How to achieve proper body & cue alignment?

S

sharpshooter

Registered
Hi Louis,

Hope everything is going well!! My question has to do with approaching your shot and getting your body and cue stick comfortably into natural alignment. I happen to struggle at times with getting my eyes, cue stick & stroking arm in that perfect line. Do you mind going over again how you approach your shot in relation to your body. Some people say to put their cue stick on the aiming line, get up real close to the cue ball and then take a "step back" with their back foot to get proper distance and body alignment to the line of aim. Other players I see step straight forward into their shot and yet others step to the side and really widen their stances. Do you find that one way works best for you??

Also, I happen to be very left eye dominant and I find I try to place my stroking arm too close to my body (my waist) and it does not always end up under my dominant eye and then my stroking arm veers off to try and compensate for improper alignment. I find I have to twist and turn my waist or hips to get into correct eye/body alignment which causes lots of tension in my stance. Any advice is greatly appreciated to assist me with these fundamental issues. Thanks again and best of luck Louis!

Andrew
 
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sharpshooter said:
Hi Louis,

Hope everything is going well!! My question has to do with approaching your shot and getting your body and cue stick comfortably into natural alignment. I happen to struggle at times with getting my eyes, cue stick & stroking arm in that perfect line. Do you mind going over again how you approach your shot in relation to your body. Some people say to put their cue stick on the aiming line, get up real close to the cue ball and then take a "step back" with their back foot to get proper distance and body alignment to the line of aim. Other players I see step straight forward into their shot and yet others step to the side and really widen their stances. Do you find that one way works best for you??

Also, I happen to be very left eye dominant and I find I try to place my stroking arm too close to my body (my waist) and it does not always end up under my dominant eye and then my stroking arm veers off to try and compensate for improper alignment. I find I have to twist and turn my waist or hips to get into correct eye/body alignment which causes lots of tension in my stance. Any advice is greatly appreciated to assist me with these fundamental issues. Thanks again and best of luck Louis!

Andrew
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My personal preference for getting into position is to step into the shot. I like to plant my back foot in line with the shot and keep my cue stick directly above it. The goal behind this is to get yourself about 99% on target with the shot as you plant your hand on the table. Then micro adjust for the remaining 1%. If you have to adjust too much once you are down on the shot, stand back up and start over.

As far as your left eye dominance, the best thing that I can tell you is to know yourself. There are really no hard and fast rules behind where your head should be. You shouldn't have to do any twisting to compensate for a bad aim though.

I would practice getting to know how you view the target. Start off by taking aim and shooting the ball reasonably slow. Keep your head down and watch the shot to see if you are hitting exactly where you are aiming. Make adjustments as neccessary and commit them to memory. Once you get that dialed in, speed up your stroke gradually until you start missing. This way you can tell where your stroke speed limitations are and you can work on improving your stroke. I say this because I feel that most misses are from a flawed stroke rather than a flaw in your aim.

This sort of topic unfortunately is difficult to explain and is better to be shown. You can do it on your own, but if it becomes too frustrating you should have and knowledgeable friend watch you, or get your local intructor to go over this with you.

I hope my insight helps. Best of luck with it and please let me know if you have any further questions.
 
A natural !!!!!!!!!!

Hi ...... Just wanted to pass along an observation. After reading many of your posts, you seem to have the natural ability to be a good teacher. Just because someone is a good pool player does not mean that they are a good teacher. Also the reverse can be true, a good teacher is not always a good player. ( example: Vince Lombardy ) If your time / schedule permits you may want to consider this venture.
I enjoy reading your inciteful posts. Best of luck.
 
cad1illac said:
Hi ...... Just wanted to pass along an observation. After reading many of your posts, you seem to have the natural ability to be a good teacher. Just because someone is a good pool player does not mean that they are a good teacher. Also the reverse can be true, a good teacher is not always a good player. ( example: Vince Lombardy ) If your time / schedule permits you may want to consider this venture.
I enjoy reading your inciteful posts. Best of luck.
Click to expand...

