grab a can of soda you hold it. Cradle the butt with your grip hand (palm of course not touching the butt, unless you have very tiny hands), give it a SIDE TO SIDE "PINCH", if you find slippage, address the slippage. Is your hand too dry (I used to always have hand cream in my car to soften my back hand as I drove to the tournament), if leather, does the surface not have enough tack and so on, hope this helps. BF

 

[cut shot]

That is real good advise! I am going to try it your way this weekend. I too, have recently switched to a loose grip and everything you said clicked in my mind. I must constantly monitor my grip as I noticed when under pressure my grip hand will tighten up. My stroke arm is probebly doing the same!

I switched to a more loose grip lately and it works super for me ! But, I have quite unorthodox grip, I have the cue in the palm of my grip hand, touching only the area where the thumb "begins". Then I curl my index finger under the cue in a way that only my fingertip touches the cue. I found out that I get all the unwanted wrist action eliminated with this index fingertip thing. I used to have lots of problems with wrist action when trying to play with the "cradle" grip but now they're all gone. And I try to squeeze the cue as little as possible, less squeeze = less muscle tension = more relaxed and straight stroke. Also I hit the cueball much more consistent with my new loose grip.

Oh, I played with more than 10 years with a normal grip with many alternations, but never had the consistency I have nowadays with my new not-so-common grip. Played with my new grip for 2 years now and never switching back to the text-book grip ! So, what I'm trying to say, don't be afraid to try out different grips. Also, have a mirror and check out your new grip and shooting arm action if your stroke is straight and avoid learning a wrist action to compensate your shooting arm action flaws, which is quite common on new grips or with new players... it leads to a fact that one day you might play great and the next day you totally suck and have no idea why the stroke isn't straight anymore. Consistent arm movement is much easier to learn than consistent wrist action.

 

[TheBook]

Phil Capelle's book "Play Your Best Pool" adresses this on page 2 " To form the correct grip, stand erect and allow your shooting arm to hang down relaxed at your side. Notice that your fingers are turned slightly upward. Now lay the cue along the cradle that is formed naturally by your fingers. Your thumb acts as a support to keep the cue from falling. Do not squeeze your fingers too far upward as this will tighten your grip."

Don "The Preacher" Feeney also goes into depth about a loose grip and allowing the cue to slip thru your hand, or throwing the cue on impact in his Video Number 3 "Advanced Cueing Techniques". He also mentions problems caused by tightening your grip on impact such as cocking your wrist.

Both are good sources of info. Don goes into extremes. The tape is 60 minutes and addresses grip and stroke only but is very helpfull. He does a lot of demos.

 

[recoveryjones]

I'm working on a lighter grip, thumb and first two fingers mainly, and trying to add a loose wrist action to my stroke. For those of you who do anything similar, do you keep the action light throughout the stroke? I noticed I was inadvertantly squeezing firmly right at the impact. Now I am trying to keep it loose at impact. Anybody do either? with what results?

Hi Dennis, Keep it light at impact, don't tighten.Those Tim White dvd's are great for explaining it as is your Don Feeney video "advanced Cueing Techniques.

Don't grip the cue, hold it.Tightning up at impact is common in other sports, not just pool.High handicap golfers do the same thing.Swing through the ball.RJ

ps. Did you get my PM.My computer crashed and I lost your email addy.

 

[dmgwalsh]

Hi Dennis, Keep it light at impact, don't tighten.Those Tim White dvd's are great for explaining it as is your Don Feeney video "advanced Cueing Techniques.

I'll have to take a peek at them over the holidays.


Don't grip the cue, hold it.Tightning up at impact is common in other sports, not just pool.High handicap golfers do the same thing.Swing through the ball.RJ

I was holding it so light at the end last night that it would fly free a little. Is that alright?

ps. Did you get my PM.My computer crashed and I lost your email addy.

Yes, I got it. I mailed you the other day. Did you get it? D

 

[dmgwalsh]

I switched to a more loose grip lately and it works super for me ! But, I have quite unorthodox grip, I have the cue in the palm of my grip hand, touching only the area where the thumb "begins". Then I curl my index finger under the cue in a way that only my fingertip touches the cue. I found out that I get all the unwanted wrist action eliminated with this index fingertip thing. I used to have lots of problems with wrist action when trying to play with the "cradle" grip but now they're all gone.


