hammer stroke

[ENGLISH!]

That's quite an impressive list of accomplishments. I know from experience that dad was there every step of the way. Grandkids need a coach, too!

My son will probably not be going back to school this year and will be working in the family business. He'll be competing in a few national level tourneys in 2014 and I may join him...in a different division, of course. I let him know when we spar that I haven't taught him everything I know to keep him on his best behavior.

They grow up too fast!

Best,
Mike

Mike,

There's a song on an old Nat King Cole album that I heard a few times but can not find. The title is 'Little Child' & the catch line is, 'what a pity... a pity... they have to grow up too soon'. Truer words were never spoken.

Good luck to you & your son in the tournaments. You might also tell him what Toby Keith says, 'I'm not as good as I once was...but I'm as good once as I ever was'.

My 1st. grandson will be here in Oct. I turn 60 next week. I think the Dad's will probably have to do the actual 'coaching' but I will put a bat, cue, club, racket in his, & hopefully their, hands ASAP.

Best,
Rick

PS I left out all of the 1st., 2nd., & 3rd. place finishes for both sons in the New Orleans Jr. Golf Program. I did not want to neglect golf.:wink:

 

[CJ Wiley]

Eventually the teaching/instruction upgrades and some of the old stuff is cast away

That's why I like to think that starting out in pool, a player needs a good instructor to refine their mechanics and then move on to a high caliber player as a mentor.

There are many instructors who are both and it's a real plus to be lucky enough to find them...before your back and eyes go out! :smile:

Best,
Mike

Yes some of the pool instruction was started by Champion players that really weren't teachers and simply did instructional clips to get a pay check and provide what their sponsors needed.....this was all well and good, and probably happened in golf too.

Eventually the teaching/instruction upgrades and some of the old stuff is cast away and the new, more effective methods are incorporated. I see pool moving in this same direction recently, it's just lagged behind because so few Champion players are willing to sacrifice their playing to teach.....it's really challenging to do both at the same time.

 

[His Boy Elroy]

Neil to CJ Wiley, "That "science" just hasn't caught up to you yet".

That could very well be true.

The median pro golf swing of today is not the same as in the 40s & Byron Nelson was not swinging like the average pro golfer.

They named the golf robot after him. It's call 'Iron Byron'.

Perhaps CJ was a bit ahead of the curve.

Stephen. J. Gould was a Harvard scientist and expert in evolution. He died several years ago. I heard him talk once about Babe Ruth and how when he was hitting all those home runs, frequently the guy who hit the second most home runs in a particular season didn't even come close to Babe's total. This leads many people to believe he'd be hitting 80 or 90 home runs a season if he played today since he'd of course be just as dominating. Gould said that's not the case. He said knowledge about the art of hitting a baseball has increased greatly since the era when Ruth played.

He said because of this, while not discounting the possibility that Ruth would be the best home run hitter if he played in the modern era, he certainly would not be hitting so many more home runs as everyone else and he also held out the possibility that there would many players hitting just as many home runs or even more home runs as Ruth.

He said what made guys like Ruth so dominant in home run hitting and what made so many people so dominant in their fields of interest in the past as opposed to modern times, was the fact that they were ahead of their time in their thinking. Today, they have hitting a baseball down to a science. Ruth had an intrinsic knowledge back then of almost everything that is known today. No one else did. While I own a few of C. j. Wiley's dvd's and HIGHLY recommend them, I'll stop short of recommending that it's an accomplishment that should render him an entry in the encyclopedia Brittanica. Hope Mr. Wiley doesn't mind. Just trying to make a point.

 

[ENGLISH!]

Stephen. J. Gould was a Harvard scientist and expert in evolution. He died several years ago. I heard him talk once about Babe Ruth and how when he was hitting all those home runs, frequently the guy who hit the second most home runs in a particular season didn't even come close to Babe's total. This leads many people to believe he'd be hitting 80 or 90 home runs a season if he played today since he'd of course be just as dominating. Gould said that's not the case. He said knowledge about the art of hitting a baseball has increased greatly since the era when Ruth played.

He said because of this, while not discounting the possibility that Ruth would be the best home run hitter if he played in the modern era, he certainly would not be hitting so many more home runs as everyone else and he also held out the possibility that there would many players hitting just as many home runs or even more home runs as Ruth.

