how often do you give unwanted english?

S

Slh

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I think I'm capable of delivering a pretty straight stroke, but I noticed sometime I give unwanted left english on the cueball. This is probably the cause of some miss..... so as the title says.. how often do you give unwanted english? I know some people are constanting giving unwanted spin but they compensate for it all the time...
bye
 
This is extremely common...execute a firm stroke, hold the position on the follow through and check your right hand on the finish...is the wrist rolled (rotated) in? Is your right hand up against your pectoral? How open or closed is your stance? Is your right wrist hanging straight below your elbow during the stroke or is your arm "chicken-winged" with the wrist in and your elbow out? Are you gripping the cue harder when you execute than you were when you were pre-shot stroking? All of that can cause or impact unwanted lateral (sideways) movement of the tip during your stroke. Since it's always to one side (the left), it's something thats causing your right hand to move away from your body as it goes foward (just before tip impact). For me, it's "snatching the cue", or gripping harder and rolling the wrist during the stroke that caused unwanted left-movement of the tip. Video your stroke from behind or have someone watch it, and you'll see it happening. Then you can figure out ways to correct it.
 
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I've come to the conclusion not hitting the CB in the middle is the only reason I miss. Absolutely nothing else is of any importance to me.

I notice it most on combinations, for some reason. I don;t know whether having 3 balls in my line of sight makes a difference, but I often notice the CB spinning when it shouldn't.
 
I have a tendency to impart right sided english when I stroke at a medium or hard speed. It comes on when I over grip the cue or pull my elbow into my body causing the butt of the cue to come in and the tip to go out. It doesn't take much of an off center hit to effect the spin a lot. A half tip off center will show up quite a bit in the shot. I don't think your in the minority with this. Consistently getting rid of it is the challenge, and the ability to consistently hit the CB where you are aiming both horizontally and vertically is a large part of what separates different levels of players. If you are missing some, you are most likely not even missing the same amount each time.

Before I play each time, I hit the CB up and down the table a number of times trying to get the CB to come back to my tip. I stroke softly at first and pick up the speed some as I go. I find this coorelates to an improved stroke when I play. It is very frustrating, and takes a lot of good repetitive strokes to improve, but my game has been more positively effected from that than any other thing I have done to my game. There are a lot of drills that can be done for it, but you should identify the problem and work on correcting it if you want your game to be capable of going to the next level.
 
Slh said:
I think I'm capable of delivering a pretty straight stroke, but I noticed sometime I give unwanted left english on the cueball. This is probably the cause of some miss..... so as the title says.. how often do you give unwanted english? I know some people are constanting giving unwanted spin but they compensate for it all the time...
bye
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You probably have an alignment problem.

Also, shoot the cueball up and down the table. If you are putting unwanted left english on the ball then your tip may be favoring the left side of the ball on your setup. Tony Robles pointed this out to me as I was putting unwanted right english on the ball. For some reason Tony said that a lot of Puerto Ricans (or some Spanish decent) did this and he couldn't figure out why.

It is hard to tell you are doing this, but if you look close you may see your tip on the left side of center. Personally, I think it has to do with an eye dominance thing - I am very right eye dominant.

So Tony suggested that I practice each day my center ball hit up and down the table until I cured the alignment issuer.

What's funny is that 40 years ago a good player said I was lining up with right english on the ball (back then I started shooting with all center ball) - and I ignored him because I surpressed the thought that I could possibly be doing this LOL.
 
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mantis99 said:
I have a tendency to impart right sided english when I stroke at a medium or hard speed. It comes on when I over grip the cue or pull my elbow into my body causing the butt of the cue to come in and the tip to go out. It doesn't take much of an off center hit to effect the spin a lot. A half tip off center will show up quite a bit in the shot. I don't think your in the minority with this. Consistently getting rid of it is the challenge, and the ability to consistently hit the CB where you are aiming both horizontally and vertically is a large part of what separates different levels of players. If you are missing some, you are most likely not even missing the same amount each time.

Before I play each time, I hit the CB up and down the table a number of times trying to get the CB to come back to my tip. I stroke softly at first and pick up the speed some as I go. I find this coorelates to an improved stroke when I play. It is very frustrating, and takes a lot of good repetitive strokes to improve, but my game has been more positively effected from that than any other thing I have done to my game. There are a lot of drills that can be done for it, but you should identify the problem and work on correcting it if you want your game to be capable of going to the next level.
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This is excellent advice. I do this at the start of every session, whether warming up for a match or before practicing. Straightens you right up! Start out side rail to side rail, then do it end rail to end rail.
 
TheThaiger said:
I've come to the conclusion not hitting the CB in the middle is the only reason I miss. Absolutely nothing else is of any importance to me.