And I try to squeeze the cue as little as possible, less squeeze = less muscle tension = more relaxed and straight stroke. Also I hit the cueball much more consistent with my new loose grip.

Oh, I played with more than 10 years with a normal grip with many alternations, but never had the consistency I have nowadays with my new not-so-common grip. Played with my new grip for 2 years now and never switching back to the text-book grip ! So, what I'm trying to say, don't be afraid to try out different grips. Also, have a mirror and check out your new grip and shooting arm action if your stroke is straight and avoid learning a wrist action to compensate your shooting arm action flaws, which is quite common on new grips or with new players... it leads to a fact that one day you might play great and the next day you totally suck and have no idea why the stroke isn't straight anymore. Consistent arm movement is much easier to learn than consistent wrist action.

I thought one of the ideas of the loose grip and relaxed wrist was to allow the wrist to go forward at the time of impact perhaps increasing the time the tip is on the ball and increasing the stroke/english through the ball. Is this not right?


I'm gonna be trying to work on the grip this weekend and have a stroketrainer and mirror set up in the basement.

I was working on it at league Monday. Bad idea. Dennis

 

[dmgwalsh]

Phil Capelle's book "Play Your Best Pool" adresses this on page 2 " To form the correct grip, stand erect and allow your shooting arm to hang down relaxed at your side. Notice that your fingers are turned slightly upward. Now lay the cue along the cradle that is formed naturally by your fingers. Your thumb acts as a support to keep the cue from falling. Do not squeeze your fingers too far upward as this will tighten your grip."

Don "The Preacher" Feeney also goes into depth about a loose grip and allowing the cue to slip thru your hand, or throwing the cue on impact in his Video Number 3 "Advanced Cueing Techniques". He also mentions problems caused by tightening your grip on impact such as cocking your wrist.

Both are good sources of info. Don goes into extremes. The tape is 60 minutes and addresses grip and stroke only but is very helpfull. He does a lot of demos.

Thanks for the source material. I like Capelle's stuff and have the book. I just didn't remember to look at it.

A whole video by Feeney and I already have it. Time to take a look. Dennis

 

[dmgwalsh]

Grip a word meaning, to sieze, hold, grasp. The mind has learned long ago the definition of this word. The "grip" is more aptly applied to the structure of the hand/characteristics on the cue butt, the actual "action" of the rear hand is a side to side "pinch". Nick Varner said long ago, you don't grip/grab a can of soda you hold it. Cradle the butt with your grip hand (palm of course not touching the butt, unless you have very tiny hands), give it a SIDE TO SIDE "PINCH", if you find slippage, address the slippage. Is your hand too dry (I used to always have hand cream in my car to soften my back hand as I drove to the tournament), if leather, does the surface not have enough tack and so on, hope this helps. BF

Thanks for the advice. hand cream, eh? An instructor told me the back hand should be as sensitive as a safecracker's for proper cueing. he talked about soaking his hand in hot water before a match and also about exercising the fingers.

 

[dmgwalsh]

Don "The Preacher" Feeney also goes into depth about a loose grip and allowing the cue to slip thru your hand, or throwing the cue on impact in his Video Number 3 "Advanced Cueing Techniques". He also mentions problems caused by tightening your grip on impact such as cocking your wrist.
QUOTE]

THE DON

Don's stuff is great, but what he's talking about is a "slip stroke"; this is no good for 9 ball.

THE WRIST

If your wrist moves, isn't that just another MOVING part you have to monitor?

Why not have your wrist and forearm lock as ONE unit?

Joe R.

Didn't Mosconi talk about and/or use a loose wrist that sort of followed through? Do you shoot with a stiff wrist?

My instructor is trying to get me to lighten my grip and loosen my wrist and it's a new area for me and I thought I'd see if all the better players did that. Maybe not, since I know that you on occasion will "rain 100s".

Thanks for your input. Dennis

 

[drivermaker]

Man....it's a thread like this that can get you to playing like shit in no time flat if you happen to be in a good stage.