Louis is a great guy and it is awesome that he is willing to help out players via this forum.

Louis is a great player, and he also realizes that just because he is having success with his game, he is still learning and taking lessons to make himself even better than he is now.

Louis, it was an honor to play you last year in Savannah. I know you weren't feeling well at all, but you still took the time to sit around talk about your week with Stan Shuffett - and I really enjoyed watching you go on to win that tournament - which had a super strong field - with BJ Ussery, Mike Davis, Mike Gulyassy, Stevie Moore, Neil Fujiwara, Dave Grossman, Brian White, some hack named Tommy Kennedy... and a host of others.

It's good to see good people out there having success while still remaining accessible and friendly to everybody. I think a lot of pros would do themselves a favor by conducting themselves in the same manner as Louis.

WOW... after all those compliments... it'll be fifty bucks you owe me, Mr. Rim!
 
cad1illac said:
Hi ...... Just wanted to pass along an observation. After reading many of your posts, you seem to have the natural ability to be a good teacher. Just because someone is a good pool player does not mean that they are a good teacher. Also the reverse can be true, a good teacher is not always a good player. ( example: Vince Lombardy ) If your time / schedule permits you may want to consider this venture.
I enjoy reading your inciteful posts. Best of luck.
Click to expand...

Thanks cad1illac,

I actually really enjoy teaching and I have recently started giving instruction part time in san diego. It's nice to see others benefit from what I share.

I think the best teacher for pool is experience but it's nice to have someone there to show the subtleties, as well as get the beginners going in the right direction. Never know, I may pick it up full time in the future.

Thank you for taking the time to post up on my section. I appreciate the compliment :smile:
 
Hey Louie-Just noticed you over here. Just saying hello and saying your advice is excellent as expected.

Seems like I see you every 2 weeks anyway.:)

Later

Gravy Davey
 
Teacher

cad1illac said:
Hi ...... Just wanted to pass along an observation. After reading many of your posts, you seem to have the natural ability to be a good teacher. Just because someone is a good pool player does not mean that they are a good teacher. Also the reverse can be true, a good teacher is not always a good player. ( example: Vince Lombardy ) If your time / schedule permits you may want to consider this venture.
I enjoy reading your inciteful posts. Best of luck.
Click to expand...
If anyone is thinking of taking lessons from Louis, I say do it. I took lessons from him over 10 years ago when he was living in Riverside and his knowledge and instruction was excellent then. I can only imagine what another 10 years of experience has taught him.
What makes him so good is able to explain things in simple english and make you feel very confident about your game. I played the best pool of my life after Louis's instruction. Oh yeah, and he is a great guy to boot.

P.S. Just don't bet him that he can throw his keys into the corner pocket from across the pool hall. You'll go home broke.
 
Mark Wilson taught me to have the butt of my cue pass over the arch of my back foot. Until he taught me that I had a problem with body alingement but once I had that piece of information I used it to devise a method of stepping into the shot.

I practice my set-up and stroking techniques by shooting cross corner straight in shots. I place a Post It note on the floor in line with the two corner pockets. Then I step back to line up the shot with my chin on the shot line and my shoulders perpendicular to the shot line. Then I step into the shot and place my back foot in line with the post it note and know that I'm properly set up. It becomes habit after hitting a few hundred shots and it helped my game a lot.

I don't mean to imply that I know pool better than Louis as he's a great player and I certainly am not. Just wanted to share what worked for me and it really helped me. If he were around these parts I'd be seeing him for a lesson.
 
Louis Ulrich

:) Hi Louis,

Want to say how much I enjoyed watching you play at last years Joss Tour final at Turning Stone Casino, I'll be there again on Saturday, Sunday for the final this year, will stop by and introduce myself.

Best of Luck,

John
 
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