I notice it most on combinations, for some reason. I don;t know whether having 3 balls in my line of sight makes a difference, but I often notice the CB spinning when it shouldn't.
Click to expand...
Thanks for all the advice. I'm not sure if the problem is in my grip hand, or in my aiming or both.

I remember you are from England... do you use a snooker stance when you play pool? I do and sometime when I'm lazy i don't walk into the shot frontally ( more sideways) and this is the reason sometime my stroke is not straight.
 
Slh said:
I think I'm capable of delivering a pretty straight stroke, but I noticed sometime I give unwanted left english on the cueball. This is probably the cause of some miss..... so as the title says.. how often do you give unwanted english? I know some people are constanting giving unwanted spin but they compensate for it all the time...
bye
Click to expand...

My wife, who plays in a 9-ball league with me, does this all the time. Problem is, she does not know she is doing it and even after I just tell her she is doing it, she cannot keep herself from doing it again. It's not a case of poor eyesight either because she has had lasik surgery in both eyes within the past couple of years and her eyesight is fine. It's very frustrating to me when she calls a timeout on herself to have me show her where to hit a rail on a kick shot and she proceeds to miss the ball by 6 inches due to unwanted english. I am thinking of purchasing the Perfect Aim DVD from Geno to see if that can help her overcome this problem. Probably wouldn't hurt me to watch it either!!!

Maniac
 
Slh said:
Thanks for all the advice. I'm not sure if the problem is in my grip hand, or in my aiming or both.

I remember you are from England... do you use a snooker stance when you play pool? I do and sometime when I'm lazy i don't walk into the shot frontally ( more sideways) and this is the reason sometime my stroke is not straight.
Click to expand...

Snooker's the basis, but a bad back (and laziness) means I've had to tweak it a bit, which hasn't helped.

Not wanting to go over old ground, but I think a perfected snooker stance really helps here.
 
TheThaiger said:
Snooker's the basis, but a bad back (and laziness) means I've had to tweak it a bit, which hasn't helped.

Not wanting to go over old ground, but I think a perfected snooker stance really helps here.
Click to expand...

I started playing with a pool stance, then I switched to a snooker stance and now I'm much more confident on the delivery of the cue. But sometime as I said it has some disadvantage.
 
Funny

That is my biggest stroke flaw. First it was alignment, then it was the steering at follow though. So I had a double issue. Luckily I can tell now (after about 2 years) when I am getting unwanted spin on the ball. I do it on mid to high speed shots when my elbow drops to far, and goes off the vertical plane. Sucks, but I think I'm obessed with a perfect stroke anyway so it keeps me practicing. :o
 
Slh said:
I think I'm capable of delivering a pretty straight stroke, but I noticed sometime I give unwanted left english on the cueball. This is probably the cause of some miss..... so as the title says.. how often do you give unwanted english? I know some people are constanting giving unwanted spin but they compensate for it all the time...
bye
Click to expand...

I think almost everyone does this and that it's just the way your particular skeletal/connective structure is most comfortable working. Players unconsciously compensate for it and achieve a certain level of accuracy. When your accuracy reaches a higher level, if you're working at it, you begin to question how you can become even more accurate and then your whole stroke is open to question. At that point should you try to compensate even more around your body's natural tendency to raise it to a higher level or uproot the natural tendency and replace it with something unnatural. I think the second choice could throw you off your game for quite a while.

Check out Efren's stroke. It looks to me like he has completely built his stroke around his body's natural tendency. Also, notice how he pretty consistently raises his head at the end of his stroke.
 
This is a very common problem from the novices to the pro's. The better the player the more precise they have become with their aiming, alignment, and stroke.

Use a practice cb or a stripe ball the next time you play. Throw the balls out on the table and just start shooting them in Make sure to set the stripe on the practice cb or stripe ball up before each shot. This will show how often and how far off center you are hitting. Take note where you are aiming too. Usually if you are hitting outside english you might be aiming to full and if hitting inside you could be aiming to thin.
 
Where this will really get you is when the cueball is frozen to the rail. Typically you are elevating slightly to avoid the miscue, so any unwanted non-center hit results in a mini-masse. I find if I take my time locating the center of the cueball on these shots, my make percentage goes way up.

Slight off center hits are one area where I feel that traditional shafts are more forgiving than LD shafts, but that's just my opinion.

Aaron
 
Anytime Im out of position. If Im in position than my use of english is good. You should never use more than enough or unneccesary english in play. Well unless you like shooting 90 degree cut shots the length of the table near the rail. Those are my favorite :rolleyes:
 
I almost always put a touch of unwanted left on it when I break full power. If I hit the head ball slightly to the right, I can still stick the cue ball so it's not a big problem for me.
 
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