He said what made guys like Ruth so dominant in home run hitting and what made so many people so dominant in their fields of interest in the past as opposed to modern times, was the fact that they were ahead of their time in their thinking. Today, they have hitting a baseball down to a science. Ruth had an intrinsic knowledge back then of almost everything that is known today. No one else did. While I own a few of C. j. Wiley's dvd's and HIGHLY recommend them, I'll stop short of recommending that it's an accomplishment that should render him an entry in the encyclopedia Brittanica. Hope Mr. Wiley doesn't mind. Just trying to make a point.

'Elroy',

I have a few comments, but as Dennis Miller says, 'I could be wrong'.

In an activity where not failing more than 70% of the time is considered successful, 'they are doing anything that they can to to improve on those numbers, 'scientifically' & otherwise. If a player puts his wife's underwear on by mistake going to the park & he hits 2 home runs in the game, guess what underwear he's wearing for the next game.

If you think that they have narrowed it down to 'a science'. I think you are mistaken. Also, there are two somewhat different objectives, hitting home runs & simply just hitting the ball. Some can do both & others can not & some can't even hit the ball to that 30% success level. What they have done, scientifically, IMO, is to 'construct' a swing that will increase the chance of making contact with the ball & that increase in contact may yield some more home runs from time to time simply by chance.

'They' have in no way developed a swing that can do what Ruth's did that one can perform at the level that Ruth did with his swing. Not long before Ruth retired when he was being granted a runner because he could basically no longer run, he went 4 for 4 & hit 3 home runs out of Forbes Field where no one had ever hit a ball out of that park. These were the last of his career & the last one was sent over the 89 foot high roof in right field. It is consider the longest ever hit out of that park. A pitcher in his prime throwing to an 'old man'.

While CJ may not be to his game what Babe was to his. I'd say that CJ may have accomplished more than anyone would have thought regarding him. What I mean by that is that the methods that CJ employed may have helped him to become more than he would have become without them.

All I know is that if I want to talk about hitting home runs, I'd want to talk to Ruth, Fox, Aaron, Mantle, Williams, etc. I know I've left many out.

And if I want to talk about playing pool, I'd want to talk to Greenleaf, Mosconi, Crane, Hall, Miz, Seigel, etc, & CJ Wiley. Again I know I've left many out.

I can't imagine what Ruth might say about 'his swing' today if we could get into his mind & have him tell us what he was 'thinking' or focusing on or was his key, or whatever. Maybe he'd say, 'I focused on timing the roll of my wrist'. Who knows? Maybe he'd say, 'I closed my left eye so I'd hit it out in front'. Who knows?

Some might say that Ruth was a savant. Maybe so but he was a human being & not an alien, at least I don't think so. Who knows maybe he was 'a god' who transferred into Ruth's body just during game times to have a little fun. Or...maybe he was just Bless by God.

My point to all this is, if former World Champion CJ Wiley is talking, I'm listening.

Best Wishes,
Rick

 

[mantis99]

CJ:

Just FYI, you keep making this mistake. The muscle (singular) is known as the biceps, not "bicep." Likewise for that opposing muscle on the other side of the arm -- that's the "triceps," not the "tricep."

Please see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biceps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triceps

The ending "s" on the muscle name means that the muscle is actually a multi-"headed" muscle -- e.g. a two-headed muscle in the case of the biceps, and three-headed muscle in the case of the triceps.

In your documentation, please make this distinction.

-Sean <-- not trying to be a hard*ss, but don't want you to appear like Gomer Pyle explaining anatomy

This is well stated and all true. However, the major flexor of the elbow is actually the Brachialis muscle. I'm sure that no one would get it though if we used that muscle for description instead of the biceps.

 

[CJ Wiley]

no one would get it though if we used that muscle for description instead of .......

This is well stated and all true. However, the major flexor of the elbow is actually the Brachialis muscle. I'm sure that no one would get it though if we used that muscle for description instead of the biceps.

Probably not....they would just make sure your spelling was accurate.

 

[His Boy Elroy]

Rick,
Stephen J.Gould, while being an evolutionary biologist, was also big baseball fan. He did studies of persons in sports, science the arts, etc. whose achievements dwarfed those of their contemporaries. This occured much more often in the past than in the present for reasons I'll get to. While I'm not entirely sure, I believe I heard him talk about Babe Ruth while on T.V promoting a book he wrote on this subject.

