I have an alignment error that I cannot seem to fix.

Chopstix, get a cheap video camera & get Bob Jones' Stroke Analyzer.... It's like having your own coach & you can rerun the action in 16th speed s l o w m o t i o n >>>>

All things are exposed with s l o w m o t i o n.

Good Luck..... gimme a call
 
Island Drive said:
Try this. You seem to play enough that your probably walking up to the shot the same every time which is Good and what you want....if not then you need to fix this first. If your cutting a ball to the right, and your consistently over or undercutting the ball, that's a good thing and fixable, Same goes for a left hand cut. Just walk up to the shot a 'little' more left or right before your down on the shot with your hand on table. It won't seem or feel right, but try it....it works. When I shoot a break shot I just walk up and alls good, but if I cut a shot down the rail to the right, I have to walk up to the shot more left and vise versa. Your body as it comes from the upright position then down to the play surface to cut a ball contorts differently for each person, and moreso with taller people (not always). By watching your makes and misses 100% of the time, your answers will be addressed. Now if your at a play level where your not totally understanding ball collisions, you've got more work to do.
Click to expand...

Bill would probably be GTG if tables were standard at 40" high, but he makes a very solid point. It'll probably be easier to teach yourself the exact compensation for your hitch than it would be to re-train your body to flop into dead-line.
 
I'll fix your problem in 15 minutes on the phone............

Hi there and i feel your frustration with your alignment.

If you can call me for the free phone lesson I do with Perfect Aim I will help you figure this out.

No gadgets or fancy this or that. I will just teach you what I have been teaching for 4 years now with great success with about 99% amazement.

Just be by a table and call me.

Stance, stroke and shot alignment will get real easy in a quick hurry.

I do this for free. All you have to do is call.....

715-563-8712 Looking forward to helping you.....
 
bdorman said:
On your next visit to the optometrist ask them to check for prism correction (it's not part of the standard exam; you have to ask for it).

Prism correction is when one of your eyes (or both, but just one is enough to screw things up) isn't looking straight ahead. In your case it sounds like one eye might be looking slightly to the left. It creates a double image that you can't really discern, but it's enough to throw things off.

I've lived with it all my life, but never realized I had it until I took up pool 18 months ago. I played high school and college football, pretty serious tennis, etc., all without ever knowing I was seeing double. But billiards is the most exacting thing I've ever asked my eyes to do...and that's when it became apparent.

The bad part is that it can only be corrected with glasses; contacts or lasik surgery can't correct it.
Click to expand...

I have never had an exam. I am getting to the age where I need one. I will do that. Thanks.
 
dr_dave said:
Have you tried the drills and procedures on the vision center resource page?

They might be helpful.

Good luck,
Dave
Click to expand...

This one did the trick for me. It turns out to be an optical illusion induced by years of fanatical practice and tiny alignment errors. I actually saw the tip to the left. Once I started to incorporate the procedures in this video into my beginning practice routine, I now see it correctly in the center.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZKoMZrg1MAg
 
Primo said:
Learn the TOI and you will be gtg! always at center cue ball lol ;)
Click to expand...

That is how I got into this in the first place. I just want to say TOI is a lot of work. It is not a silver bullet you can just buy off the shelf and it just happens. It is a very precise system and demands total mastery of the center of the ball because all of its offsets are derived from an accurate perception of center cue ball. If your center cue ball perception is off then the entire system is going to be off.

What happened to me was that I found I was consistently undercutting on the left side of the cue ball. I had to have more offset of the tip on the left than I did to the right to produce that same angle.

I read where CJ says he is very strict about pre-shot alignment. Well, you have to be. The precision of TOI is dependent on it.
 
CJ Wiley said:
How firm were you hitting the cue ball to do this drill? I would suggest hitting it so the cue ball would go 3 table lengths (27ft) in speed.

I may have not understood, it just sounds like you're "slow rolling" the stroke, which is almost setting yourself up to de accelerate, and that's not desirable imo.

The Break Rak is the best practice devise to "fine tune" your stoke, and it's "not just for breaking anymore". 'The Game is the Teacher'
Click to expand...

That is correct. I was shooting at one times table speed. With the changes to my practice routine I posted above and hitting three times table speed the cue ball is nailing my tip with its center every time.

Now, if you tell me what to do with the BreakRak, I will buy one now and beat it to death. I am not exaggerating. I have already beaten one to death, just ask Ceebee.
 
sfleinen said:
ChopStick:

Sounds like you have an alignment perception error (i.e. head/eye alignment over the cue, in relation to a dominant eye). Like you, I once had this issue where I was just ever-so-slightly hitting the cue ball off-center, and, for me, it had to do with the fact that I seemed to be favoring the left eye due to the natural 45-degree alignment to the shot line that the normal pool stance puts the player in. (That is, for a right-hander, the 45-degree alignment naturally puts the head at a slight diagonal alignment over the cue such that the left eye slightly "leads" over the cue. If you're a right-hander and left-eye-dominant, this is alignment nirvana. Good examples are Willie Mosconi and Ralf Souquet.) But for me, it wasn't nirvana, and I would consistently hit the cue ball just slightly to the right of center. I adapted my aiming / potting accordingly, but I never figured out why I couldn't "find" center ball, especially on the "lag the cue ball up the length of the table and back to the tip" drill.

Fast forward a couple years, when I was completely wowed by a snooker professional thwacking the back of the pockets on a 12-foot snooker table at long distances, and I was inspired to throw away my pool stance and adopt snooker fundamentals. Snooker fundamentals force you to adopt a square stance over the cue, and for the first time, my face was squared over the cue and I could "find" center ball on that lagging drill every time. Again, though, I was still at a loss why I couldn't achieve the same thing with the pool stance. This was an open, nagging question to me for the longest time.

