I've never played with either of these cues but I would like to hear your opinions on them. :smile:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNU7pQnwaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNU7pQnwaI
Groundbreaking new cue technology
- Thread starter crappoolguy
- Start date
seems like it will work one side of your tip down.
Thats pretty natural for a snooker player because we tend to hold the cue a certain way round every shot.
The company's website:
http://www.gravitycue.com/default.aspx
Prices (rounded up, and presumably w/o postage):
Snooker gravity cue: $260
360 training cue: $350
There are several threads in The Snooker Forum about these products:
http://www.thesnookerforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=20683
http://www.thesnookerforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=18962
http://www.thesnookerforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=14562
Trevor White and Mike Wooldridge, both respected makers of snooker cues, offer their opinions in this thread:
http://www.thesnookerforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=11673
Also, on the subject or training your stroke, check out Spider's recent post "Stroking Straight":
http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=177414
I always find it funny when products are designed for people to not actually get any better.
Have a bad stroke? Use our product, and it will compensate for your flaws. You won't have to fix your flaws, but our product will over come them.
How about this.... If you know you turn your wrist.. work on correcting that mechanical issue. Set up practice sessions to correct it. It's the same way tennis players learn. Golf players learn. Baseball players learn. Football players learn. Organized practice.
But in pool, practice isn't fun. So you don't want to practice. You want to play. But you want to be good without practice. You just want to play good.
So.. lets buy a product that overcomes my deficient skills, because I certainly don't want to put in the time and effort to actually be a good player.
Have a bad stroke? Use our product, and it will compensate for your flaws. You won't have to fix your flaws, but our product will over come them.
How about this.... If you know you turn your wrist.. work on correcting that mechanical issue. Set up practice sessions to correct it. It's the same way tennis players learn. Golf players learn. Baseball players learn. Football players learn. Organized practice.
But in pool, practice isn't fun. So you don't want to practice. You want to play. But you want to be good without practice. You just want to play good.
So.. lets buy a product that overcomes my deficient skills, because I certainly don't want to put in the time and effort to actually be a good player.
I would not call it groundbreaking but interesting and pretty much unproven just a theory. In the past there has been things like a shaft that was contoured. It had three sides for most of the stroking area and was easy to stroke straight. It worked, and anyone who picked it up loved it. Yet it never got produced, people are hard to accept change. Even something like a shorter ferrule, where is it written all ferrules must be 1 inch? Yet until a well known cuemaker makes the changes and others follow, cuemakers will always just do the same-old same-old. We don't seem to play a sport that is very open to innovation. I can't knock the cuemaker for doing what is already accepted even though they may honestly feel there is a better way. They want to sell cues and who can blame them, but it also hurts innovation.
The trainer cue is like the Medicus Driver in golf. Makes sense to me.
The FUNNY part is if a pendulum stroker used that, the 360 cue will show a lot of "flaws." Funny stuff.
It's interesting to see HOW DIFFERENT American coaches are from UK/Euro coaches. It's black/white.
I'd love to try these - I wonder if they'll be at SBE.
Dave
The FUNNY part is if a pendulum stroker used that, the 360 cue will show a lot of "flaws." Funny stuff.
It's interesting to see HOW DIFFERENT American coaches are from UK/Euro coaches. It's black/white.
I'd love to try these - I wonder if they'll be at SBE.
Dave
Twisting the wrist can be corrected by changing your grip. I used to twist my wrist years ago and got away with. Then I met Steve Mizerak. In playing with him I noticed how he held the cue in his grip. It was more of pinch. He held the cue between his thump and first finger with the thumb and first finger pointing almost straight at the ground. In other words the back of his wrist was perfectly straight and a line down his wrist would go straight to the floor. It is almost impossible to twist your wrist the cue has to go straight as you swing your arm. I have to say, I had been playing pool for over 15 years at that point and that was the first thing in years that I did where I saw a noticeable improvement in my game.
I good teacher can find these flaws in ones game and often correct them. The fact that someone gets away with doing things wrong does not mean they can't make changes that will not only improve their game but give it more longevity. What I mean is, when you do funky things you may be OK if you play everyday but try to quit for a few years and see what happens, or for that matter just get old. Ray Martin comes to mind. You could wake him up in the middle of the night, put a cue in his hands and he will run balls. He will be playing good on matter what age he is.
If you can find any clips of Miz on youtube that show his grip you will see what I was referring to. It is a good grip worth trying. Danny Diliberto has a similar grip in that the back of his wrist is a straight line to the ground all the way through the second knuckles of his fingers and the cue goes perfectly straight back and forth. He curls his fingers but pinches with his thumb rather then actually holding the cue like a bat. Although different from Miz, if you watch you will see he is using the same principle he is doing exactly the same thing.
I think I may have rambled here and gone all over the place with this post but I hope my points make some sense.
Last edited:
I don't think that is the concept. The trainer doesn't fix your stroke, it just breaks dow if your stroke is off. In order to get the cue to work, you have to overcome any flaws in your stroke. IOW, it will point out the flaws, you the player must make the adjustments.
I would have to try it myself to pass judgement, but I can see some interesting possibilities.
Steve
I got a different impression. The way I saw it, it will show a lot of flaws if the stroke isn't performed properly, but will remain straight if the stroke works right. In the demonstrations of both cues, he was using a pendilum stroke. Obviously, in a demonstration, the idea is to show how it picks up on the flaws, so you must put flaws into the demonstration. But when he was demonstrating a proper pendilum stroke, the cue did what it was supposed to do.
Steve
Everything this product claims to do, you can do with a regular cue. Everything. But still, people will go out and buy a product that claims it's the magic pill for them. The product will help them fix the issues. Not practice. Not time spent working to overcome issues. The product.
What makes you think that those people will put in the time with this product, when they're not willing to put in the time with the tools they already have?
I really liked the comment Mike Wooldridge made in the snooker forum.
"Give me a "G".
Give me an "I".
Give me an "MMICK"."
I'd say I have to agree with him on that.
I'm wondering how sensitive the spring mechanism is. The student in the video is exaggerating a bad stroke to show the cue breaking down. It could be really useful as a training aid if it's sensitive enough to reflect stroke flaws in intermediate/advanced players, but if it only breaks down like that for really bad strokes then it's a gimmick akin to a coke bottle stroke trainer.
You may be dead on. That is why I qualified my post by saying I would have to try it for myself before being able to make any judgement about it's usefulness.
Steve
I can't see how it would discourage backhand english. Do you really mean backhand english or do you mean swiping (swooping) english?
Fred
I can see Busty running out to buy one as we speak 
..........
..........
That's where a screw-on tip would be an advantage... just unscrew/rotate the tip a bit before you start a session. No uneven tip wear that way.
Of course, you might need to add a jam nut of some sort in order to re-tighten the tip. Any competent cuemaker should be able to modify the cue as I described.