I believe that they do have the baseball swing down to a science. They know exactly how the shoulders hips, hands, feet, etc. should be put in motion. While a player who does not conform to this properly will never be a good hitter it is conceded that a good player who does will only have success 3 out of 10 times. This low success rate is not considered the result of the baseball swing being in the early stages of development. There is no one who believes that big advances will be made in the swing which will improve the success rate considerably. So; yes. I do believe they have the baseball swing down to a science.

In 1927 not a whole lot was known about the baseball swing. Players basically went up there and swung without much knowledge of proper mechanics. In the years that followed, through the slow, collective process of study and analysis, the baseball community adopted mechanics to the point, where I believe, progress has drawn down to a trickle.

Film exists of Bane Ruth hitting a baseball. Gould contends that Babe Ruth's incredible superiority over almost all other players ( I say almost all others. He had a teammate named Gherig who maybe Gould could be saying all these same things about) in home run hitting was the result of him using the mechanics that are taught today and were not taught then.

He acquired knowledge of these mechanics on his own before the slow collective study and analysis of the baseball community led to them being taught to everyone in an elementary phase, then expanded bit by bit, until what we have today; which is in my opinion, a swing down to a science. Gould contends that Ruth, and maybe a few others, were simply ahead of their time. He contends persons ahead of their time existed not only in sports, but in many fields. We like to call them geniuses.

Now...let's put Babe Ruth on a major league team today. Would he be leading the league in home runs? Gould contends it's possible, but he definitely wouldn't be leading the home run leaders behind him by as large a pace as he did. back in the days. Gould also contends it's possible he wouldn't be leading the league and that maybe several players would be leading him. This could be possible even if he still had a mind that was able to acquire knowledge that was ahead of his time.

If the knowledge of the baseball swing has reached the point where they've progressed with it to the point where for all intent and purposes, they've pretty much got it down and any more progress will be only a trickle, then for geniuses like Ruth, when they reach for knowledge which is ahead of their time, there's nothing there for them to grab. That's why there are so few persons these days who are commonly referred to as geniuses, as opposed to the past

As for C.J. Wiley. I think I used a poor choice of words at the end when I said I'm just trying to make a point. Rick; you said C.J was a bit ahead of the curve. I totally agree. I then expanded the idea of other people who are ahead of the curve by telling the story of gould's study of geniuses. The point of the post was to tell that story. I hope it wasn't interpreted as meaning the point of the post was to take a dig at C.J..

I didn't want anyone to think I was trying to say C.J. was a genius. That would have been embarrassing to have people think that. I wasn't being the least bit sarcastic when I said the accomplishment of his DVD's wasn't an accomplishment that would render him an entry in The Encyclopedia Brittanica like most of the people in Gould's studies. His DVD's are fabulous.

In fact ,I wrote a post last month and stated that I thought the pool stroke was an artistic expression. So a few days later I'm watching his DVD and he has a whole chapter talking about the pool stroke as an artistic expression. I'm thinking "God, I hope he doesn't think I watched this first and now I'm trying to pass off his ideas as mine. So then I'm posting about my learning experience with pool and I make an analogy to a martial artist standing on top of a rock. So a few days later I put on one of his DVDs and what's C.J doing but standing on top of a rock in his martial arts attire.

Just the other day I wrote him an email about incompleteness and completeness as regards to the pool stroke. 10 minutes later I'm reading a post he wrote earlier in the day where he's using the same 2 words.
This is getting embarrassing. Now this.....I don't know how I find myself in these messes.

So Rick, if you see poster named "His Dog Astro," and he's making his first post - that's me!

 

[ENGLISH!]

'Elroy',

You're in no mess with me & I would certainly doubt that you are in any mess with CJ.

Those 'coincidences' are interesting. Fran Crimi & CJ's deceased friend, Dalton use to say that there is no such thing as a coincidence.

As to 'the' base ball swing I coached baseball for quite a few years & the teams that I have coached have won several championships & almost always made the playoffs. I know a little about hitting & have seen some of the modern day 'thinking' & evolution as to what they think works best. I have also seen some of the results.

What 'they' have done is to take some aspects of a golf swing & put them into the baseball swing. Anyone that has played a lot of baseball that then has gone on to play golf will tell you that they are not the same & IMO should not be the same as the implement used to hit the ball is not the same and a golf ball is not moving toward your location at 60 to 105 miles an hour at varying speeds, angles, & trajectories.