Fast forward another couple of years, when I accidentally discovered the publication "Answers to a Pool Player's Prayers" by Richard Kranicki, and the answer hit me right square in the forehead. I discovered, through the drills, examples, and drawings/photos in this publication, that I was 100% "equal-eyed" binocular -- meaning, no eye dominance. The pool stance, through the natural 45-degree angle that it "wants" put your head/eye alignment in (i.e. making my left eye "lead" over the cue slightly), was discriminating against my right eye, and my mind, being used to equal-eye perception, was pulling the cue slightly to the right to compensate. I had no idea, but thanks to the very descriptive drawings in this publication, it was clear as day to me from then on. All I had to do during my pool stance days, was just crane my neck a bit (just a bit) to turn my head slightly to the left to square my face over the cue. However, the snooker fundamentals solved this problem -- inadvertently and unbeknownst to me at the time -- permanently, so this is the way I play now.

This book, to me, is worth its weight in gold. Here's a quick link to its entry on Amazon, if you're interested:

http://amazon.com/Answers-Players-Prayers-Richard-Kranicki/dp/1588204456

I hope this is helpful!
-Sean
Click to expand...

Dude, you just sold a book. I have been fighting with that for 38 years.
 
genomachino said:
Hi there and i feel your frustration with your alignment.

If you can call me for the free phone lesson I do with Perfect Aim I will help you figure this out.

No gadgets or fancy this or that. I will just teach you what I have been teaching for 4 years now with great success with about 99% amazement.

Just be by a table and call me.

Stance, stroke and shot alignment will get real easy in a quick hurry.

I do this for free. All you have to do is call.....

715-563-8712 Looking forward to helping you.....
Click to expand...

We have already spoken. I was one of the first ones that bought your DVD. I was supposed to get an update to that one but right about that time is when I got laid off and had to sell my table and move. I'm just now getting back to playing again. Of course, your DVD along with my BreakRak and every thing else I own is in storage down in Florida and I don't know when I will be able to get back down there and get it all.
 
For everyone that posted to help me out, I just want to say thanks. Your time is not wasted with me.

Grady Matthews once told me that when the European players learn something they immediately share it with each other. He said when American players learn something, they go practice in their basement and use it to rob everybody. I think times have changed where that is no longer the case.

When I first started to learn how to play there was no information. No one would tell you anything. I asked good players how to learn and they would say, you need to play for money. That's how you learn. Yeah right.

Now days it seems there is too much information. Some of it is just not right for everyone.
 
i would have to agree with the stroke analyzer that thing can show ya a bunch of flaws in a stroke that we dont even feel or see that program is amazing.
 
ChopStick said:
I have been aware for some time that I have a visual error. I see the center of the cue ball as being slightly to the right of where is actually is. I discovered this using Joe Tuckers pitchfork looking thing. I forget what it is called. I have also used Joes laser trainer which showed me the same thing. That is easy enough to deal with because I know it is there.

Yesterday, I got serious about accuracy in cue ball contact. I spent three hours doing the drill where you shoot the cue ball down the table, hold your tip in the finish position and have the cue ball come back and hit your tip. I was using a measle ball so I could see any spin I put on it. The problem is that when I do this, the cue ball comes back to the right of my shaft every time. It is not by much. The left edge of the cue ball comes down the right edge of my shaft. It happens so consistently I began to wonder if the table was not level. I tried this on different tables and the result is the same and by the same amount. Different speeds also produce the same result. Always to the right. Never, not one time did it go left.

Well, I started changing my stance, head position, stroke position bending myself around like a pretzel and maybe once in thirty tries I get the right result but I cannot repeat it for more than two or three times. Then it goes back to the right. The only good news is that when I do it right, however that is happening, the center of the cue ball comes right back to the center of my tip. I saw my own chalk mark right above the center of my tip once.

I am shooting these shots diamond to diamond. I tried moving the tip to the left but I can see left hand spin on the cue ball as it is leaving and it still comes back to the right. The only thing I can think of is that I am missing the diamond. It all ties back to how I am lining up to the shot. Something is wrong and I just can't find it.
Click to expand...


i got a similar problem, i can get the rock back to the tip on a 9' table doing that drill, when i think i'm hitting center ball the CB comes back 4" to the right(shooting the same speed each shot) 90% of the time, when i am center ball I feel like i'm off to the left. its a problem and i been working on it the past few months, its not a good thing. i noticed too if i play more often then i do seem to get to the center of the rock, but take a few days off-im off.

this is exactly why i say champions are born, not built. they still got to pay their dues, but i dont think they got problems like this built in, Earl hits the ball straight from day one IMO.
 
Fatboy said:
i got a similar problem, i can get the rock back to the tip on a 9' table doing that drill, when i think i'm hitting center ball the CB comes back 4" to the right(shooting the same speed each shot) 90% of the time, when i am center ball I feel like i'm off to the left. its a problem and i been working on it the past few months, its not a good thing. i noticed too if i play more often then i do seem to get to the center of the rock, but take a few days off-im off.

this is exactly why i say champions are born, not built. they still got to pay their dues, but i dont think they got problems like this built in, Earl hits the ball straight from day one IMO.
Click to expand...

Try this sighting test I posted. It was the start for me. I think part of the measure of the character of a champion is in overcoming these challenges. Pool is a journey, not a destination. I will never give up as long as I am breathing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top