 

[mjantti]

I thought one of the ideas of the loose grip and relaxed wrist was to allow the wrist to go forward at the time of impact perhaps increasing the time the tip is on the ball and increasing the stroke/english through the ball. Is this not right?

I think there are two types of instructions given: one is to lock your wrist and another is to shoot with a relaxed wrist (wrist action or wrist snap). Shooting with a locked wrist is more common in snooker and gives more accuracy, but unfortunately hard shots with a lot of spin are almost impossible with a locked wrist. If you want to "juice up" the cueball, you'll need to use your wrist. To make things difficult, the wrist action is very difficult to learn, it needs to be exactly to the right direction and the timing has to be perfect. That's why I say that learning to use your wrist is more difficult than learning to use your arm for getting a decent cueing action. If your arm goes a little bit to the left and you compensate it with a wrist action a little bit to the right, you're in deep trouble with your mechanics sooner or later. This is where the mirror comes into play. Especially, try to observe your arm & wrist action when you feel everything is going in and you feel that your cueing action is straight. Then compare it to the cueing action of a bad day. You'll probably be surprised that they are both very close to each other and only minor corrections are to be made to get your stroke going again.

 

[drivermaker]

Hi,
But I consider myself a fairly accomplished player and it's easy for me to adapt to new ideas; so, "you CAN teach an old dog new tricks"

Joe

As Joe trots happily to his next fire hydrant.......

 

[Rod]

I'm working on a lighter grip, thumb and first two fingers mainly, and trying to add a loose wrist action to my stroke. For those of you who do anything similar, do you keep the action light throughout the stroke? I noticed I was inadvertantly squeezing firmly right at the impact. Now I am trying to keep it loose at impact. Anybody do either? with what results?

Working on holding the handle lighter is certainly a good idea, especially if you hold on tight. What is just as important is keep your pressure consistent. Don't start light and increase pressure just as you start forward motion (progression) or near impact. This is steering and who knows what will happen as a result? Not me, but I've seen about every possible (move) you can imagine.

Many times I've found if a player starts out with a tiny bit firmer hold, their not as likely to increase pressure. The Jury is out on that one because it doesn't work for all. Really it's mental and the hit instinct is there by most pool players. It's very common so for you to tense up at impact is not at all unusual.

It's not necessary to play with a loose wrist or wrist motion at all. There is/was great players both ways, so it's not their way or the highway. First off I don't care for the term loose wrist. Let’s use wrist flex. Loose has the tendency to mean sloppy or even floppy.
Wrist movement is dependant on the weight of the cue flexing it back and forward as you move your arm, not the other way around. That way is sloppy and inaccurate. Just swing the weight, it happens naturally. Just make sure your forward progression is smooth. Of course that’s important wrist flex or not.

One thing I’ll add, there is no movement any better than contacting the c/b exactly where intended. If that doesn’t happen then all is lost, no matter how you play. A relaxed wrist motion will put some zing on the ball with little effort, but read the above line. LOL

For the record I play with wrist flex, always have, not to mention a slip stroke as well. I feel to confined shooting with a locked wrist. I also feel squirt isn’t near the factor playing this way. However I shoot some shots with a firm wrist. You’ll find there are advantages on certain shots using either.

Rod

 

[LastTwo]

Don "The Preacher" Feeney also goes into depth about a loose grip and allowing the cue to slip thru your hand, or throwing the cue on impact in his Video Number 3 "Advanced Cueing Techniques". He also mentions problems caused by tightening your grip on impact such as cocking your wrist.
QUOTE]

THE DON

Don's stuff is great, but what he's talking about is a "slip stroke"; this is no good for 9 ball.

THE WRIST

If your wrist moves, isn't that just another MOVING part you have to monitor?

Why not have your wrist and forearm lock as ONE unit?

Joe R.

I know a couple good players who slip stroke playing nine ball, and they can run out. Look at Santos Sambajon, he slipstrokes bigtime, and so does Efren. A couple pros I know said they slipstrokes sometimes playing 9-ball, for certain shots. They don't even do it on purpose, it just happens naturally.

 

[recoveryjones]

Dennis, I sent you a PM with my new email address.RJ