Now to tie this to pool, I will say that parts of the modern day baseball swing & certain types of golf swings are similar to what some pool instructors are teaching today.

The thing to keep in mind is that we are not robots. We are individuals & as such, adaptations need to be made. Perhaps you can explain why we as individuals did not 'evolve' equally? While I believe that human beings are amazing entities, things such as hand eye coordination are not equal in each one of us, as well as, other physical capabilities.

Then there is that other aspect that is rather difficult to teach, but not impossible, even though one can not teach another to perfect it. That aspect is something called timing.

So... basically the prescribed swings, strokes, etc. are what is being taught to those that have trouble performing those tasks & hence are designed to get an individual from an inferior position of performance to a level of satisfactory performance. IMO it is rare that the humanly contrived &designed mechanics ever really take one to the upper or superior levels.

One that is at the upper or superior levels is usually what we call a natural. Or as in Robert Redford's movie about Roy Hobbs simply called....The Natural. Natural...nature. Nature...natural.

We do not have to agree on everything. Even though to some any disagreement seems to be taken as an insult. Many times it is not the content of the disagreement that is insulting but the tone with which that content is delivered, communicated. Then there are things called intent & motive that can certainly muck up the works even further..

I think our tone, intent, & motives are fine in respect to one another. I don't think we are trying to 'hammer' anything into one another's head, to tie it into the thread topic.

Regards & Best Wishes,
Rick

 

[KRJ]

Do you realize that everytime you hit the cb, above center you are driving it down a hair? Even with a level stroke? That means that on every shot you actually jump the cb off the table a hair. You just can't normally see it. Put a dime in front of the cb, use medium speed, and watch the cb jump right over it.

Dead On ! Another reason why using anything above center on a break shot is "bad".... the cue ball is actually skipping all the way down the table...and if the cb is off the table at impact, you lose the cue ball, possibly even off the table.....

I've jumped over 4 pennies just using top and using a break speed stroke. I was doing it to demonstrate to someone why they should NOT be using top on the break.

 

[ENGLISH!]

Dead On ! Another reason why using anything above center on a break shot is "bad".... the cue ball is actually skipping all the way down the table...and if the cb is off the table at impact, you lose the cue ball, possibly even off the table.....

I've jumped over 4 pennies just using top and using a break speed stroke. I was doing it to demonstrate to someone why they should NOT be using top on the break.

High RJ,

How was your baseball season?

As to the break, I would just add that it depends somewhat on the game & one's intention on the break & naturally the speed at which it is hit & also one's level of power.

I have hit many a break shot high on the cue ball & have sent it rolling through the cluster with spin. I have lost nearly none, but I have scratched in a corner pocket a few times. Now I will say that that is not my normal type of break shot. I usually do hit the ball below center. But hitting it high is an option if one's cueing ability & understanding allows it.

Best Wishes,
Rick

 

[CJ Wiley]

Wade Crane had one of the best breaks of all time - mastered this technique

Dead On ! Another reason why using anything above center on a break shot is "bad".... the cue ball is actually skipping all the way down the table...and if the cb is off the table at impact, you lose the cue ball, possibly even off the table.....

I've jumped over 4 pennies just using top and using a break speed stroke. I was doing it to demonstrate to someone why they should NOT be using top on the break.

Are you saying that cueing the ball above center causes it to jump more? There are a few factors involved in jumping the cue ball and you can do it with an elevated cue hitting it high or low - being able to do both will help with positioning after the "jump shot".

Wade Crane, who had one of the best breaks of all time, was the master of jumping the cue ball into the rack on the break shot. I've seen photos of Wade's break and ALL the object balls come off the table after impact and the cue ball jumped sometimes 2 feet into the air and came down in the center of the table.

When hitting the break at high speeds it's going to be traveling through the air rather than rolling on the cloth.....experimenting with hitting the cue ball at different "Tip Targets" will help develop a break that can conform to any type table. Wade also told me he "aims" at the cue ball last.....only on the break and when jacked up over an object ball.....all other times he looked at the object ball last. "Food For Thought" 'The Game is the Teacher'

 

[ENGLISH!]

Are you saying that cueing the ball above center causes it to jump more? There are a few factors involved in jumping the cue ball and you can do it with an elevated cue hitting it high or low - being able to do both will help with positioning after the "jump shot".

