head moving up & down
- Thread starter z0nt0n3r
- Start date
Do you mean that your head moves up and down or that you have seen players whose heads move up and down?
I think for some people there is head motion as the eyes shift from cue ball to object ball during shot alignment.
What is it that you're looking for? Be specific.
i have video-taped myself and as i'm taking my practice strokes and on the final backswing my head moves up and down a bit,i think the up & down motion of the cue causes this to happen .
Any chance you can post a video? Or even if you can't post one of yourself, can you post a link to a player who seems to do the same as you do?
take a look at his final backswing at 27:28, his head raises up as he pulls the cue back
He does it occasionally throughout the match. You can see it again at the stroke at 34:15. I think he's doing it to get his chin out of the way before the execution stroke on certain shots, particularly when there's a slight cue angle of attack or if he's using power. It looks like he can tolerate a certain amount of chin-scraping, but some shots might be a little too painful.
Even Earl, who was commentating, noted how he was "playing off the chin."
skiergd011013
Well-known member
Line kjorsvick also does this fyi
so this isn't necessarily a problem?when i do this,i think it's a little more severe than fedor's and sometimes it even happens on practice strokes if they are long especially when i want to play with a lot of power, my head raises up and down along with the same motion of the cue.
If you play with your chin on the cue, you may want to consider that you may be unconsciously raising it up so you don't get hurt. Many players experience some type of movement during their shot execution.
It becomes a problem when head movement causes changes to your cue delivery and tip placement on the ball. Have someone watch, or even take a video where you can zoom in on your cue during playback when you raise up and see if it's changing course. If not, then you're probably okay.
But just keep in mind that when there's body movement during the stroke process, there's always the potential for trouble, which is why it's so tough to break by throwing your body into the shot for that extra 5mph. It takes a lot of practice.
If I were you, I'd try to get a handle on it rather than catch myself doing it randomly. You can try building it into your pre shot routine in some way --- maybe when you're faced with shots that may hurt your chin, or you can aim with your chin on the cue if you must aim that way, and then gently lift it at a certain point before the final stroke.
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There was a great 3C player out of Chicago that Always Raised up before delivering. I'm thinking top 5 or 6 in the Nationals?
Last time I competed against him, that was completely gone. I asked him why? His answer was .... I just changed.
As an experiment you can try that has helped some students recently, you can start with the head higher and instead of trying to hold still only to bob and jump up on the stroke, come down a bit with the head intentionally on the final forward stroke.
This move can help you both nail those power draw shots over a distance and help keep your body stable through the shot or even moving a bit down and forward with the cue stick's direction and momentum, instead of fighting it.
This move can help you both nail those power draw shots over a distance and help keep your body stable through the shot or even moving a bit down and forward with the cue stick's direction and momentum, instead of fighting it.
That's kind of an evasive response that he gave you, don't you think? Sounds like maybe either he didn't realize it or he didn't want to discuss it.
also i'm wondering about something else,let's say you video tape yourself and you see a swerve in your stroke, how do you know that it was caused by the head movement or something else in your fundamentals?
Good question. You have to try to find instances where you don't move your head and then see if your stroke still swerves. Or you can even try intentionally to not move your head. This is where taking video of yourself really comes in handy, especially if you can zoom in the playback or slow it down.
thanks, that was helpful.
i want to resurrect this thread because although i neglected this movement since i talked about it here, i watched myself on video in a tournament final and the head movement on the backswing is quite noticable. the stroke seems relatively straight and i missed only 3 balls during the whole match & also i have been a consistent player for the last 1-2 years, reaching many other finals during that time so i doubt that this movement is causing a serious problem but maybe it could cause minor issues.
this tournament win got me to A' level (next is A+ and then A pro so i'm not a top player yet), but if i can reach A' level, i don't think that this flaw is that bad, or is my logic faulty?
my warm up starts at 2:14:00 and my match starts at 2:19:00.
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It looks to me like your entire upper body is moving back some during any stroke that requires power. I think that will be very hard to remove.
yes i know. i think even if i drop my elbow on the backswing to pull the cue back more level i will still have the movement but maybe to a lesser extent. if i change my back arm position to a more vertical position instead of my current set up which is further back from vertical and also focus on pulling the cue back level by dropping the elbow, only then i believe that i could get rid of this movement but i don't know if it's worth it to move my back arm to a more uncomfortable position just to get rid of it. and of course, there is the other option of simply playing a little higher up with the chin off the cue but i'm not used to aiming that way and i always need to verify that my chin is on the correct spot under the cue and therefore the vision center is on the line as i'm down on the shot. i think time will tell, if i keep improving and reach anything close to A+ level, then i guess it's not worth to remove it.
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