I'd like to see if anybody here can make any comments. I don't have a specific question other than "What do you think"?
I got a new Galaxy S4 phone a few months ago, and have been taking video of my stroke from the back, in slow motion. I did this to help analyze and improve my stroke. I had a decent stroke before, but as a result of this kind on analysis, it has definitely gotten better. I highly recommend slow motion recording to help you improve, even if you think you have a great stroke already.
Anyway, I usually hold the cue loosely with a big gap between my palm and the cue. In other words, the thumb and pointer finger form a loop that the cue rests on (along with the middle finger) and there is a large gap between the cue and that fleshy web like skin between the thumb and pointer finger. The slow motion video revealed that this gap gets closed as I swing forward, and in the process the cue tends to bounce around a little.
My father has been helping to make observations and he has been looking at the strokes of all the pro players he can find. All of them grip the cue with no daylight between the fingers and the cue, unlike how I've been doing it. So I'm gripping more snugly (as opposed to tightly) to see what happens. On the one hand it feels a little more "stable" but on the other it feels like it prevents full relaxation of the arm.
My father made the following observations in an email:
I've been thinking and thinking about the hand/finger position and suddenly had an idea. It occurred to me that the reason we've been unable to pin down the "correct" way to grip the cue is that there IS no correct way. So what we are confronted with is a rather broad range of positions. And perhaps it is just that each of these players has somehow become expert at holding it one particular way. But that doesn't mean that it's "wrong" if Player A does it slightly different from Player B. It's just that A has found a particular method that works for him, but B has done it slightly differently.
What is missing is that we're unable to see a "compressed time" picture of all the years each of them has put in and how it developed that he has finalized on one particular "best" way which works for him (or her). So Loree Jon Jones has 7 preliminary strokes, Allison Fisher and John Schmidt have 3 and Willie is all over the place, varying it. So there we have several experts doing that particular thing differently. A warmup stroke is easy to analyze since all we have to do is count the number of times you do it. But with the grip it's more difficult because the things which are varying are harder to see. We have no way of knowing exactly how tightly each player is gripping the cue. Willie says in his instructional videotape (which you have): "Don't grip it like a baseball bat." Yet we see many players seemingly doing exactly that except we know they're not really holding it as tight as Lou Gehrig. The most extreme I ever saw was Balsis. He always had all 5 fingers wrapped around it, but again we have no way of knowing how tight. We do know that you can't swivel your wrist if you hold all fingers too tightly. And if you don't swivel your wrist you get a "pump handle" action which everyone but this guy Davis avoids.
I have no idea if any of the above has merit, but it's what I've been wondering about.
Thanks for reading!
I got a new Galaxy S4 phone a few months ago, and have been taking video of my stroke from the back, in slow motion. I did this to help analyze and improve my stroke. I had a decent stroke before, but as a result of this kind on analysis, it has definitely gotten better. I highly recommend slow motion recording to help you improve, even if you think you have a great stroke already.
Anyway, I usually hold the cue loosely with a big gap between my palm and the cue. In other words, the thumb and pointer finger form a loop that the cue rests on (along with the middle finger) and there is a large gap between the cue and that fleshy web like skin between the thumb and pointer finger. The slow motion video revealed that this gap gets closed as I swing forward, and in the process the cue tends to bounce around a little.
My father has been helping to make observations and he has been looking at the strokes of all the pro players he can find. All of them grip the cue with no daylight between the fingers and the cue, unlike how I've been doing it. So I'm gripping more snugly (as opposed to tightly) to see what happens. On the one hand it feels a little more "stable" but on the other it feels like it prevents full relaxation of the arm.
My father made the following observations in an email:
I've been thinking and thinking about the hand/finger position and suddenly had an idea. It occurred to me that the reason we've been unable to pin down the "correct" way to grip the cue is that there IS no correct way. So what we are confronted with is a rather broad range of positions. And perhaps it is just that each of these players has somehow become expert at holding it one particular way. But that doesn't mean that it's "wrong" if Player A does it slightly different from Player B. It's just that A has found a particular method that works for him, but B has done it slightly differently.
What is missing is that we're unable to see a "compressed time" picture of all the years each of them has put in and how it developed that he has finalized on one particular "best" way which works for him (or her). So Loree Jon Jones has 7 preliminary strokes, Allison Fisher and John Schmidt have 3 and Willie is all over the place, varying it. So there we have several experts doing that particular thing differently. A warmup stroke is easy to analyze since all we have to do is count the number of times you do it. But with the grip it's more difficult because the things which are varying are harder to see. We have no way of knowing exactly how tightly each player is gripping the cue. Willie says in his instructional videotape (which you have): "Don't grip it like a baseball bat." Yet we see many players seemingly doing exactly that except we know they're not really holding it as tight as Lou Gehrig. The most extreme I ever saw was Balsis. He always had all 5 fingers wrapped around it, but again we have no way of knowing how tight. We do know that you can't swivel your wrist if you hold all fingers too tightly. And if you don't swivel your wrist you get a "pump handle" action which everyone but this guy Davis avoids.
I have no idea if any of the above has merit, but it's what I've been wondering about.
Thanks for reading!