Wade Crane, who had one of the best breaks of all time, was the master of jumping the cue ball into the rack on the break shot. I've seen photos of Wade's break and ALL the object balls come off the table after impact and the cue ball jumped sometimes 2 feet into the air and came down in the center of the table.

When hitting the break at high speeds it's going to be traveling through the air rather than rolling on the cloth.....experimenting with hitting the cue ball at different "Tip Targets" will help develop a break that can conform to any type table. Wade also told me he "aims" at the cue ball last.....only on the break and when jacked up over an object ball.....all other times he looked at the object ball last. "Food For Thought" 'The Game is the Teacher'

CJ,

I was going to say something similar but went with the better part of valor route, so to speak.

Best,
Rick

 

[Mikjary]

...He acquired knowledge of these mechanics on his own before the slow collective study and analysis of the baseball community led to them being taught to everyone in an elementary phase, then expanded bit by bit, until what we have today; which is in my opinion, a swing down to a science. Gould contends that Ruth, and maybe a few others, were simply ahead of their time. He contends persons ahead of their time existed not only in sports, but in many fields. We like to call them geniuses.

...If the knowledge of the baseball swing has reached the point where they've progressed with it to the point where for all intent and purposes, they've pretty much got it down and any more progress will be only a trickle, then for geniuses like Ruth, when they reach for knowledge which is ahead of their time, there's nothing there for them to grab. That's why there are so few persons these days who are commonly referred to as geniuses, as opposed to the past

Good post. There are many parallels with pool and baseball. Beside the physical comparisons, for me there is another comparison that is more on the mental and ethical level of each game.

I probably studied the baseball swing in person and on video for literally thousands of hours. It became a challenge to figure out its inner workings and why one hitter could have so much success when another hitter of similar size and athletic ability didn't perform equally.

The conventional wisdom available was dated and passed down from the turn of the century. I looked past it and started to ask more questions. It was then that I discovered a familiar pattern I noticed with pool.

Baseball instruction is plentiful and available for all. But the advanced instruction at the pro levels was almost guarded. The top instructors working for these pro teams would hint at mechanics, never giving up all the goods. A don't feed the fish kind of mentality.

After years of detective work and obsession, :wink: everything came together. The same videos I'd watched over and over suddenly looked different because I was looking at them in a new way. I realized that the info was out there, I just didn't see it in the right way.

CJ has been prodding us for quite a while and some days I find I understand him better than others. I play at a level where it's all mental for me to run out consistently. I just haven't either put in the work to get there or I'm not mentally in tune with my game.

The days of not feeding the fish may soon be gone with pool and then with baseball. This forum is a good start. Time will tell.

Best,
Mike

 

[ENGLISH!]

Good post. There are many parallels with pool and baseball. Beside the physical comparisons, for me there is another comparison that is more on the mental and ethical level of each game.

I probably studied the baseball swing in person and on video for literally thousands of hours. It became a challenge to figure out its inner workings and why one hitter could have so much success when another hitter of similar size and athletic ability didn't perform equally.

The conventional wisdom available was dated and passed down from the turn of the century. I looked past it and started to ask more questions. It was then that I discovered a familiar pattern I noticed with pool.

Baseball instruction is plentiful and available for all. But the advanced instruction at the pro levels was almost guarded. The top instructors working for these pro teams would hint at mechanics, never giving up all the goods. A don't feed the fish kind of mentality.

After years of detective work and obsession, :wink: everything came together. The same videos I'd watched over and over suddenly looked different because I was looking at them in a new way. I realized that the info was out there, I just didn't see it in the right way.

CJ has been prodding us for quite a while and some days I find I understand him better than others. I play at a level where it's all mental for me to run out consistently. I just haven't either put in the work to get there or I'm not mentally in tune with my game.

The days of not feeding the fish may soon be gone with pool and then with baseball. This forum is a good start. Time will tell.

Best,
Mike

Hi Mike,

Some time ago, there was sort of a consensus among coaches in my area about hitting that I disagreed with & when I questioned it they could not give me any reasonable answer. Randy Bush opened an indoor batting cage business in the area so the city set up a coaches clinic with him & when I asked him my question, he gave his explanation that was in line with my thinking. Several of the coaches later told me that it seemed that I was correct all along.

The point is that the pros do know things that most don't.

Best,
Rick

PS Randy Bush was later the Manager (Head Coach) of the University of N.O. & his 'ace' pitcher was the young man that I was the pitching coach & head coach for at the middle school.

 

[Sloppy Pockets]

This is well stated and all true. However, the major flexor of the elbow is actually the Brachialis muscle. I'm sure that no one would get it though if we used that muscle for description instead of the biceps.

Winner, winner!

Most folks who've never taken an anatomy course look at muscles like tensed rubber bands that automatically contract whenever a joint is moved. If the elbow joint closes, the most visible and obvious muscle (the biceps) must be responsible for this motion. In reality, muscles can do all sorts of motions independent from each other, and in different degrees of contraction, all depending on what we ask them to do (the brain).

Where the muscle lies relative to other muscles, the depth of that muscle compared to those surrounding it, where the insertion points on the bones are located, the size of the muscle and the ratio of fast twitch to slow twitch muscle are all factors in how a joint ends up moving.

In the case of the brachialis, it inserts into the forearm only at the ulna. therefore, it cannot contributed to the twisting motion of the forearm. It's only function is to open and close the hinge joint of the elbow.

The biceps OTOH has control over three different joints, so using it can contribute to extraneous movement of the forearm and shoulder, leading to a wobbly stroke.

Interestingly, the contribution of the biceps to shoulder motion is eliminated by hyperextending the shoulder up and backwards. Luckily, this is exactly what we do with the shoulder during a normal pendulum stroke. If you never drop your elbow before contact, the only unwanted motion the biceps could cause is a twisting of the forearm.

It believe it is possible that those folks who have the straightest strokes may be able to isolate the brachialis and completely relax the biceps during the forward stroke so that it can't create a twisting motion to the forearm. If this is true (and I have no means to test this) it could explain why some players who have very straight strokes during normal shooting sometimes go out of line at the end of a power stroke because they are summoning up the contribution of the biceps during these moments of need for extra power, rotating the forearm and also the shoulder (which is now out of the hyperextension range at the end of the stroke if the shoulder drops).

Food for thought at any rate.

 

[ChopStick]

Pinning the cb is to pinch it into the table on nearly every stroke. For players that don't sweat spin and deflection, it maximizes cb action. I spoke to a few touring pros who say it's the only way to play pool... so there's def something to it.

I was told...like golf...you want to hit down on the cb slightly for everything, including follow.

If you can't control your rock, it's not for you.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

Thank you so much for posting this. You got mega-beers coming when I get back down to Florida. I took this to the pool hall and I have become a "pin the ball" freak. I absolutely love the hit and the way it makes the cue resonate. I am a golfer so I knew what to look for. The style suits me perfectly. No more babying the ball to hold a thin cut. Just pin it with inside and put a stroke on it. When coupled with CJs techniques it is awesome. I agree, it is the only to go.

 

[ChopStick]

It's one thing to try and be a clone, it's quite another to try to emulate aspects of someone's game and incorporate them into your own. Most learning in childhood comes via direct observation and attempted imitation. Nobody learns faster than kids.

Of course, if I could be an Efren clone I'd do it in a heartbeat.:wink:

What I've come to understand is how someone plays is often not how they appear to play. That's one of the reasons it's so difficult to "copy" a player....trying to match how they "appear" to do things to how they "feel" they do things, to how they systematically do things......this is like the "modeling "Trifecta".

I trained with Hank Haney for over 2 years on my golf game and he really drove home these points. The golf swing was not what I thought it was (by watching Pro Golfers), and Hank had broken it down into 4 separate components. These major aspects of the swing were the wrists cocking, the arms raising, the shoulders turning and the hips coiling......all the time keeping the club on the correct swing plane.

This was very difficult, but through the training it enabled me to see the pool game in the same manner and it's much simpler physically. I still think pool is tougher mentally than golf, but physically there's no comparison. There is a lot of similarities between golf and pool in relationship to the hands/wrists/forearms and how they work together.

I saw an Efren Reyes clone on youtube the other day. He had every bump and wiggle copied perfectly. If you saw only the stroke without seeing who it was you would swear it was Efren himself. That is until he hit the ball. Then there was a huge difference. When Efren first came to the States everyone made a big deal out of his crazy looking stroke.

In similar fashion, people made a big deal out of Jim Furyk's golf swing and how he had this big compensating loop at the top of it. Well, take a look at his impact position.

Ignore the rest of him and just look at his left arm, his hands and the angle of the club. The ball is long gone and the club head still has not passed his hands. That is because he is driving the club through the ball, not flipping the club at it. He does this better than almost everyone on tour and that is why he a champion. No one ever talks about that! All they talk about is his big loopy swing and if you go down to the driving range what do you see people emulating? It isn't his impact position.

That's what I think when I see these Efren clones. If you were to take a video editor and cut out everything leaving only the space from his bridge hand through the cue ball on his final stroke through the ball, you will see that Efren Reyes has a freaking awesome stroke. If you look at all the great players you will see them in a different way. You will also see distinctive styles. (The CJ vs Steve Mizerak match was an excellent example of this but the video is no longer available.)

If you are going to copy something, copy that. The way cue cue moves from the bridge hand through the ball. Everything else the player is or does outside of that is irrelevant. Emulating it is useless. You can spend a lifetime doing it and will gain nothing. What happens in that last bit of space is the only thing about a player that matters to the ball and the ball is the ultimate judge of your level of proficiency. Remember the ball always goes where it is aimed. It just does not always go where it is intended.

That would be an interesting project. If someone had enough video footage. Just show clips of the final stroke from the bridge hand through the cueball for all the great players showing nothing else. Make it like a series of flash cards and see if you can guess who the player is.

 

[Sloppy Pockets]

If you were to take a video editor and cut out everything leaving only the space from his bridge hand through the cue ball on his final stroke through the ball, you will see that Efren Reyes has a freaking awesome stroke. If you look at all the great players you will see them in a different way. You will also see distinctive styles. (The CJ vs Steve Mizerak match was an excellent example of this but the video is no longer available.)

If you are going to copy something, copy that. The way cue cue moves from the bridge hand through the ball. Everything else the player is or does outside of that is irrelevant. Emulating it is useless. You can spend a lifetime doing it and will gain nothing. What happens in that last bit of space is the only thing about a player that matters to the ball and the ball is the ultimate judge of your level of proficiency. Remember the ball always goes where it is aimed. It just does not always go where it is intended.

That would be an interesting project. If someone had enough video footage. Just show clips of the final stroke from the bridge hand through the cueball for all the great players showing nothing else. Make it like a series of flash cards and see if you can guess who the player is.

This is a very interesting take on the stroke. It is also one that I share. On a strictly academic level, I do share an interest in the biomechanics that many other posters go on about, but when I look at a stroke I look at exactly what you look at, and only pay cursory attention to the actual movements of the stroking arm that produced the stroke.

I had a lesson with a noted instructor, and I was specific that I didn't want to be video taped. She said she didn't video tape her students unless they requested it or she really needed to show them something. She made a few changes to my bridge hand, mostly to firm it up, then asked if she could make a recording of just my bridge hand to show me. I stroked the CB nice and firm and she played it back for me to show me what a nice stroke I now have after her corrections. To her, all that was necessary to see that was how that shaft moved through my fingers and then through the ball.

 

[Sloppy Pockets]

Interesting that I was just listening to Stevie Moore commentating on the Earl-SVB match going on right now at Steinway. He called attention to their follow through, saying that although both used a very long bridge, they both had a comparatively short follow through. He said a short follow through is the key to greater accuracy, and that you did not want a long, exaggerated follow through.

He made no mention of whether they used a pendulum stroke, a loose grip, an open bridge, etc. Just the shaft passing through the ball was all he was looking at.

 

[CJ Wiley]

LESS follow through is more accurate and DOES NOT amplify "off target" contact

Interesting that I was just listening to Stevie Moore commentating on the Earl-SVB match going on right now at Steinway. He called attention to their follow through, saying that although both used a very long bridge, they both had a comparatively short follow through. He said a short follow through is the key to greater accuracy, and that you did not want a long, exaggerated follow through.

He made no mention of whether they used a pendulum stroke, a loose grip, an open bridge, etc. Just the shaft passing through the ball was all he was looking at.

That's the key....LESS follow through is more accurate and DOES NOT amplify "off target" contact with the cue ball. The "moment of truth" in the stroke is exactly AT the cue ball, not any further... strive to extend the TIP through the cue ball....that's all.

I've spent a lot of time "de programming" different player's follow throughs (it takes almost an hour each time).

For some reason the "common knowledge" in the pool world is that a long follow through is better.....and it's not true at all. Same with the "loose grip" (check out the picture of Thorsten H. on the Front Page of the AZ Web Site).....it's an example of "if you tell the same thing over and over it becomes "true," even if it's not" - 'The Game is the Teacher'